Proving that a walrus emergency is an emergency for everyone, the Federal Aviation Administration is taking preventative measures to make sure no baby marine mammals get stampeded, rerouting flights around an Alaska beach where a big cluster of 35,000 walruses have gathered.
If an airplane flying overhead were to spook all those walruses — I really just want to call’em walri — the whole gang could up and start moving around in a panic, putting the wee baby bairn walruses in danger as well as the whole group, reports The Guardian.
The walruses ended up crowding on that beach in northwestern Alaska because of melting sea ice, prompting officials to warn not only gawkers away but also pilots flying nearby.
It’s the largest group of walruses to flee to land ever observed in the Arctic under US control, scientists say.
“You have all these animals that are normally distributed on a flat surface. When they lose their sea ice habitat and come ashore in places that are accessible – like flat, sandy beaches – they gather in large numbers, and it becomes like a giant pig pile,” Margaret Williams, managing director for the World Wildlife Fund’s Arctic program told The Guardian. “When they are disturbed it can cause stampedes in large numbers.”
As such, the FAA wants pilots to stay more than 2,000 feet in the air and half a mile away from the walrus pod. And helicopters have to stay up even higher at 3,000 feet and a mile away, as they’re louder.
US reroutes flights around Alaska beach in attempt to avoid walrus stampede [The Guardian]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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