Right now 35,000 walruses are mobbed together on the Alaskan coast, an unusual occurrence. From the air it looks like a massive walrus protest, with tens of thousands of animals huddled together. Why would walruses pact together in such numbers? The answer, because the ice that they rely on has totally disappeared. Unlike seals (who can swim indefinitely) after a day of hunting, walruses need a place to plant their tusks and rest. Walruses in the Bering Sea usually rest on ice flows, which in the past, have been plentiful in both summer and winter. With rising global temperatures, artic sea ice has diminished, leaving the walruses no choice but to congregate on the Alaskan coast, just north of Point Lay. The melted artic sea ice presents a wide range of problems for the walruses, from access to food, ease of diving, on up to rearing young. This comes at a time when three category four hurricanes touched down in the Pacific Ocean. It’s a strikingly rare meteorological event, and experts blame warmer than average sea temperatures for the massive storms. These hurricanes come on the heels of what has already been a devastating hurricane season. The climate is changing, yet you may be wondering, what in the heck does that have to do with my aquarium? The symptoms:
The symptoms of climate change are many, from coral bleaching to ocean acidification. Both are terms that most marine aquarists are somewhat familiar with. The ocean exists as a natural carbon dioxide filter, and much of the excess co2 created by man ends up in the ocean. Scientists have implicated this co2 build-up with warmer water, on down to strange fish behavior. It’s changing the ocean, and species that once were rare, now thrive as they’ve been able to adapt to conditions their predators could not. The octopus and cuttlefish are prime examples, and reefs wiped out by acidification and warming have seen a surge in cuttlefish populations. Like Ian Malcolm said in Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way.” Unless you want every coral reef to exist behind glass or acrylic, than climate change matters to you. It’s a conversation starter among marine aquarists, and while some still deny the human cause of climate change, the vast majority of global scientists agree that since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve been altering Earth’s climate and oceans by releasing massive amount of co2.… More:
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