You can only imagine my alarm when I turned on NPR and saw this story about "tens of thousands" of walruses moving inland toward populated areas because of climate change. The guy posing as a Walrus in this photo is Anthony Fischbach, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "I'm surprised by one thing," he says. "Essentially all the animals here are adult females. You'd expect to see about one in three with newborn yearling calves." Apparently, either there is some sort of catastrophic changes in the Walrus population due to global warming or there is the Walrus version of an Indigo Girls concert.
More from the NRP story:
Fischbach has been attaching satellite radio tags on the walruses to try to figure out how the animals are coping.
The tag, which he deploys with a crossbow, is a hockey puck-sized transmitter that embeds into the thick walrus skin. Back in his Anchorage office, Fischbach can download hourly updates on the animals, which he calls "walrus diaries."
"It's a simple diary: I rested; I got in the water; I fed. And then it all gets repeated in various combinations," he says.
Wait wait. Lets unpack this a little bit at a time. First of all, this guys name is pronounced fishback. Unresolved issues? Second, he shoots them with a cross bow? That's kind of awesome. Finally, he writes a walrus diary. In a walrus voice. Coo-coo-ca-choo.
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