Why Polar Bears Fear a Walrus Mother

On a gravel beach in the far north of Svalbard, a polar bear lies still and watches a herd of walruses. Somewhere in that herd is a mother with a newborn calf, and bears that pick a fight with a walrus mother do not always walk away unhurt. We follow Greta, an Atlantic walrus, through her calf's first summer on the sea ice, the near-disappearance and slow return of walruses to Svalbard, and what scientists saw when polar bears hunted walruses on Wrangel Island. CHAPTERS 0:00 A bear on the beach 0:42 Meet Greta 1:48 A calf on the ice 3:32 The walruses that came back 4:46 The bear 5:39 25 hunts on Wrangel Island 6:51 The standoff 8:02 Why bears fear a walrus mother SOURCES Ovsyanikov 1995, "Polar bear predation of walruses on Wrangel Island", Bulletin of the Moscow Society of Naturalists, Biology 100(4) Calvert & Stirling 1990, "Interactions between polar bears and overwintering walruses in the central Canadian High Arctic", International Conference on Bear Research and Management 8: 351 COSEWIC 2017, Assessment and Status Report on the Atlantic Walrus Kovacs et al. 2014, "Walruses recovering after 60+ years of protection in Svalbard, Norway", Polar Research 33: 26034 MOSJ Environmental Monitoring of Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Norwegian Polar Institute: Walrus Charrier, Aubin & Mathevon 2010, "Mother–calf vocal communication in Atlantic walrus", Animal Cognition 13: 471 Pryaslova et al. 2009, "Behavioral sleep in the walrus", Behavioural Brain Research (2009) Fay 1982, Ecology and Biology of the Pacific Walrus, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ABOUT THIS EPISODE Greta is a representative character: her name, her broken tusk and her calf are ours. The standoff on Kvitøya is a reconstruction of behaviour scientists recorded on Wrangel Island with Pacific walruses; every other behaviour and number comes from the sources above. Visuals and narration are AI-assisted. Next episode: the other side of the story, a polar bear mother who starves for months beneath the snow. #Walrus #PolarBear #Arctic