Monday, 12 April 2010 00:00 Written by Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch

The walrus is chillingly close to taking a second seat behind the polar bear on the protected species list

Walrus herd on ice. Istockphoto.

Seven years after the polar bear became the a poster child of climate change, another iconic Arctic animal is ready to take center stage.

Losses to Arctic sea ice are causing Pacific walruses to adapt by moving onto land. Habitually, sea ice offers walruses a place to birth, nurse and rest between feedings. But as ice retreats from the continental shelf and into waters too deep for walruses to feed, herds are forced to haul out on shore.

Sometimes the consequences of this shift in behavior can be fatal. Last September, 131 Pacific Walruses were found dead along the shores of the Chukchi Sea near Icy Cape in Northwest Alaska. According to the U.S. Geological Survey report issued December 2009, the loss of sea ice is to blame.

Wildlife service at odds with government

Just as the polar bear's listing as a threatened species sounded alarms in Alaska's oil industry --which has been pushing for offshore exploration in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas-- companies are closely watching how federal wildlife managers deal with concerns for the Pacific walrus.

Policymakers face tough questions about how to balance the walrus' habitat with oil development, shipping, and even subsistence hunting. As the ice retreats, new shipping routes are opening up, and buried in the depths below, untapped oil and gas deposits await exploration.

Meantime, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued findings showing Alaska's polar bears are in decline, and that the Pacific Walrus may be threatened too. But what to do about those observations has Alaska's governor and others at odds with the federal agency.

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell recently launched a high-profile fight against the Fish and Wildlife Service's recommendation to designate more than 200,000 square miles of land and adjacent ocean as critical habitat for polar bears, arguing it's too broad of a region and that the recommendation doesn't factor the potentially negative impacts to oil and gas exploration and development, such as job losses. State Attorney General Dan Sullivan asserted in a recent statement that any such designation that fails to consider economic impacts alongside species protection is unlawful.

Several animals in Alaska's arctic already qualify for some level of federal protection, or are under consideration for protection. Bowhead whales are listed as endangered; polar bears are listed as threatened alongside Spectacled and Steller's Eiders (types of marine ducks). Pacific walruses, Ice seals and Yellow-billed loons are under consideration for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Walrus on land. Istockphoto.

The walrus only recently gained attention. Large numbers of Pacific walruses were not known to haul out on the Alaska shores of the Chukchi until 2007, when the pack ice moved far to the north and beyond the waters of the continental shelf.

In the past the walruses stayed with the ice, migrating with it between the Chukchi and Bering seas from season to season. Walruses move in dense herds, and limiting their space can put young animals at risk, said USGS research ecologist Chad Jay.

Although it's unknown what exactly killed the walruses last September, the leading theory is they were trampled after the herd became spooked and retreated into the water. Large-scale trampling events have been previously documented in Russia, but never before in this far-flung corner of Alaska. If a herd is spooked while resting on ice, there are more escape options. Walruses are more spread out and can head to the water in multiple directions if the herd must move quickly, Jay said. Also, on the ice they are less likely to have startling encounters with planes, bears or people.

Crude challenges

Conservation groups are bristling at approved oil exploration plans for 2010 in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, home to polar bears and walruses.

"If this administration is serious about saving these last great icons of the North, it must bid farewell to harmful Bush-era drilling plans for the Arctic," said Rebecca Noblin in a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group leading many of the charges to protect Arctic wildlife and habitat. "A rational approach to polar bear and walrus conservation does not include turning their habitat into a polluted industrial zone."

Yet, balancing protection for the Arctic's animals and the quest for the energy riches it holds may be hard to strike in such a swiftly changing region.

Already, lawsuits and false starts caused by legal challenges have cost Royal Dutch Shell - the company that has shown the most interest in offshore oil exploration in Alaska -- hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as sent a message to other companies that the state's northern waters may not be worth the costly fight to develop anytime soon.

In a state that depends on oil for jobs and tax revenue, this prospect has many top officials concerned for the future. Oil production is in decline, while the debate over how to protect a changing Arctic frontier and its animals has placed the state and industry's crude dreams in jeopardy, some say.

Walrus in water. Istockphoto

As oil and gas producers search for new opportunities, hard truths are hard to ignore. Companies can take their hunt for hydrocarbons to areas of the world with less regulatory resistance, and as the pursuit of energy reserves leads increasingly toward the Arctic -- estimated to hold billions of barrels of oil -- political and operational challenges increase.

Shell has spent more than $3 billion dollars on leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, and the lease zones fall within the proposed critical habitat for polar bears. Company officials worry about the potential for long delays and increased costs for current exploration plans and future oil and gas production.

Shell believes the proposed critical habitat designation could be much smaller, excluding all open water, and land with the exception of bear den sites, said Shell spokesman Curtis Smith. Taking steps to avoid impacts to marine mammals isn't new territory for Shell; for years it has done it with the bowhead whale, but as more species qualify for federal protection, the challenges of operating in the Arctic are becoming more frequent, he said.

Patience Capital

As new regulations take shape to operate in the Arctic, Shell will work to establish new "marine mammal avoidance measures" as needed, Smith said. But the company is also looking to thwart the emergence of unnecessarily burdensome, or ineffective, policies and regulations.

It's unlikely Shell's investors won't see a return on their billions of dollars spent thus far on Arctic projects for at least another 10 years, Smith said. Still, further delays could come at a hefty price.

"At a time when resources and capital can be moved across the globe with a mouse click, it's fair to say regulatory delays like we are experiencing in Alaska are seriously testing our definition of 'patient capital,'" he said.

As it wrestles with the implications of polar bear protection, walruses may further complicate Shell's plans.

External Links:
The U.S. Geological Survey
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Alaska Dispatch
http://alaskadispatch.com