Tag Archives: walrus

The king of the haulout

From the field, Polar bears, ,

Polar bear at a walrus haulout. © Alexey Ebel / WWF-Canon

Polar bear at a walrus haulout. © Alexey Ebel / WWF-Canon


A WWF-led research team, a Canon photographer, and crew are traveling to Siberia’s Arctic coast on the Laptev Sea, to help solve a scientific mystery. The Laptev Linkages expedition is sponsored by Canon.
We are heading out in the mist after an overnight stop at the larger Beigihevs island. More and more seabirds are passing the boat – a sign that we’re entering richer seas.
After a few hours we see a sandspit at distance. Yes! a few walrus, no more than maybe 30 individuals. YES!  there are more than 400 of them, and in the middle, on a small piece of ice, is the king — a fat male polar bear. It is like sitting in a smorgasbord.
We are now 50 km south of Maria Pronchistcheva Bay. We will head up to the bay before deciding where we should camp. We have found the Laptev walrus, and the work can soon begin.
– Tom

What’s a haulout?

Walruses sometimes congregate in large numbers on land – this is called a “haulout”. In some areas where sea ice levels have decreased, we are seeing extremely large haulouts as the walruses abandon the ice and head to shore. On a previous trip through the Russian Arctic in 2009, WWF researchers encountered an enormous haulout of about 20,000 individuals. This is what it looked like:

To the airport, to the Laptev

From the field, ,

Geoff York, polar bear specialist with WWF, heads to the airport to begin the journey to Siberia.

Geoff York, polar bear specialist with WWF, heads to the airport to begin the journey to Siberia. Photo: Tom Arnbom / WWF


We have now all gathered in Moscow and are on our the way to Krasnoyarsk, where we will change flights to the Arctic. We can not wait until we arrive — it is a dream for several of us to visit this area.
The Laptev Sea walrus question has been in the air for more than fifty years among scientists. Do they belong to a special subspecies or not? All anecdotal information is at least 25 years old. However, we managed to identify a polar bear through a satellite image from the area. A white spot close to where the walruses should be. As a birder, any observation has to be noted – after all, almost nothing is known of this region. The only thing we have been warned about are the mosquitoes!
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Alaska/Chukotka walrus and polar bear community exchanges

General, Polar bears, ,

In early February, WWF and the US Fish and Wildlife Service partnered to facilitate community-based meetings between village conservation leaders from Chukotka, Russia and Alaskan communities along the Chukchi Sea coast. Although the people who live across the Chukchi Sea from each other are relatively close in miles, our Chukchi partners had to travel around the world to reach the other side and meet their neighbors for the first time.
For WWF, this was also an opportunity to highlight the work of the Chukchi Umky Patrol Program we support in Russia, a grassroots effort to minimise negative polar bear human interactions. The Umky program has, in addition, cultivated efforts to eliminate poaching and manage a relatively new problem: walrus hauling out near villages in huge numbers. Continue reading →