Walrus Deaths Were Due To Polar Bears – Andrew Montford | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

Walrus Deaths Were Due To Polar Bears – Andrew Montford | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
"Andrew Montford has followed up the Netflix walrus porn story, with a damning piece for the Spectator:

"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... 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..."

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