Walruses throw a bachelor party by mutant_bunny 2011/09/14 15:05
Walruses love a crowded beach. Each summer more that 12000 males congregate along the shore and rocky shelves of Round Island, on Alaska's south-west coast.
They lie in rows, eyes closed, their brown and pink bodies packed so tightly together that the pairs of 50cm long ivory tusks are the only indication of which end is which.
During the preceding winter mating season, they will have fought fiercely with the other males with whom they now share the beach, battling for the right to mate with females.
The bulls arrive at Round Island in shifts during June, usually about 3000 at a time. They spend a couple of days ashore, then go to sea to feed for a week before returning to the island for a two-day rest.
Meanwhile, the females are feeding and raising their young hundreds of kilometers north among the ice floes of the Bering and Chukchi seas.
Walruses love a crowded beach. Each summer more that 12000 males congregate along the shore and rocky shelves of Round Island, on Alaska's south-west coast.
They lie in rows, eyes closed, their brown and pink bodies packed so tightly together that the pairs of 50cm long ivory tusks are the only indication of which end is which.
During the preceding winter mating season, they will have fought fiercely with the other males with whom they now share the beach, battling for the right to mate with females.
The bulls arrive at Round Island in shifts during June, usually about 3000 at a time. They spend a couple of days ashore, then go to sea to feed for a week before returning to the island for a two-day rest.
Meanwhile, the females are feeding and raising their young hundreds of kilometers north among the ice floes of the Bering and Chukchi seas.
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