Torellneset
Expedition Travel is unlike any other travel in the world. It is full of wonderful surprises, hidden secrets, and indeed sometimes frustration. As the guests of Endeavour continue to travel around Svalbard, they have experienced all of the previously mentioned. Svalbard is a vast wilderness or glaciers, ice pack, and rolling tundra. It has so much to offer from a natural history perspective, it can make one dizzy. We onboard have been giddy with the sites and experiences of the last days, and today did not give us a rest.
After emerging from the fog early this morning, we were all gently awakened by our expedition leader, Ralph Lee Hopkins, with a call for a slightly earlier landing than usual. The reason behind this, we had arrived at a place called Torellneset, and there were Walrus! When one thinks of the High Arctic, thoughts immediately turn to the Polar Bear, the ruler of the Great White North. Walrus are not to be taken lightly. These gigantic creatures that can weight up to 1400 pounds, are big and scary enough to scare even the Polar Bears away. These mammals are truly creatures of the ice, living off of the pack ice, migrating north in the spring when the ice recedes, and south in the fall as it grows. They do come ashore, sometimes in the thousands, in early July to go through their yearly molt. They lie close together on the beaches, and use their body heat and rubbing action to slough off the old skin. This close friction is called Thigmotaxis.
Walrus are very strong swimmers using their hind flippers to propel themselves through the water, and their fore flippers for directional control. Walrus might look like fierce creatures, displaying their ivory tusks, but they are really bottom feeders. They use their vibrissae, stiff facial hairs, to feel through the bottom for mollusks, their main diet.
In Svalbard, the walrus was nearly exterminated by hunting, mainly for the ivory tusks. However, the population has been protected since 1952, and has since increased to nearly 2000 individuals. At present times, the Inuit, as a form of their subsistence hunting, are the only people allowed to hunt the Walrus. The newest threat to the Walrus is the increasing tourist population, disturbing their traditional hauling out areas. On Endeavour, we are very careful not to disturb the wildlife. Lindbald is actually initiating a project to record the areas and reactions of the wildlife we encounter, and share this information with researchers. During our time on the beach with these Walrus, we were never close enough to disturb them, and even getting there involved crawling in stealth mode.
The excitement never ends in Svalbard. During the later hours of the afternoon, we attempted to make a landing on Barentsøya. Nearly all the guests were ashore when a Polar Bear was spotted up in the hills about a mile from the landing. Thinking it prudent, the natural history staff decided to abort the landing, so we could watch this land-bound bear from the safe confines of the ship.
With a full day of wildlife encounters behind us, we retire to our beds, with wonderment about what could come next. Our ears are keenly tuned for a call that could come at anytime announcing the next great sighting. Stay Tuned!
Expedition Travel is unlike any other travel in the world. It is full of wonderful surprises, hidden secrets, and indeed sometimes frustration. As the guests of Endeavour continue to travel around Svalbard, they have experienced all of the previously mentioned. Svalbard is a vast wilderness or glaciers, ice pack, and rolling tundra. It has so much to offer from a natural history perspective, it can make one dizzy. We onboard have been giddy with the sites and experiences of the last days, and today did not give us a rest.
After emerging from the fog early this morning, we were all gently awakened by our expedition leader, Ralph Lee Hopkins, with a call for a slightly earlier landing than usual. The reason behind this, we had arrived at a place called Torellneset, and there were Walrus! When one thinks of the High Arctic, thoughts immediately turn to the Polar Bear, the ruler of the Great White North. Walrus are not to be taken lightly. These gigantic creatures that can weight up to 1400 pounds, are big and scary enough to scare even the Polar Bears away. These mammals are truly creatures of the ice, living off of the pack ice, migrating north in the spring when the ice recedes, and south in the fall as it grows. They do come ashore, sometimes in the thousands, in early July to go through their yearly molt. They lie close together on the beaches, and use their body heat and rubbing action to slough off the old skin. This close friction is called Thigmotaxis.
Walrus are very strong swimmers using their hind flippers to propel themselves through the water, and their fore flippers for directional control. Walrus might look like fierce creatures, displaying their ivory tusks, but they are really bottom feeders. They use their vibrissae, stiff facial hairs, to feel through the bottom for mollusks, their main diet.
In Svalbard, the walrus was nearly exterminated by hunting, mainly for the ivory tusks. However, the population has been protected since 1952, and has since increased to nearly 2000 individuals. At present times, the Inuit, as a form of their subsistence hunting, are the only people allowed to hunt the Walrus. The newest threat to the Walrus is the increasing tourist population, disturbing their traditional hauling out areas. On Endeavour, we are very careful not to disturb the wildlife. Lindbald is actually initiating a project to record the areas and reactions of the wildlife we encounter, and share this information with researchers. During our time on the beach with these Walrus, we were never close enough to disturb them, and even getting there involved crawling in stealth mode.
The excitement never ends in Svalbard. During the later hours of the afternoon, we attempted to make a landing on Barentsøya. Nearly all the guests were ashore when a Polar Bear was spotted up in the hills about a mile from the landing. Thinking it prudent, the natural history staff decided to abort the landing, so we could watch this land-bound bear from the safe confines of the ship.
With a full day of wildlife encounters behind us, we retire to our beds, with wonderment about what could come next. Our ears are keenly tuned for a call that could come at anytime announcing the next great sighting. Stay Tuned!
