Satellites to track walrus
WWF Russia wants to study how Arctic oil exploration will influence the endangered walruses in the Pechora Sea.
Earlier this autumn the Prirazlomnoye platform was put in place in the Pechora Sea ready to start Russia’s first permanent offshore drilling for oil in the Barents Region. The area around the oil-drilling is home to a key walrus population.
The environmental group WWF and the Marine Mammal Council in Moscow got the first satellite images of walrus populations at the Matveev Island in Nenets Autonomous Okrug earlier this year making it possible to count the stock to some 200 animals.
- The success of deciphering walruses with the help of satellite images, along with field-studies, will allow environmentalists and scientists to quickly get an idea about the population. That will help us to develop measures for preservation in an area of booming industrial activities, says Alexey Knizhnikov with the WWF in Moscow.
WWF is planning to extend the satellite project in 2012 to conduct a multiple-time imagery of walrus locations throughout the Russian Arctic. Walruses are found in the area around Franz Josef’s Land, Novaya Zemlya as well as the smaller islands in Barents Russia.
Scientists have limited knowledge today regarding walrus habitats, population numbers and migration routes. The walrus population in the north Atlantic and Arctic declined rapidly in the 19th and 20th centuries because of hunting. Walrus is classified as decreasing and rare in the Russian Red Book.
The population on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago has increased over the last few decades.
