Joe Romm is worried today about Walruses hanging out on the beach in Alaska. He thinks it is the fault of human beings who melted the ice by driving their cars thousands of miles away. These animals do not look like they are starving.
The map below shows the range of Walruses around Alaska in dark blue, and the “normal” NSIDC ice extent as the pink line. Note that all of the Alaskan Walruses live in areas that are normally ice free in the summer.
Walruses need ice during the winter and spring to reproduce, and there has been plenty of it in that region the last few years. The overlay below is from April 15, 2010. Note that Bering Sea ice was above normal.
The picture below is what Wikipedia calls a “Walrus Colony.”
No ice around San Francisco :
A 28,000 year old fossil walrus specimen was dredged out of San Francisco Bay, indicating that the Pacific Walrus ranged far south during the last ice age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walrus
Currently, two of the three walrus subspecies are listed as “least-concern” by the IUCN, while the third is “data deficient”.[2] The Pacific Walrus is not listed as “depleted” according to the Marine Mammal Protection Act nor as “threatened” or “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act.
There seems to be no limit to the things which someone lacking perspective can worry about.
So true. I’d be more worried if they started migrating South again, due to needing some Ice Free time in the Summer months. That would be a sign we were heading into a period that would be a lot worst than this mild warming period we had enjoyed.