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And I'm Melissa Block.
We've all heard about the polar bears suffering in the Arctic because of global warming. But that's far from the only species that's hurting. The Pacific walrus has had it especially tough. And as the Alaska Public Radio network's Annie Feidt reports, wild life managers are working on plans to respond.
ANNIE FEIDT: To the human eye, the Chukchi Sea between Alaska and Russia may look like a remote and forbidding environment. But for female walrus, it's an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet. The animals float along on ice platforms, letting the currents take them to nutrient-rich areas where they can dive to the ocean bottom for clams and mussels.
Mr. TONY FISCHBACH (Biologist, U.S. Geological Survey): As far as human memory goes, walrus have used the Chukchi Sea in the summer to forage.
FEIDT: Tony Fischbach is a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. He spent the summer tracking walrus he tagged off the northern coast of Alaska and he watched in disbelief as the massive arctic ice sheet retreated north in mid-July.
Mr. FISCHBACH: Within the Chukchi Sea, there was no ice at all.
FEIDT: At first, there were small chunks of ice called remnants. But they didn't last very long.
Mr. FISCHBACH: When that ice was gone, they had no choice but to come to shore.
FEIDT: In August, thousands of walrus began showing up along Alaska's north coast. It was something that had never been seen before. Joel Garlich-Miller is a walrus biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He says the agency was caught off-guard.
Mr. JOEL GARLICH-MILLER (Walrus biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service): This is the first time I had ever heard of such an event. And we didn't quite know how to respond, initially. We were trying to say, okay, well, is this just something that they're going to come ashore for a little while and move on?
FEIDT: As it turned out, the walrus were there to stay. And while Garlich-Miller kept his eye on the Alaska animals, a Russian colleague was watching an even more dramatic scene play out on his side of the Chukchi Sea. Anatoly Kochnev is a biologist in Chukotka on the northern coast of Russia where walrus gathered in groups as large as 30,000 animals, he says by fall, the adults looked very undernourished.
Mr. ANATOLY KOCHNEV (Biologist): (Through translator) They were quite underweight. There was a lot of animals that definitely were starving. And I could also detect some skin diseases. Skin was cracked and wouldn't heal.
FEIDT: Kochnev believes most of the calves in Russia died. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is just starting to get a handle on what all this means for the walrus population as a whole. Rosa Meehan heads the agency's marine mammal division in Alaska. She says it's scary how fast the arctic environment is transforming.
Ms. ROSA MEEHAN (Chief, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Marine Mammal Division): It's difficult to really come to grips with this because what we're seeing, it's not just that the ice is going away and the ice is a platform. Ice is more than just, you know, something physical to stand on. It's actually an ecosystem. And what we're seeing is this dramatic ecosystem change. And so it's clear that's going to have a lot of ramifications for all of the species that depend on it.
FEIDT: Meehan says this winter, her department is beginning to work out what types of conservation efforts may be necessary to protect walrus. They're also planning more studies for next summer to better understand how the animals are responding to this changing environment.
For NPR News, I'm Annie Feidt in Anchorage.