On the shores of the Chukchi Sea in North Slope Borough, Alaska, lies the Inupiat village of Point Lay. It’s a small village of about 274 people, mostly Native Americans, with one store that sells food and clothing, a fire department and a school, but they don’t have accommodations for visitors.
And this year, in a reverse tourism campaign, the village is telling visitors to stay away. Pacific walrus, by the thousands. have been coming ashore in recent years near the village, including about 6,000 last week. Because of climate change, the sea ice that would normally be used for haulouts by the heavy marine mammals is gone, and the walrus have been using the barrier islands near Point lay for haulout space.
Already, people have been dropping in to get a look at the unusual marine mammal phenomenon, says CTV News, hoping to get pictures and videos. But the village doesn’t have any restaurants or hotels, and the uninvited visitors are actually a distraction to the walrus say community leaders.
The noise created by airplanes and boats often causes the walrus to stampede, crushing the smallest animals. Not only that, but the walrus is a food source for the residents of the village, and they don’t consider the walrus a curiosity. So the village has been working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to create an information campaign. Basically, they want to say, “We appreciate your interest, but please, stay away.”
“They’ve had people come and had no place to accommodate them and they ended up having to tell the person to get back on the plane and head out,” said Andrea Medeiros, spokeswoman for the agency in Anchorage. “I would imagine it’s a very awkward situation for them.”
The funny thing about all this is the walrus don’t come on shore at the village. The animals haulout on the barrier islands offshore. In order to see them, visitors need to get a villager to take them by boat to the cove, and the trip alone is dangerous.
Climate change has caused the leading edge of the ice pack to recede far north, over water that is far too deep to allow the female walrus to hunt for clams. This has created a crisis, of sorts, for the females and their young. Adult male walrus tend to stay south of the Bering Strait year-round, while the females and their young stay close to the ice pack.
The Chukchi and Bering Seas are relatively shallow, and this proves to be advantageous to the females diving for clams. A decade ago, the females and their young could haulout on the chunks of ice floating in the waters, but all that is gone now. Leo Ferreira, the Point Lay Tribal Council president, issued a statement on Friday, reiterating a “no media” policy while walrus are on shore.
