Canada, Greenland to do High Arctic walrus survey
Last Updated: Friday, July 17, 2009 | 3:13 PM CT
CBC News
Researchers in Greenland are installing short-term electronic "satellite" tags on walruses along the island's northwest coast. The tags last a couple of weeks, then drop off the animals like a sliver.
"We're hoping that they will indicate where the walrus move when they leave Greenland," Rob Stewart, who is leading the Canadian research team for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, told CBC News.
"Then our role is to fly the east coast of Ellesmere [Island] in particular, east end of Devon Island, and to count walruses in the hope that those tags will inform us where some good places to look are."
The tracking satellite tags can be monitored with computers via satellites in outer space.
The movement of walrus is becoming increasingly important as the Arctic sea ice shrinks, said Erik Born of the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, who is also working on the joint survey.
Still, Born said he doesn't think Atlantic Ocean walruses will suffer too much from climate change.
"If the sea ice breaks up earlier, which it does, they can gain access to their inshore feeding areas earlier, which would mean that they would get more food," Born said.
Stewart shares some of Born's optimism for the walrus's future survival, saying the mammals used to live in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where there is less ice.
But Stewart added that walruses may face several indirect effects of shrinking sea ice.
"What happens if the clam beds were affected or the sea level changes and haul-outs have to change, or there's a change in distribution?" he said.
Stewart said the Canadian team will also work with people in the High Arctic community of Grise Fiord, Nunavut, to conduct an aerial population count from the coast in a Twin Otter airplane from eastern Ellesmere Island to Resolute Bay.
Going to Grise Fiord will also allow scientists and local hunters to share their knowledge of walruses, he added.
Hunters worried with handling walruses
In Grise Fiord, the chairman of the local hunters and trappers association agree that walruses will adapt to climate change and the changing sea ice.
In fact, Jaypatee Akeeagok said walruses face a greater risk from scientists disturbing their haul-out areas, especially when the animals are handled.
"You don't disturb animals by physically touching them and/or harvesting them; it's when they're at their natural land haul-out sites. So those are the things that [have] more detrimental effects than the shrinking ice," he said.
Akeeagok said the aerial survey that DFO will do this summer is better than direct contact, as long as the airplane does not circle too many times over the walruses.
Akeeagok added that he wants more information from the survey scientists about their study and the satellite tags the Greenland researchers are using.
The tags are inserted into the walruses without having to handle the animals, using a special device that shoots the tags from a distance. Researchers say the walruses feel little during the process.
