Tag Archives: stampedes

‘Our Planet’ film crew is still lying about walrus cliff deaths: UPDATE

I had an opportunity last night to watch the original Netflix ‘Frozen Worlds’ walrus episode and have some addition thoughts.

Polar bears on the cliff at Cape Kozhevnikov Maxim Deminov WWF from Siberian Times 2017

One big eye-opener was the final shot of the walrus sequence: a polar bear approaching from the water to feed on the carcasses below the cliff at Cape Kozhevnikov. This is additional proof that polar bears were in the area while the crew were filming. Yet the narrative in the film was silent on the risk to walruses on the cliff from polar bears and not a word was spoken of the hundreds of walruses that had fallen off that very cliff just days before after being spooked by approaching bears.

Oddly, I have also discovered that the Russian scientific advisor to the film, Anatoli Kochnev, wrote a scientific report in 2002 (translated into English) on walrus deaths at two regularly used beach haulouts on Wrangel Island from 1989-1996, when walrus population numbers were much lower than today and summer sea ice extent was higher (Kochnev 2002). He concluded that stampedes initiated by polar bears were responsible for most of the walruses found trampled to death.

This means Kochnev knew that polar bears nearby were a huge risk factor for walrus stampedes over the cliff but went along with the official ‘Our Planet’ narrative that no polar bears were involved and only lack of sea ice and poor eyesight were to blame for the carnage presented in the Netflix film.

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Walrus mass haulout hype refuted, the video

Produced by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, there is now a short video summary of my recently-released GWPF briefing paper, which I wrote and narrated.

Walrus fuss_GWPF video Crockford

Watch it below:

Available also at GWPF TV“The Walrus Fuss – Walrus haulouts are nothing new.”

The briefing paper is here.

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Where have all the walrus gone?

Yes, I wondered too. After all the kerfuffle at the beginning of the month there’s been rather dead silence [see my last post here]. So I Googled and found some tidbits.

Chukchi Sea walrus, June 2014. US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Chukchi Sea walrus, June 2014. US Fish and Wildlife Service.

An article a few days ago at one media outlet (October 8, 2014) asked someone from the WWF what happened to the ~35,000 females and calves onshore near Point Lay, Alaska — because really, who else would you ask? Or, perhaps more to the point, would anyone at USGS be expected to answer?

And one online media outlet found walrus specialists in Alaska unwilling to lay all the blame for the recent massive haulout at Point Lay at the feet of low Arctic ice levels due to global warming. See what you think.

UPDATE added below October 13, 2014
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