Who is watching walrus?

Questions

Dr. Lori Polasek is a marine mammal scientist. When she has a scientific question, she designs a research project to help her find answers. She wants to learn how walrus use land haulouts. Dr. Polasek works together with her team to decide which specific questions they hope to answer. With this project, the team wants to learn: How many walruses are using a haulout? How long are they at the haulout? How often do the walruses use a haulout site? They already know that walruses are easily startled by things like airplanes or predators in the area, so they also want to learn more about how walrus react to disturbances while hauled out on land. Watch the videos below to learn more about the questions and hypotheses Dr. Polasek plans to look at with her study.

VIDEO: DR. POLASEK'S RESEARCH Questions

Learn what questions Dr. Polasek had about walrus that made her want to study them. (1 minute)

Video Transcript

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Why did you want to study walruses?

I think walruses as a whole are a very interesting species, they’re very tactile and gregarious. Why I specifically wanted to look at this particular study with walruses is because we had the mortality event that you guys heard about in 2009, where with ice loss moms and calves moved onto a land haulout, and we don’t really understand how the population will interact with humans and other species while they’re hauled out.

What questions did you have?

The question that I wanted to specifically look at was: what causes walruses to abandon a haulout – what disturbs them – and then how long does it take for them to come back?

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VIDEO: DR. POLASEK'S Hypotheses

Dr. Polasek explains four hypotheses that she will be testing in this investigation. (1 minute)

Video Transcript

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What are your hypotheses?

For this project we have four primary hypotheses specifically looking at disturbance:

1. The first hypothesis is that the new emerging haulouts will have a different reaction than the established haulouts.

2. That ice extent will impact how the two different haulouts will respond to disturbance events.

3. That mother and calves using the new haulouts will have a different reaction to disturbance events than males that are using the pre-established haulouts.

4. And lastly, that the time for recovery from a disturbance event will be different with the females and calves on the new haulouts versus the established haulouts with males.

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To answer these research questions, Dr. Polasek and her team needed to come up with a way to consistently observe walrus on their haulouts. Join the researchers as they develop a plan for watching walrus.