Shrinking sea ice forces walruses to crowd onto remote Alaskan beach

An estimated 10,000 walruses unable to find sea ice over shallow Arctic Ocean water have come ashore on Alaska's northwest coast.

Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Friday photographed walruses packed onto a beach on a barrier island near Point Lay, an Inupiat Eskimo village 480 kilometres southwest of Barrow and 1,125 kilometres northwest of Anchorage.

Walruses have been coming ashore since mid-September. The large herd was spotted during the administration's annual arctic marine mammal aerial survey, an effort conducted with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the agency that conducts offshore lease sales.

An estimated 2,000 to 4,000 walruses were photographed at the site on September 12. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency that manages walruses, immediately took steps to prevent a stampede among the animals packed shoulder to shoulder on the rocky coastline. The agency works with villages to keep people and aircraft a safe distance from herds.

Young animals are especially vulnerable to stampedes triggered by a polar bear, a human hunter or a low-flying aeroplane. The carcasses of more than 130 mostly young walruses were counted after a stampede in September 2009 at Alaska's Icy Cape.

The gathering of walruses on shore is a phenomenon that has accompanied the loss of summer sea ice amid a warming climate.