In a vivid demonstration of the cascading consequences of manmade global warming, a record 35,000 Pacific walruses have hauled out of the Chukchi Sea onto a beach near Point Lay, Alaska. Walruses are an ice-dependent species, and with sea ice having retreated far offshore, the walruses have been forced to swim to land to be able to forage and rest, officials said.
Walruses, each of which can weigh more than 4,000 pounds, depend on sea ice for hunting food in deeper ocean waters and resting in between those dives, and the retreat of sea ice cover in recent years has helped push them ashore in increasing numbers in the Russian Arctic and now the Alaskan Arctic as well, biologists and climate scientists said.
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