70,000 Walrus, Seals and Sea Ice

The loss of Arctic sea ice has cycled through headlines for decades, rising and falling in public attention as new records are broken. But for researchers like Maeghan Connor and Donna Hauser, sea ice loss is not a trending headline, it is the focus of their lives’ work.

In 2024, Connor worked alongside U.S. Geological Survey researcher Anthony Fischbach to study Pacific walruses, a species increasingly forced onto land as the sea ice they once used for resting and foraging disappears. Historically, walruses relied on sea ice as mobile platforms above feeding grounds. As that ice vanishes, tens of thousands of animals now crowd onto narrow barrier islands, which creates dangerous conditions where a single disturbance can trigger deadly stampedes.

To monitor these massive haulouts, the team combined satellite imagery with drones to estimate herd abundance without disturbing the animals.

“Both satellite imagery and drones offer non-invasive ways to do that,” Connor said.

Connor’s role was to assist with “ground truthing” the satellite data. By flying drones at the exact moment a satellite passed overhead, the team could compare high-resolution drone counts with broader satellite signatures to ensure accuracy. Because walruses are highly sensitive to sound and movement, Connor closely monitored herd behavior during flights.

During one field season, Connor witnessed approximately 70,000 walruses packed onto a single barrier island.

“It’s just a crazy number, hard to wrap your head around … you can lie on the ground and feel vibrations from them calling and moving … you feel this vibration in your chest … and it’s just you and one other person, and, like, 70,000 walruses. It’s pretty intense.”

She is now continuing to work with Fischbach to validate imagery and count carcasses, with the goal of understanding how stampede events impact walrus populations.

Connor’s independent research builds directly on these methods, shifting focus from walruses to spotted seals. While spotted seals are also ice-associated, they haul out on land during the summertime, unlike other seals that remain in deeper waters or closely tied to sea ice year-round. Connor is planning to investigate whether spotted seals are remaining healthy as sea ice loss alters Arctic food webs and prey availability.

Using drones as a “virtual tape measure,” she plans to apply photogrammetry to measure the length and width of individual seals, allowing her to estimate their body condition. Her work is conducted in collaboration with the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management and Indigenous harvesters. By pairing drone measurements with Indigenous Knowledge, such as hunters’ observations of blubber thickness during harvests, Connor aims to create a more complete picture of seal health in a warming Arctic.

Hauser’s own research sits at the intersection of marine mammal ecology, sea ice loss, and increasing human activity in the Arctic. Trained as a marine biologist and ecologist, her career has evolved from studying animal behavior to examining how environmental change reverberates through social and ecological systems.

A major focus of Hauser’s work is the “opening” of the Arctic as sea ice retreats, exposing marine mammals to new stressors such as vessel traffic and shifting species distributions. The Bering Strait is a focal point of this concern.

“All of the vessels moving in and out of the Pacific into the Arctic have to cross through the Bering Strait,” Hauser said. “But it’s also an incredibly important migratory corridor for many Arctic marine mammals, so the potential for conflict and overlap is high.”

These changes have ecological and cultural significance. Marine mammals remain central parts of life for coastal and Indigenous communities.

Through close collaboration with Indigenous harvesters, for example, her research examines how changing sea ice and migration timing affect access to bearded seals in Kotzebue Sound and spring bowhead whaling in Utqiaġvik. She also studies emerging indirect threats, including the northward movement of humpback and fin whales and the growing presence of killer whales in Arctic waters.

While sea ice loss feels distant to much of the world, the work of Connor and Hauser illustrate the changing relationship between sea ice, animals, and people across the Arctic.