Skip to footer

Why deaths of 25 walruses prompted a federal probe

More than two dozen walruses were found shot dead on the Alaskan shoreline, ringing alarm bells for a species already increasingly threatened by climate change.

|
S.A. Sonsthagen/US Geological SurveyAP/File
Adult female walruses rest on an ice flow with young walruses in the Eastern Chukchi Sea, Alaska, July 17, 2012. Federal wildlife officials have declined the suggestion of a wildlife advocacy group to place experimental rafts off Alaska's northwest coast as a resting place for walrus. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the deaths of 25 walruses as a possible poaching event.

Federal authorities are investigating the death of 25 Pacific walruses found along the Alaskan shoreline last week, casting the controversial practice of “head-hunting” back into the spotlight.

“Head-hunting,” which refers to the hunting of walruses purely for their tusks, is prohibited in Alaska except only to the state’s indigenous population, as The Christian Science Monitor previously reported.

The two dozen animals discovered last week, twelve of them only pups, had been shot, according to some reports. And several had had their heads and tusks removed, suggesting that it could have been a case of poaching.

But US Fish and Wildlife Service officials investigating the carcasses refused to publicly speculate, emphasizing the range of potential causes behind the walruses’ deaths.

“We can’t come to any conclusions based on a report,” spokeswoman Andrea Medeiros said, according to The Washington Post. “You have to go out and investigate.”

One possibility, for instance, is that the walruses died at sea and were washed ashore, said Ms. Medeiros. Last year, as many as 35,000 walruses sought refuge onshore as the sea ice they usually rest on became another casualty of a warming climate.

If the claims of poaching are true, they are particularly troubling given the extensive threat the animals already face from climate change. Because of their low reproductive rate, walrus populations are already easily influenced by hunting and other factors, according to the Seal Conservation Society.

In Alaska particularly, native hunters who kill walruses must only do so for subsistence purposes or to make handicrafts, said the organization on its website. Environmental regulations mandate that the hunters “fully utilize the walruses that they kill.”

But Alaska is also historically known as the base for a network of hunters and buyers, where a pair of walrus tusks on the black market can go for at least $300. This offers some “a strong financial incentive to head-hunt," said the Seal Conservation Society.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Why deaths of 25 walruses prompted a federal probe
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2015/0924/Why-deaths-of-25-walruses-prompted-a-federal-probe
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe