Walrus "forced to flee" to Alsaka beaches due to melting sea ice? Photo source: Wikipedia
It’s September and so it’s the time of the year for ritual bed-wetting here in Europe among the alarmist media and environmental activists, all triggered by the annual arrival of the Arctic sea ice minima.
No matter where one looks, one finds horror stories of “unprecedented” Arctic ice melt and implications of grave consequences in the major media outlets.
Yet, it’s not enough to report only about melting sea ice. An additional instrument, extra shock, has to be found to emotionalize the event. This year that instrument is no longer the polar bear, trapped on a single tiny chunk of ice. That’s out. The new symbol of climate doom this year is the lovable walrus – odobenus rosmarus.
Practically every major German media outlet has reported on the “plight” of the poor walrus, “forced to flee” to the Alaskan beaches because of the “dramatic” ice melt. It’s the latest unprecedented event that’s proof of anthropogenic global warming.
Die Zeit writes:
Thousands of walrus have landed on the shores of Alaska. The timid animals have fled because the ice on which they normally relax has melted away.
Die Welt writes:
The ice has melted beneath their bellies. That’s why tens of thousands have landed in Alaska, forced to flee.
Der Spiegel, not to be outdone, writes:
The ice no longer suffices: in northwest Alaska tens of thousands of walrus have landed on the beaches. Satellite measurements show that the ice areas of the Arctic have again shrunk a lot this year. Now biologists fear that the heavy animals could crush each other.
And of course all the radio outlets, etc. have followed and parroted these reports in tones laden with drama.
IT’S A HOAX – NOTHING UNUSUAL
Relax. Walrus landing on the beaches is nothing unusual. Yes, the beaches in Alaska have been invaded by thousands of walrus. But it turns out that this is nothing unusual. The Tucson Citizen reports here that according to the The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service:
The largest concentrations are found near the coasts, between 70 degrees North and Pt. Barrow in the east and between Bering Strait and Wrangel Island in the west. Concentrations, mainly of males, are also found on and near terrestrial haulouts in the Bering Sea in Bristol Bay and the northern Gulf of Anadyr throughout the summer. In October the pack ice develops rapidly in the Chukchi Sea, and large herds begin to move southward. Many come ashore on haulouts in the Bering Strait region. Depending on ice conditions, those haulout sites continue to be occupied through November and into December, but with the continuing development of ice, most of them move south of St. Lawrence Island and the Chukchi Peninsula by early to mid-December.
In October? Why are they early this year? The Tucson Citizen also quotes the Alaska Fish & Game Department, which says that concentrations of walrus on beaches is not unusual.
Best known among the Walrus Islands is Round Island, where each summer large numbers of male walruses haul out on exposed, rocky beaches.” “Walrus return to these haulouts every spring as the ice pack recedes northward, remaining hauled out on the beach for several days between each feeding foray.
Even Wikipedia writes:
The rest of the year (late summer and fall) the walrus tend to form massive aggregations of tens of thousands of individuals on rocky beaches or outcrops. The migration between the ice and the beach can be long distance and dramatic. In late spring and summer, for example, several hundred thousand Pacific Walruses migrate from the Bering sea into the Chukchi sea through the relatively narrow Bering Strait.
And finally, h/t to reader M White below, see The Beeb and Nature here:
The annual walrus gathering on Wrangel Island.
How deranged must the media be to take normal behavior of wildlife, and to spin it into a phony tragedy in order to maliciously spread anxiety through the public? When are they going to learn that there are other alternative sources of information out there that are waiting to expose their shenanigans?
More on walruses and polar bears:
Walrus beach
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/species/Walrus#p004860t
“The annual walrus gathering on Wrangel Island”
Annual or yearly is a word often used to describe something that happens once a year.
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Reply: Thanks – confirmed by the Beeb and Nature. What more proof does one need! – PG
The Global Warmers have gone totally “over the edge” in their quest for “legitimacy”…..in the end they will be considered one of the most foolish “gangs of folly” ever to exist!
Keep them coming.
German media are terrible and the continue to support the hoax because the German Government, EU and UN are still on the track to send the Western civilization back into the stone age.
Although AGW/Climate change has been debunked this is not over and I expect more outrageous propaganda for a few years to come.
Fortunately the upcoming cooling phase will provide us with a big help.
It’s hard to maintain the propaganda claims when your ass freezes off and energy bills go through the roof.
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Geo Engineering: Killing off the useful eaters, all evil madness.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/geo-engineering-killing-off-the-useless-eaters.html
Also read about evil madman Holdren, US Government Science Czar at
http://climatedepot.com
I really hope they are all burned out of office by the Tea Party Wild Fire that has started to rage.
Yes I’ve read it, and I agree with your description of Holdren.
Pierre, have a shot at this paper:
http://climategate.nl/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/KNMI_voordracht_VanAndel.pdf
And for those who are in love with the peak oil scare, read this:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/What_the_Adminstration_and_Environmentalists_Don.pdf
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Reply: There’s still lots of oil and coal out there – enough for centuries. It’s just that there are people out there who are simply against progress, and in favour of going back to the Stone Ages.
BTW: Check this out: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,717845,00.html
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Wow, even for a hardened cynic like me this is pretty shocking. Most claims are just exaggerated, this one is completely inverted.
They really did just take the true proposition that Walruses migrate away from ice when it gets cold and inverted it to Walruses migrate to ice and away from heat. It is, in a sense, a perfect lie.
Drought and Air Quality in August 2010
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=45865
Nice to see the demonized industrialized Western civilizations and the ice caps seems to be doing fine.
I too have read the Holdren article. It is amazing that anyone can believe him ever again, much less out President. Whew!
I love the part about walrus’ being timid. Even polar bears are careful around them, since they are typically outweighed by the walrus males by over a ton.
You just have to wonder how they media came up with this bit of derangement. Was probably one idiot, followed by the rest who Wanted To Believe, and, therefore, did no research, which would have taken about 5 minutes on the Internet.
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Reply_ They’re all pretty lazy nowadays.´ They all write the same crap. There’s no real investigative reporting anymore. -PG
The problem is that these kind of evil’s are now in power.
The video is good, but they make it sound like a risk to haul out on rock. They do this all of the time, depending on the season.
I believe it’s in the Hudson Bay area where the walrus haul out on the beaches regularly. Hunting polar bears hide behind the rocky berm until there is a lot of walrus hauled out and then they stampede them into the water, causing some to be injured. They attack the injured. It appears that they really cannot overcome a healthy adult on land.
The recent problem was that the bear population became too large, with the young, hungry bears, ignorant of the established hunting strategy, patrolling the shore line for prey (they’re hungry and amateurs) and preventing the walrus from coming ashore. So, the walrus go to other haul out sites and all the bears starve. I believe that the Canadian government has been working to thin the polar bear herd to alleviate this problem.
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Reply: Too many polar bears? that’s a problem alright. Especially for the warmists. -pg
The problem is that mankind’s leaders are humanity’s only true enemy. They have us divided and conquered. The solution is real democracy. But, that’s impossible in our competitive paradigm, since it’s the ultimate form of collective cooperation. My great hope is that when we get our genetic upgrade in 2012, the banksters and bleedership will be upgraded, too, and become illuminated to the fact that humanocide is a bad idea.
Here is the US version of this “Hoax” on you tube – I saw it and asked myself – Where is the truth?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv71S0KtTJA
Here is something I never see in the MSM:
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2010/09/reality-denier-after-arctic-sea-ice.html
Every where I look there are indications that we’re heading towards a Dalton minimum and perhaps worse but all we see in the MSM is articles like this…
The mantra needs to be:
Global warming is not your fault
CO2 is not a pollutant; it’s plant food
Climate change happens with or without you
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Reply: Propaganda at is best…factually inaccurate and emotional. Ignore the MSM – PG