Our new publication estimates that the number of walruses using the U. S. Chukchi Sea in autumn was 166,000 (133,000–201,000) in 2019 and 189,000  (135,000–251,000) in 2019. These estimates are substantially more precise than previous walrus population size estimates. We estimated herd size of walruses on land using small survey drones and corrected these estimates for walruses in the water (and therefore unavailable for counting) using behavior log data from satellite-tagged walruses. The increased precision of these estimates was due to our use of drones, which allowed us to fly multiple surveys in a short period of time and use all surveys in a single analysis. Future work many include applying these methods on both sides of the Bering Strait in collaboration with Russian wildlife researchers, advancing the prospect of a Chukchi Sea-wide abundance estimate. The paper is open access.  


Citation: Fischbach, A.S., Jay, C., Taylor, R.L., 2022, Regional walrus abundance estimate in the United States Chukchi Sea in autumn: Journal of Wildlife Management, https://doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.22256 




Rebecca Taylor
Research Statistician
Alaska Science Center
U. S. Geological Survey
(907) 786-7004

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