Can you hunt walrus in alaska

Females will threaten and jab each other for better position on haulouts and during the breeding season, male walruses will threaten and fight with their tusks to compete for females. When two males come together, they will raise and turn their heads sideways to display their tusks, and the walrus with smaller tusks will move away. If the two males have similar sized tusks, they will usually fight and may stab each other with their tusks, inflicting bruises and punctures.

Walruses do not use their tusks for digging on the seafloor for food. The Pacific walrus population spends the winter on the Bering Sea pack ice before separating in the spring. Beginning in the spring, females with young migrate northward from the Bering Sea to the Chukchi Sea, often passively moving with the receding sea ice.

Most adult males migrate to Bristol Bay where they rest on land haulouts between foraging bouts. By late fall, walruses begin their return migration southward from the Chukchi Sea to the Bering Sea, ahead of the advancing sea ice.

The males that remained in Bristol Bay head north to meet the returning population in the waters near St. Lawrence Island. Pacific walruses range over the relatively shallow waters of the northern Bering and Chukchi seas, and are occasionally observed in the waters of the Eastern Siberian and Beaufort seas.

In the Bering Sea, walruses are distributed from the Bering Strait to Bristol Bay in the east, and in the west their range extends as far south as the Kamchatka Peninsula. They also use island haulouts near St. Lawrence Island and on the Pribilof Islands. Fish and Wildlife Service USFWS , estimated the population at ,, but due to the difficulties in counting walruses the confidence of that estimate is low and the possible range in population size is somewhere between 55, and , After reviewing available scientific and commercial information, the USFWS found that listing the Pacific walrus as threatened was warranted because of the decrease in sea ice caused by climate warming.

Currently, however, the listing is precluded by higher priority actions to list other species. It took over 30 years to reopen Qayassiq to walrus hunting. On October 14, , hunters from Togiak traveled to Round Island and harvested two walruses in a hunt they helped design and run. How they and crews from six other Yup'ik communities returned to the island is the story of one of the first co-managed hunts in Alaska.

In the millennia that Alaska Natives have lived in the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska, subsistence hunting of walrus, seals, and other wild resources has sustained their communities and culture. Archaeological evidence of walrus includes bone, carved ivory objects, and unworked ivory. Walrus was choice food, including the hide, fat, muscle tissue, flippers, head, and various internal organs. Qayassiq was especially important for walrus hunting because it was accessible in good weather; walruses were predictably present on the beach during the preferred fall hunt; and the beach is rocky, not sandy, promoting clean and efficient butchering.

With boats beached at either end of a group of walruses, the hunters walked by the walruses closest to the water, selecting younger, choicer animals towards the higher rocks and cliffs. Walruses were quickly taken with a thrust or shot near the back of the head. Harvests were limited by the capacity of boats to transport the kill back to mainland villages.

Walrus hunts on land were contexts during which traditional values were passed across generations. The rules governing hunting were in the words of an elder, "written only in the minds of hunters. As technology evolved in the s and s from skin boats, spears, and harpoons, to wooden boats, outboard motors, and rifles, successful hunting on Round Island continued to depend on the traditional knowledge of beach hunting techniques.

During the 19th century, walrus populations declined markedly due to commercial hunting by EuroAmericans for oil, hides, and ivory. By the midth century, commercial hunting was restricted and walrus populations began to recover. Biological research in the s highlighted the importance of protecting the haulout. These investigations also reported allegations of wasting walruses. In a well-publicized incident in , biologists found 32 dead walruses on Round Island with the tusks missing and only about pounds of meat salvaged.

The legislature did not specifically ban hunting in the sanctuary, but found that "the Walrus Islands are uninhabited and the walruses frequenting them are not required by the state for subsistence [purposes]. Regulations adopted by the Alaska Board of Game forbade hunting in most of the sanctuary, including Round Island. A wildlife viewing clientele began to camp there and their access was regulated under a permit system.

Under the MMPA, non-wasteful subsistence hunting of marine mammals by Alaska Natives may be restricted only if a population is depleted. With a recovery to about , animals by , Alaska's walrus population was healthy once more. Each summer, between 8, to 12, male walruses hauled out on Round Island beaches. However, the sanctuary remained closed to walrus hunting.

Denied access to their primary traditional hunting area, the people of Togiak continued to use walrus and hunted from boats in open water, which in contrast to on-shore hunting, resulted in the loss of many animals due to sinking. One elder called this "hunting by accident," attributing success mostly to luck. Nevertheless, he said, "Since there is no other choice and other island hunts don't produce walrus, we take our chances at sea.

We do take our children now for them to observe our [hunting] mishaps with walrus at sea, but this is just not true hunting. This is harassment to the point of kill and many times the kill is not even retrieved. To find the closest tagger or to get answers about tagging contact the U. Selling to Non- Alaska Native Peoples Pacific walrus parts must be significantly altered into an authentic Native handicraft, by an Alaska Native person, in order for them to be sold to non- Alaska Native peoples.

Authentic Native Handicrafts Alaska Native artisans are not limited in their use of walrus ivory or other parts in the creation of handicrafts. However, the items must be significantly altered in order to be considered authentic Native handicrafts and enter into commercial trade.

See the Indian Arts and Crafts Board brochure for examples of significantly altered walrus ivory. Additionally, because of restrictions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act the Commercial export of handicrafts that contain Pacific walrus ivory or other parts is not allowed. Not all the information on our site is in the public domain. Please see Notices for more information. Pacific Walrus Hunting and Handicrafting. The heads are either cooked to loosen the tusks or buried in a hole where maggots eventually eat the flesh and loosen the tusks, he said.

Erickson, who also is a state trooper in Unalakleet, said cases of wasteful take has slowed down in recent years but perhaps "is ramping back up. Another possibility is that people are shooting walrus in the water instead of on the ice, he said.

Global warming a factor? Global climate change and the shrinking of the ice pack could be a factor, Trent said. Sea ice reached a historic minimum earlier this month, he said. While hunting techniques for walrus vary, most hunters prefer to kill them on large ice floes so that when they die they won't roll off into the water and sink, Trent said.

I do know the water conditions, ice conditions this year are extremely unusual," he said. Andrew Woods, a police dispatcher in Unalakleet, said two rotting headless carcasses remained on the beach Wednesday. He likes to run and go four-wheeling on the beach.