Walrus Protection in Alaska

Abstract

As the principle of conservation of various species of our fast disappearing animal life spreads in all countries, we see reservations everywhere for the protection of land mammals, in whose welfare public interest has been aroused. But with the notable exception of the Pribilof Islands in Alaska, there are few reservations in the world for our sea mammals, which are disappearing with the same rapidity as the land mammals. The killer whale is an exception owing to the fact that it has no commercial value. Thirty or forty years ago in various places along the Alaskan coast walruses were known to haul in countless numbers. But when the white settlers came and saw that there was commercial value in the ivory, the extinction of the Alaskan walrus life began. Today although the walrus herds pass along the coast of Alaska on their route of migration northward, seldom do even a few walrus come to shore and when they do, they are soon frightened away by the native hunters. The result is that the walrus stay off shore, and the natives go out and hunt them on the ice. Although to the native the meat of the walrus has the greatest economic value, it is seldom that the Eskimos can bring anything but the ivory tusks ashore. Thus they sacrifice tons of good meat, highly prized by them, because it can not be landed. During the summer of 1923, while cruising along the Alaskan coast north of Point Hope to Wainright Inlet near Point Barrow, I examined a stretch of coast of over 200 miles from Cape Lisburne north. A westerly wind had washed ashore on that one part of the coast over a thousand bodies of walrus which had been killed among the ice floes by the Eskimos. One-third of the walrus bodies still had the ivory tusks, showing that the walrus had been shot and had slipped off the ice and sunk before the natives had reached them. These animals were a total loss as the meat was spoiled when the bodies came ashore. If a thousand walrus bodies reached shore, one may imagine how many thousand more were carried by the ice and current northward into the Arctic Ocean beyond Point Barrow. Not more than ten or twelve years ago this same situation existed at Ingshong, Siberia.' By wise methods in killing the walrus after they