One of Alaska’s major tourist destinations is the Alaska SeaLife Center at Seward. It’s a great place to visit, one I highly recommend. A year or so back we took our second daughter, her husband, and their then-seven-year-old daughter through there, and the look of delight on our granddaughter’s face as we went through the exhibits was just a delight.
Now, the good people at the SeaLife Center have taken in an abandoned walrus calf.
A wayward walrus calf, just one month old, was rescued from the North Slope and flown to the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, where the staff is now providing “round-the-clock cuddling” to the 200-pound pinniped.
Dr. Carrie Goertz, director of animal health at the SeaLife Center, said the walrus has learned to drink from a bottle and is taking to his new caregivers.
“He follows people around and as soon as they sit down, he’ll be laying up against them,” she said.
The center says workers on the North Slope spotted the baby walrus on tundra, about four miles inland from the Beaufort Sea.
The baby was apparently abandoned by his mother and his herd, which does happen, for reasons unknown. He was quickly moved to the SeaLife center, where there are marine biologists who are well prepared to deal with a young walrus.
Veterinarians at the SeaLife Center found the young male walrus was suffering from dehydration, malnutrition and a cloudy eye. The SeaLife Center is now providing 24-hour care.
“Walruses are highly tactile and social animals, receiving near-constant care from their mothers during the first two years of life,” the SeaLife Center said in a written statement. “To emulate this maternal closeness, round-the-clock ‘cuddling’ is being provided to ensure the calf remains calm and develops in a healthy manner. Calves tend to habituate quickly to human care, and staff report that he is already eating formula from a bottle.”
The article linked here is mute on the subject, but it’s unlikely that the baby will ever be able to be returned to the wild. It’s not impossible, but most animals, no matter what species, are ill-suited to return to the wild once they are habituated to human care.
Now a male walrus may grow from an adorably ugly 200-pound pup to a 3,000-pound, ill-tempered behemoth. I can tell you from personal experience that there is not at present a full-grown walrus at the Center, although they do have sea lions and harbor seals. Housing a full-grown walrus would entail a considerable expansion of the facility, so that raises the question of what, in the end, will happen to the little guy. Integrating him back into a wild walrus herd would be difficult. He may end up in a zoo or other marine life facility, or maybe the SeaLife Center will find a way to accommodate him.
But in the meantime, this baby is being cared for.
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With all the troubling news in recent days, with terrorism, assassination attempts, political wrangling, and dissembling – it’s nice to see a story now and then that makes you feel good; a story about kind people caring for a lost baby, even if the baby is a 200-pound walrus calf.
You can see the care the adorable little critter is receiving here:
