What are they going to eat if they have to come ashore in the summer?
Walrus rest on the floating ice and dive to the ocean floor for food, but now almost all of the summer Arctic sea ice is over water too deep to dive. As a result walrus are coming ashore, sometimes in huge numbers. Story from CBS News.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He has been a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and also its President. For many years he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
My guess is that Obama, Salazar and oil company execs will say they can rest aboard the drilling rigs they approved in the Arctic Ocean. I can’t believe that a democrat will not run against this incumbent. I almost hate to say it but I voted for him – of course the alternative was equally bad if not worse.
Back to the point, apparently sea ice is an incredibly important aspect of Arctic mammal ecology. Important and oft overlooked.