Bishop Hill On walruses
Apr 11, 2019 Climate: WG2 My article on walruses appeared behind the paywall at the Spectator Coffee House blog earlier this week.
Over the weekend, social media and the newspapers were full of stories of Pacific walruses plunging over sea cliffs to their deaths. Heart-wrenching film of the corpses of these magnificent beasts piled up on the shore have been driving many to tears.
This all came about as the result of the latest episode of Our Planet, the new wildlife extravaganza from Netflix. As is normal for such programmes, the story that accompanies the animal eye-candy is told by Sir David Attenborough and, as is positively compulsory, it is spiced with multiple references to the horrors of global warming. In fact, we are told, it is us who should shoulder the blame for the slaughter of the walruses, because shrinking sea ice caused by climate change forces them to haulout – leaving the water to take refuge on the shore instead.
The programme ends with Attenborough directing viewers to a website run by WWF, the co-producers of the series. It is therefore, in essence, an eight-part, multi-million pound fundraiser.
Which is a pity, because there is now considerable evidence emerging that the story is not quite what it seems.
For a start, as the zoologist Susan Crockford has documented for the GWPF, walrus haul out behaviour may not be related to global warming. In her 2014 paper On the Beach, she cites examples as far back as the 1930s, long before global warming. She also explains that there doesn’t appear to be a strong correlation between sea-ice levels and haulout behaviour.
Nor is the phenomenon of walruses falling to their deaths from sea cliffs new. American TV recorded the same phenomenon in 1994 and the New York Times reported 60 deaths in a single incident in 1996. Attempts were made to install a fence at one site, while another employs rangers whose sole job is to keep the walruses away from the cliffs. At the time, scientists explained that the most likely explanation was overcrowding at the water’s edge.
Crockford thinks that the footage on the Netflix show comes from a well-documented incident that took place in the village of Ryrkaypiy, in eastern Siberia, in October 2017. September and October are the peak period for walrus haulouts, and there are numerous examples, which date back to the 1960s, of the cliff phenomenon taking place on Wrangel Island, a few hundred kilometres to the north.
However in 2017, as the Siberian Times reported, the colony attracted polar bears that frequent – and indeed at the time terrorise – the area. The bears drove several hundred walruses over the cliffs to their deaths, before feasting on the corpses. They continued to frequent the area right through into the winter.
I’ve been able to show that Crockford’s supposition about the geographical origin of the footage is correct: analysis of the rock shapes in the film and in a photo taken by the producer/director both match archive photos of Ryrkaypiy. The photo was taken on 19 September 2017, during the events described by the Siberian Times.
But whereas the Siberian Times and Gizmodo website, which also reported on the 2017 incident, were both quite clear that the walruses were driven over the cliffs by polar bears, Netflix makes no mention of their presence. Similarly, there is no mention of the fact that walrus haulouts are entirely normal. Instead, Attenborough tells his viewers that climate change is forcing the walruses on shore, where their poor eyesight leads them to plunge over the cliffs.
This is all very troubling as it raises the possibility that Netflix and the WWF are, innocently or otherwise, party to a deception of the public. Exactly who was aware of the presence of polar bears remains unclear, but it seems doubtful that no one at the WWF and the production team was unaware. And given that one of the prime objectives of the show seems to have been to raise funds for WWF, that seems… problematic.
Reader Comments (79)
Nice work between you to expose this.
As I wrote on threaded - overcrowding on the beach and the poor sight of the walruses doesn't explain why the animals went well away from the group, uphill and kept going. Nor why they didn't go down the gentle slope back to the beach if they wanted to return to the water. Ok, potentially they were scared of the beach masters but that could have seen them driven inland, ice or no ice. I doubt that Netflix proved that the walruses used to haul out onto ice at that location when there was more, rather than the warmer beach. It may be that changes in hunting means that there are more bears and more walruses.
The polar bears will keep doing this now that they have a memory of a good food trick. Only the relocation of the walruses for a number of years will break the cycle.
Even if the film crew and researchers could not see bears at the time they filmed, almost certainly the walruses could smell both the humans and the bears.
It occurred to me that the walrus could have been caught in a pincer movement between the polar bears and the camera crew.
Keep on exposing the fake climate alarmism, Bishop.
Best regards
It might be that only those further up the hill could detect the predators (different/more winds) and were spooked, while those below could only smell walrus. And/or the animals on the slope were more nervous because of their age, lack of dominance or even disease. The walruses certainly wouldn't have been able to tell by smell that the camera crew and researcheres were friendly and not walrus hunters.
And will Netflix, or Attenborough be remotely ashamed of this fakery?
Of course not. The Green/Left will continue to act in bad faith at all possible opportunities to push their agenda, which now has absolutely nothing to do with science, if it ever did.
History has taught that if you want to get an apology out of the Green/Left, you have to threaten them with criminal prosecution (see Gleick, Peter) and this piece of chicanery doesn't qualify, I'm afraid.
Well, the Gizmondo report acknowledges the role of climate change in the incident and seems to be based on the Siberian Times article. So the sole evidence for the bears stampeding the walruses would seem to be a single line from the Siberian Times report:
'The walruses were obviously frightened by the predators, panicked and fell from the top to their deaths.'
But this is contradicted by the first hand accounts of the film crew:
From <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2019/04/08/netflix-walruses-driven-death-polar-bears-not-climate-change/>
Sophie Lanfear again
So, contradictory accounts; unless you were there, any conclusions reached are at the level of speculation.The set of people who were not there would include me, and Susan Crockford.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-09/walrus-falling-down-cliff-our-planet-netflix-david-attenborough/10986140
Dr Kochnev's 'behind-the-scenes' video: https://www.ourplanet.com/en/video/behind-the-scenes-walrus/
Crockford thinks that the footage on the Netflix show comes from a well-documented incident that took place in the village of Ryrkaypiy, in eastern Siberia, in October 2017.
Where can I read this documentation? Or is it solely that short ST report? Dr Crockford describes the incident as 'well-publicized' but the link she provides is to an article with this title Shocking Our Planet footage shows how climate change is causing walruses to plunge to their deaths off cliffs 'they should never have scaled,' as retreating sea ice pushes them further onto shore
Which seems a little circular, if not actually self-defeating.
This Unprecedented mass murder/suicide by Polar Bears of Walruses, seems to have happened many times in recorded and documented history.
When the BBC/Attenborough first showed footage of Killer Whales launching up beaches to eat juvenile seals, I don't remember it being blamed on Global Warming.
If these Polar Bear v Walrus massacres do not happen every year, it suggests that it is not learned behaviour, handed down through generations of Polar Bears.
Whether it indicates that Polar Bears are very quick to learn new opportunities, or that it is just part of Nature acting to cull excess numbers of Walruses, or that lucky/unlucky things happen in real life, and always have done, is not clear, but it is a simple reminder that Polar Bear numbers are rising and will need culling if other Arctic dwelling mammals are not to suffer.
It also confirms Climate Scientists picked on the wrong animal to highlight the plight of Climate Scientists as they face losing their jobs. Susan Crockford is a bit tougher than she looks too!
This Unprecedented mass murder/suicide by Polar Bears of Walruses, seems to have happened many times in recorded and documented history.
Do you have a recorded and documented example of one involving 250 animals?
Ahhhh Phil...if only the good scientist had left it at "I am not a climate specialist" eh?!?
But then there's no money in that is there.
Do you have a recorded and documented example of one involving 250 animals?
Apr 11, 2019 at 8:25 PM | Phil Clarke
I don't have evidence of one involving 2,500 Walruses and the local Polar Bear population exploding with furred up arteries.
The contemporary newspaper report of the Ryrkaypiy / Cape Kozhevnikova incident can be read here http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/others/news/village-besieged-by-polar-bears-as-hundreds-of-terrorised-walruses-fall-38-metres-to-their-deaths/
GC - That's a no, then.
Apr 11, 2019 at 9:53 PM | JCalvertN
It was very noble of the Walruses, sacrificing themselves to spare the lives of the villagers.
GC - That's a no, then.
Apr 11, 2019 at 10:43 PM | Phil Clarke
Correct. Just as the programme had no evidence to back up its claims for Climate Science. And nor do you.
"behind the paywall"
Private Browsing seems to work with Spectator.
Phil 'spread out and up the cliffs'.
If you look at the picture of them from the sea, there is a lot of land between the beach and the cliffs. They didn't need to go much beyond the beach to find space. So why did they leave the group and keep moving uphill? Do the animals haul out there every year? If not, then this island was just bad luck that it is a wedge shape. The walruses could at any time choose a beach without enough room for all the animals that turn up. Those who are driven inland from the beach would still have to find another route to the sea. They might still find a fatal drop.
I can't access the Cryosphere web site so I don't know what level of sea ice there was in the past in that area in October but if sea ice is their preferred haul out, why don't they follow the diminishing ice pack? A major reason might be that that they don't stay in the Arctic Basin in the depths of winter. They are found at the edges so that they can retreat to warmer, less ice packed waters in the winter. If historically the ice had been substantial in the area the animals died, they would have risked being caught in pack ice before they could leave. Hauling out to pup in the spring is a different prospect as the ice trend would be downward, less likely to trap the animals in an inpenetrable thickness of ice.
TinyCO2
Your surmise is correct. Haulouts in the Chukchi Sea are limited to August-October. However, they move south through the Bering Strait before the ice starts to set in. Apparently it's a bit of a mystery what makes them start their migration, and why they should choose to move to an ice-free area (they haul out on beaches on St Lawrence Island for example), given the advantages of the ice.
Apparently it's a bit of a mystery what makes them start their migration, and why they should choose to move to an ice-free area (they haul out on beaches on St Lawrence Island for example), given the advantages of the ice.
It was not always ice-free.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aade56/pdf
Looks like Twitter are weighing in to try heading off the herd.
This Tweet is giving "This Tweet has been deleted" on a Twitter Chrome browser in Windows 10 - here anyways...
I see Richard Black is scampering about trying to promote his book off the back of the matter.
Apr 12, 2019 at 11:47 AM | Phil Clarke
How was the sea ice before the satellite record, or are you convinced that it never varied because Mann's Hockey Stick requires you to believe it was always stable?
Apr 12, 2019 at 8:29 AM | TinyCO2
Apr 12, 2019 at 11:36 AM | Bishop Hill
If it can be trusted, Wikipedia offers some answers. Sea ice has benefits for walruses, but they need access to the seabed to feed. When threatened by a land predator (polar bear) their best means of defence is getting into the sea.
From personal experience of swimming/snorkeling/scuba diving and small dinghies, being on the beach and still vulnerable to waves is uncomfortable, dangerous and not conducive to rest and relaxation.. I presume that stormy conditions would force walruses to seek higher ground.
I presume Polar Bears will appear to be herding the Walruses, as they gather and approach cautiously.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walrus
Diet
"Walruses prefer shallow shelf regions and forage primarily on the sea floor, often from sea ice platforms.[4] They are not particularly deep divers compared to other pinnipeds; their deepest recorded dives are around 80 m (260 ft). They can remain submerged for as long as half an hour.[46]
The walrus has a diverse and opportunistic diet, feeding on more than 60 genera of marine organisms, including shrimp, crabs, tube worms, soft corals, tunicates, sea cucumbers, various mollusks, and even parts of other pinnipeds.[47] However, it prefers benthic bivalve mollusks, especially clams, for which it forages by grazing along the sea bottom, searching and identifying prey with its sensitive vibrissae and clearing the murky bottoms with jets of water and active flipper movements"
Predators
"Due to its great size and tusks, the walrus has only two natural predators: the killer whale (orca) and the polar bear.[56] The walrus does not, however, comprise a significant component of either predator's diets. Both the orca and the polar bear are also most likely to prey on walrus calves. ★The polar bear often hunts the walrus by rushing at beached aggregations and consuming the individuals crushed or wounded in the sudden exodus, typically younger or infirm animals.[57] The bears also isolate walruses when they overwinter and are unable to escape a charging bear due to inaccessible diving holes in the ice.★"
As for "over the last 34 years the ice has just disappeared before my very eyes" it might be of interest that Ryrkapyi was formerly known as Mys Shmidta and the reason the town exists at all is that the airfield there was once a major staging base for Dalnaya Aviatsiya, the Soviet equivalent of Strategic Air Command.
Indeed it was so important that the very first successful photograph ever taken by a reconaissance satellite on August 18 1960 was of Mys Shmidta. It shows that the area was completely free of ice:
https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/space-race/online/sec400img/420l6p6.jpg
The famous cliff is on the seaward side of the small island off the cape.
ORLY?
The big green hedge-fund public relations man has put up a counter report
Climate change deniers haul out a daft conspiracy theory about Attenborough’s new programme Commentary 10 April, 2019
Paul Homewood has three recent articles about Netflix Walruses vs Polar Bear
I see @MrGrimNasty did some research
specifically he says
- certain shots seem to be taken from helicopter or drone (maybe that spooked the walruses)
- And sometimes ice is visible in part of the shots ..showing that it is not completely absent.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/04/10/walrus-deaths-were-due-to-polar-bears-andrew-montford
Talking of counter posts
One of the 16 Climate Change items I bumped into on the BBC on Friday
LookNorth tweeted the AntiFracking activist video
Then someone else posted video directly contradicting her story that she is a VICTIM
..and seemed to show that she was a very angry sweary person throwing stuff off the back of a moving vehicle and once hit an officers head with her scissors .. Incredible FB video
"Arctic sea ice data from a variety of historical sources have been synthesized into a database extending back to 1850 with monthly time‐resolution."
That is all you need to read to know that this is a fake. Monthly time resolution in 1850? Absurd. In 1850 nobody had yet gone through either the Northwest or the Northeast passage. The Franklin expedition was dying on King William land. The Sverdrup archipelago was completely unknown, as was Franz Josephs Land, Severnaya Zemlya and almost all of northern and eastern Greenland. Wrangels land had been sighted from afar, but nobody had ever landed there. Nobody had ever penetrated the Centrel Arctic. Only a few expeditions had wintered in the Arctic, and there were essentially no european settlements in the Arctic except on Southwestern Greenland and the White Sea area and a few trading posts in Hudson Bay and Alaska.
Reasonably good annual coverage might be possible by the late 1940's (1930´s for Siberia and the North Atlantic sector), monthly not until the 1960's.
"Absurd. In 1850 nobody had yet gone through either the Northwest or the Northeast passage. The Franklin expedition was dying on King William land."
Apr 14, 2019 at 6:38 PM | tty
In the decade(s) running up to the Franklin Expedition, the sea ice must have retreated sufficiently to convince Franklin that the route had reopened.
How did they know there was a route? Perhaps because stories were told of it existing dating back to the Medieval Warm Period? Or before? The Vikings had the required skills and technology.
I do hope that Franklin and his men are recognised for an achievement, even though their mission was a disaster.
TTY - Read the paper. (Always a good idea before you dismiss something out of hand, you might even call it the sceptical method).
Oh, haha, polar bears. Or provocative helicoptered journalists. Or, most likely, normal, classic behaviour.
==================
The very name of the place is "place of walruses" in Chukchi. That means it has been a location for haulouts historically - it is not something new driven by "climate change", but goes back to when man and his reindeer first turned up there. Мыс Шмидта is a quite separate location to Рыркайпий as the map shows.
A local report of events complete with pictures in google translation from Russian. Perhaps this is where the idea that ice shortage accounts for changes. But note the history: Walruses have been there in large numbers going way back.
"TTY - Read the paper. (Always a good idea before you dismiss something out of hand, you might even call it the sceptical method).
Apr 14, 2019 at 10:30 PM | Phil Clarke"
Have you read "The Hockey Stick Illusion" by Andrew Montford yet, or are you still relying on corrupted Hockey Teamsters to not read it for you?
Further comments by Dr. Crockford at
https://polarbearscience.com/2019/04/14/our-planet-film-crew-is-still-lying-about-walrus-cliff-deaths-heres-how-we-know/
Further comments by Dr. Crockford at
https://polarbearscience.com/2019/04/14/our-planet-film-crew-is-still-lying-about-walrus-cliff-deaths-heres-how-we-know/
Further comments by Dr. Crockford at
https://polarbearscience.com/2019/04/14/our-planet-film-crew-is-still-lying-about-walrus-cliff-deaths-heres-how-we-know/
Further comments by Dr. Crockford at
https://polarbearscience.com/2019/04/14/our-planet-film-crew-is-still-lying-about-walrus-cliff-deaths-heres-how-we-know/
Further comments by Dr. Crockford at
https://polarbearscience.com/2019/04/14/our-planet-film-crew-is-still-lying-about-walrus-cliff-deaths-heres-how-we-know/
Further comments by Dr. Crockford at
https://polarbearscience.com/2019/04/14/our-planet-film-crew-is-still-lying-about-walrus-cliff-deaths-heres-how-we-know/
Further comments by Dr. Crockford at
https://polarbearscience.com/2019/04/14/our-planet-film-crew-is-still-lying-about-walrus-cliff-deaths-heres-how-we-know/
Further comments by Dr. Crockford at
https://polarbearscience.com/2019/04/14/our-planet-film-crew-is-still-lying-about-walrus-cliff-deaths-heres-how-we-know/
Heh, The Montford Delusion
Or there was this
I continue to pass, thanks. I have read a similar work, though, I am sure people will find this far more accurate and informative.
HTH
Go investigate yourself this summer: Walrus and Polar Bear photo tour
More on the polar bears in Russian.
What seems clear is that this event is not fundamentally new: sea ice conditions were similar in the past, even if there was a gap (one report says 50 years). It seems to provide more evidence of multi decadal cyclic behaviour of Arctic ice.
Further comments by Dr. Crockford at
More speculation. There are just two, apparently contradictory accounts of the filmed event, one from the Siberian Times (walruses spooked by polar bears), and the eyewitness accounts of the film crew (no polar bears in the vicinity at the time). Crockford assumes the Siberian Times report is gospel and accuses the filmmakers of lying.
Newspapers don't always get it completely right; they are even scenarios where both accounts are true: eg film-makers record the walruses falling of their own accord, polar bears arrive later. Crockford was not there (indeed I believe she has never actually studied bears or walruses or any other Arctic mammal in the field) but that does not prevent her magically knowing better than those present what actually transpired, and that it is the film crew who are 'lying'.
A WWF Russia video from 2012:
On the rookery near the village of Ryrkaypy, up to 50 thousand Pacific walruses can accumulate. If there is a panic on the rookery, because of the ships passing by or the intervention of people, the walruses run away into the water, and the walrus can get stuck in the stones.
Apologies for the repeated comment above. Haven't posted here in a while, and nothing seemed to show up, so...
Also, I thought as a "registered commenter" -- that is, I logged in -- I could remove my posts. Is this faulty memory, or has this changed?
[Ed.: Ah...I see I can edit my posts in a short time window. Which allowed erasure of redundant posts if done promptly.]
Phil Clarke still howling in the wind. If you believe Mann's book to be "far more accurate and informative" you really are deluded.
"Even if Mann were guilty as charged by the climate change contrarians the hockey stick has been replicated by at least a dozen other studies. Above all, the MWP is probably a red herring. Its warming effect was probably more regional than global. A parallel would be our past winter which was exceptionally cold regionally in Europe, but globally the hottest that NASA has ever recorded. Apr 15, 2019 at 11:47 AM | Phil Clarke"
Why didn't you include this extract so everyone else could have a laugh?
Is the writer going to be one of Mann's Expert Witnesses in Court?
Meanwhile, back at the Thread.....
It does seem that the Claims made by Climate Science, about anything that could be blamed on Global Warming, have reached unprecedented levels of stupidity.
Hi Dave,
Have you read Dr. Mann's book? If so which part did you think inaccurate?
Hi GC
Which part of the quoted text is giving you the problem? Seems relatively uncontroversial to me.
Apr 15, 2019 at 2:26 PM | Phil Clarke
Could you name the studies that have proved Mann's Hockey Stick?
Why is the absence of the MWP in Mann's Hockey Stick a Red Herring?
Was the MWP only regional?
Is it ok to quote European WEATHER conditions and make comparisons with NASA's Globally Adjusted nonscience?
Without those items, what are you left with? Climate Science propaganda.