Help Save Walrus From Massive Stampede Deaths

The rapid melting of sea ice due to climate change is forcing the Pacific walrus, a well-known resident of the Arctic seas between Alaska and Siberia, into a land-based existence for which it is not adapted. In 2007, the disappearance of summer sea ice pushed females and calves onto the Russian and Alaskan coasts in abnormally dense herds. Russian biologists reported that 3,000 to 4,000 walruses, mostly young animals, died in 2007 after being crushed to death in stampedes. In September of this year, government researchers reported a large herd of 3,500 walruses on shore near Icy Cape, Alaska, as sea ice disappeared over their foraging grounds in response to a warming climate. Days later, more than 100 of those walruses, all new calves or yearlings, were found trampled to death.

And as the walrus's sea-ice habitat melts away, it's also being auctioned off to oil companies -- so they can extract more of the fossil fuels that are warming the globe and melting the Arctic. In 2008, the Bush administration leased 2.7 million acres of walrus foraging grounds in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska to oil companies. Now, not only is the Obama administration defending these Bush-era leases, but Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has issued permits to oil companies allowing harassment of walruses during oil exploration and is considering new proposals to drill in the walrus's Chukchi Sea habitat next summer.

In February 2008, the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for Endangered Species Act protection of the walrus. After a Center lawsuit challenging the agency's inaction, the agency announced in September that it would conduct a full review to determine whether the animal warrants the protections of the Act -- a decision due next September.

It is now seeking public comment on whether to protect the walrus. It needs to hear your voice.

Please let the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service know that the Pacific walrus cannot survive the rapid loss of its sea-ice habitat from global warming and the onslaught of industrial oil and gas development without the protections of the Endangered Species Act.