ROUND ISLAND: Walrus Sanctuary in Peril

Pacific Walrus male

Horned Puffin near our campsite

There are times that remain hazy and golden in my memories; times when life came to a peak of wonder that is only rarely experienced. Five days on Round Island was one of those defining times in my life.

In 2009 my wife and I flew to Alaska, then took a second flight to Dillingham on the west coast, then boarded a beat-up puddle jumper to the Yup’ik Eskimo village of Togiak, then sped by tiny boat, piloted by a man of that Eskimo village, across part of Bristol Bay to Round Island, where we were greeted by Alaska Fish and Game staff. We set up camp on the small island, on platforms erected atop campsites used by ancient peoples, then set off exploring the island. Within a minute we were watching a Horned Puffin about 50 feet away standing atop a rock jutting out over the ocean. Later that day we watched half a dozen Pacific Walrus stretched out, resting atop a flat rock near shore.

Flat Rock with first view of walruses, with Dragon’s Tail in the distance

Our expedition tent enduring high winds

Trail along the grassy headlands near camp

Staff quarters and sanctuary headquarters

As the days went by, we listened to giant blubbery walruses singing sweetly. Endangered Steller Sea Lions performed synchronized swimming as their “Jabba the Hutt” harem defender gazed out imperiously. Wildflowers were at their peak, including the bright yellow Alaska Poppy. Red Foxes trotted around the island unseen by us, like ghosts of the landscape. Beaches were entirely filled with pink walruses resting after days of diving deep into the ocean. A high wind came up and rattled the tent with its terror all night. Parakeet Auklets gossiped constantly on the rocks below. A Tufted Puffin watched us watching him, and only snuck into his burrow when we glanced away briefly.

Dragon’s Tail and its walruses from the top of the island

Tide’s coming in!

Jagged rock formations atop Round Island’s peak

As I said, it was a peak experience, but those of you who are long-time readers of my blog know that I have already written at length about our Round Island experiences in these blogs:

Experiencing the Walruses of Round Island, Alaska

I Am the Walrus

Puffins and Auklets and Murres, Oh My!

So, why am I returning to Round Island in this blog? Because I passionately love this place and I believe that it is in danger.

Watching the walruses basking and sparring and emerging from the depths is always entertaining

Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game, in a misguided attempt to save a few bucks, has decided to close the camp on Round Island after this year. There will be no seasonal staff to serve as island stewards, and the important work they’ve done in scientifically monitoring walrus and sea lion numbers will be abandoned. The campsites will be abandoned, and tourism to Togiak and Round Island will become a distant memory.

Why do I care? Because this is one of the greatest places in the world to experience wildlife that is not behind bars. Yes, there are a few walruses protected in zoos. After returning from Round Island, we went to see walruses in the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma, Washingon. It was a profoundly sad experience. The walruses had lost their tusks completely, as they often do in captivity. They were trained to open their mouths to have their teeth brushed and to take a fish on command, then they would swim a pattern back and forth, back and forth, in the big tank lined with fake rock. This is not how sentient creatures should live.

Steller Sea Lion harem and young out for a swim

We could often hear the walruses coming up for a deep breath

People need to see wild creatures in wild places, and that’s where Round Island shines. After we left the island, the next visitors coming were high school students from all over Alaska, camping on the island for days to study the wildlife of that magnificent place. The memories of that experience will remain with them for their entire lives. When we were there, the other visitors were two men from Manhattan, making their second trip to Round Island. Photographers and videographers from all over the world have come here to create a record of walrus behavior. Including me.

Delicate Alaska Poppies, one of scores of kinds of wildflowers at the height of summer blooming during our visit

Wary Tufted Puffin

Blowing bubbles while surfacing

Shelter provided for campers to eat and hang out during times of high winds and rain

Looking up at the top of the mountain during a morning of unsettled weather

Alaska Fish and Game claims that they might still issue some permits to visit the island, but I suspect those will be few and far between. Instead, we are more likely to have surreptitious visitors shooting walruses for the ivory, and boats and planes buzzing the walruses and creating panicked stampedes that will trample and kill individuals. People will be able to land on the island with nobody knowing, and will undoubtedly force walruses away from the beaches. The island will no longer be a sanctuary.

Is this speculation on my part? Of course, but it is informed speculation based upon my experience on the island. When we were there, we felt that the two staff members were extremely serious about their jobs, and that their first priority was to protect the walruses. When we were seen by the refuge manager watching walruses from atop a cliff, we were told in no uncertain terms to crouch down so that our silhouettes wouldn’t scare the walruses off their rock. I felt bad at violating the rules, and in retrospect I’m glad that someone was there to keep protection of the walruses as top priority.

Abandoning the camp on Round Island would save $95,000 per year, which I think is a drop in the bucket compared to the lost opportunities for environmental education and tourism in the region, which bring far more dollars than that to the Alaskan economy (our trip alone added $5,000 to the Alaska economy–it isn’t cheap to get to remote places!).

Can this decision be modified or reversed? Who knows? All we can do is try. If Alaska Fish and Game is adamant that they are going to save money this way, perhaps they could come up with a Memorandum of Understanding with The Nature Conservancy or another not-for-profit to operate the island as a sanctuary with a provision for allowing visitors to come and camp. Perhaps the National Park Service should buy it from Alaska and operate it as a national park unit, similar to the manner in which Channel Islands National Park off the California coast in operated. Perhaps an Eskimo corporation could run it. Maybe volunteers could assist a paid staff member. Perhaps the University of Alaska could run the visitor operations in conjunction with research. Since the infrastructure is already there, it would be obscene to just abandon it, and it seems that the state has not explored these and other avenues for protecting the sanctuary.

In the meantime, if you would like to write a rational and passionate letter supporting the continued use of Round Island as a place to view Alaska’s native wildlife, please contact:

Alaska Department of

Fish and Game

P.O. Box 115526

1255 W. 8th Street

Juneau, AK 99811-5526

Or email them from their website: http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=contacts.emailus

Sadly leaving the island

Ferrying gear to the small boat just prior to departure

The small plane we arrived on in the Eskimo village of Togiak

Daily scene in Togiak

Some of the Sockeye Salmon from Bristol Bay smoking at an Eskimo smokehouse in Togiak; the Sockeye Salmon fishery here is called the most sustainable fishery in the world, but the Pebble Mine proposed in the watershed could change that. That is another important environmental issue facing the region (see below for a link to more information).

 

For what could be your last chance to visit this enchanting isle, go to http://www.wildlife.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=refuge.rnd_is

To read the article that announced the closure of Round Island, go to Round Island Closure

To read what Trout Unlimited has to say about the Pebble Mine, go to Save Bristol Bay

To see my photography, go to Lee Rentz Photography

 

 

 

Puffins and Auklets and Murres, Oh My!

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The goal for our July 2009 trip to Round Island, located in Bristol Bay off the Alaskan mainland, was primarily to see hundreds of Pacific Walruses.  But Round Island has rocky headlands that are the nest sites of a quarter-million seabirds, so we enjoyed five days of wonderful birding at close range and with a soundtrack that always included the lyrical cries of Black-legged Kittiwakes and the beautiful notes of Golden-crowned Sparrows and Hermit Thrushes.  The only ducks we observed were nine Harlequin Ducks in the surf; we are more accustomed to seeing Harlequin Ducks on the fast rivers near our Olympic Peninsula home.

For this weblog entry, I will show you some of my favorite photographs of birds on the island.  I didn’t spend as much time photographing birds as I would have liked, because of several days of windy conditions and the constant distraction of photographing Walruses; however, I was thrilled with the photography I was able to do.

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Tufted Puffin (Fratercula cirrhata) in breeding plumage perched at the entrance to its burrow, located among tundra grasses on a cliff face within the Round Island State Game Sanctuary in Bristol Bay, Alaska.  The Tufted Puffins were secretive around their burrow entrances, and seemed to wait until we were looking away before silently entering the opening.

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Savannah Sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis) surveying its territory from atop a dried umbel of a Cow Parsnip or Angelica.  Savannah Sparrows were the most common songbird on the island; wherever we walked, they were constantly chipping from atop plants or rocks, and were gathering insects with which to feed their young.

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Horned Puffin (Fratercula corniculata) in breeding plumage perched at edge of breeding colony.  The Horned Puffins perched on exposed rocks on the cliff faces, often several together.  This puffin was sitting about 100 feet from where we pitched our tent, so whenever lighting conditions were good, we would quietly approach the cliff to see if birds were present.  The puffins allowed us to sit on an overlook and photograph, perhaps 35 feet from them.

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Horned Puffins in flight, heading back to their burrows after a fishing trip off Round Island.  At this point the puffins did not appear to have young, because we never observed any carrying fish.

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Horned Puffin in breeding plumage stretching and fluffing its wings while perched at the edge of a cliff on Round Island.

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Bright reddish-orange feet and wonderful faces characterize this species.

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The grassy headlands and rocky cliffs of Round Island provide good habitat for a variety of songbirds and seabirds. There are no bears or wolves on the island, which is located some 40 miles from the mainland.  Here the major predators on nesting birds are Red Foxes and Common Ravens.

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Pelagic Cormorants (Phalacrocorax urile) in breeding plumage resting, showing metallic iridescence when the sun was coming from directly behind us.

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Pelagic Cormorants on nests with young, perched on the vertical cliff faces of Round Island.

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Common Murre (Uria aalge) with blue eggs on seaside cliff.  During the half-hour or so that we observed this ledge, the adult left the ledge and both eggs were snatched by a marauding Common Raven.  Staff member Stephanie Sell mentioned that this location had been particularly susceptible to Raven raids, and that many eggs had been lost to predation.

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Common Raven (Corvus corax) panting to reduce heat stress on a hot day, when temperatures rose to about 80°F (and the temperature inside our tent at 10:00 p.m. was about 110°! ).  Ravens nested on Round Island, and we watched a cliffside nest with four young that were nearly ready to fledge.

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A seabird egg probably taken by a Common Raven (we’re not sure of the egg species).  We also observed a Raven carrying a bloody carcass of a small bird, probably a nestling, that it subsequently buried by piling pebbles and wildflowers atop it, creating a cache for later use.

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Closeup of a molted Common Raven feather.

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Parakeet Auklet (Aethia psittacula) perched on a rock just above the sea.  Often, half-a-dozen auklets gathered on the same rock and chattered noisily.

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Tundra grasses on steep hillsides were a better habitat for humans than birds, but we did see Savannah Sparrows there.  In a willow thicket, Hermit Thrushes sang and nested.

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Atop the sanctuary office building, Golden-crowned Sparrows sang their sorrowful descending notes that reminded me of “Three Blind Mice.”  This is as close as I got (the sparrow is on the roofline on the right side).  Note the steel cables that hold down the building during hurricane-force winds.

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You can read other descriptions of our Round Island adventures at:

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Experiencing the Walruses of Round Island, Alaska

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I am the Walrus

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4th of July in an Eskimo Village

To see my web site, which includes photographic prints for sale, please go to LeeRentz.com

To see thousands of my photographs in large file sizes for use in magazines or other printed materials or electronic media, go to my PhotoShelter Website