A unique animal - the Atlantic walrus - lives in the ecological region of the Barents Sea. Huge mammals drift on giant ice floes along the northern coast of the harsh Atlantic. They bask, lounging imposingly on the rocky spits framing the ocean waters.
Atlantic giants in the Red Book
The number of these pinnipeds is rapidly declining. Therefore, the Atlantic walrus is taken under protection in Russia. The Red Book, where these animals ended up, is trying to prevent the disappearance of a unique subspecies. Large walrus rookeries have been declared protected areas.
The population of a marine animal includes scattered herds with little contact with each other. Their numbers have declined sharply due to uncontrolled commercial fishing. Out of 25,000 heads, about 4,000 animals remained.
Description of Atlantic walruses
Information about these giants of the Arctic is very scarce. Walruses are large animals with brown-brown skin. The weight of 3-4-meter males is about two tons, and for females growing up to 2.6 meters in length, it approaches a ton. Huge mammals have a small head with a wide muzzle and tiny eyes.
The upper jaw is decorated with two powerful fangs up to 35-50 centimeters long. The tusks easily pierce the ice. They help the clumsy animal to climb ice floes from sea waters. Tusks are weapons against rivals and protection from enemies. Walruses often stab polar bears with their fangs.
The mighty Atlantic walrus, which is not easy to take a photo of, has another ingenious device - a straw-colored mustache. They form hundreds of hard hairs. The hairs are thick, like the tips of bird feathers, sensitive, like fingers. Thanks to them, walruses distinguish even the smallest objects and easily look for mollusks that have dug into the ocean soil.
Outwardly, the Atlantic walrus looks quite unattractive. His description is as follows: a fat, stale body on a rocky beach, furrowed with fatty folds and deep scars, emits a sharp, fetid odor; tiny eyes, filled with blood, fester. The body of adult walruses is strewn with sparse coarse hair, and young walruses are wrapped in a thick hairline of a dark brown hue.
On land, the Atlantic walrus is clumsy, it moves with difficulty, moving with all four fins. And in the ocean, he feels great, easily sliding in the water column. Apparently, it is for this reason that he mostly lies on a rocky beach, and actively moves in sea waters.
Mollusks and crustaceans are the main food of the mighty beast. Although it happens that he attacks seal cubs. A giant animal feels full after eating 35-50 kg of food.
Mating season and reproduction
The lifespan of an Atlantic walrus is 45 years. He is slowly growing up. He reaches sexual maturity at 6-10 years of age. Walruses can not only doze off, burp, snarl, fight, but also bark.
Strong beasts are quite musical. Their musicality is most clearly manifested in the mating season. In January-April, pinnipeds sing expressively. Mating in giants occurs in May-June. The female carries the fetus for 12 months.
She has cubs every couple of years. After all, the mother has to feed the puppy for up to two years. And male walruses stay with their mother for up to 5 years. The female never leaves the herd (by and large, it is formed by females with cubs).
Habitats
Walruses live in rarefied ice fields, polynyas, in the open ocean. For life, they choose water areas with a depth of 20-30 meters. Rookeries prefer to arrange on ice and rocky coasts. Their annual migration is due to the movement of ice. They, having climbed onto a drifting ice floe, float, as if on a sea vessel, to their habitual habitats, where, having got out on land, they arrange haul-outs.
Distribution area
These pinnipeds live along the shores of the Barents and Kara Seas. They have chosen bays, lagoons and bays that cut the shores of multiple islands in this region. Ice and coastal rookeries of the subspecies are scattered across Franz Josef Land.
The northeastern tip of Novaya Zemlya is the place inhabited by the Atlantic walrus andalways goes back there. In the eastern regions of the Kara Sea, you will not often meet him. He arranges his dwellings in the White Sea, on the Kanin Peninsula, Kolguev and Vaygach Islands.
He also likes the east coast of the Canadian Arctic. In this region, the Bay and the Hudson Strait, Frobisher and Fox Cove, Baffin Island, Devon Island became his abode. Less often, it forms a haul out on the Arctic islands, which is west of the Barrow Strait. They inhabit the Baffin Sea, Greenland from the west coast, the waters of the Davis Strait.
The European Atlantic provided the pinnipeds with the drifting ice of Northern Iceland, the bays and lagoons that jutted into Svalbard. Norway from the northern coastline sheltered individuals.
Limiting reasons
The population of a powerful beast has declined sharply due to increased fishing. The Atlantic walrus living in the Kara Sea was especially hard hit. Pinnipeds were brutally exterminated in the 19th century. In some regions they were completely destroyed. The most severe extermination of the population was in the Canadian Arctic, Greenland, Svalbard.
Today, the number of the beast limits the stormy management of man. Especially the offensive of oil and gas companies involved in the development of new fields. They catastrophically pollute the natural habitats of the Atlantic giants, driving them out of their inhabited territories. It is difficult for a subspecies with low potential to resist inadequate fishing pressures and other anthropogenic aspects.
Walrusesaffects 10 varieties of helminths. Diseases and causes of death of pinnipeds have not been clarified by scientists. Killer whales and polar bears are considered natural enemies of the population.
