The Walrus Restaurant, Bismarck North Dakota

Walrus Restaurant Logo
Walrus Restaurant Logo

So I’m rooting around on Twitter and I discover a link to a place called the Walrus Restaurant! Clicking through, ’cause how could I not, I found a nicely done website for what looks to be a great place to eat and drink! They’re in Bismarck, North Dakota. Yeah, OK that rules out a lunchtime visit (I’m in Oregon). Actually, I’v never been to North Dakota but if I end up passing through you can bet that I’m going to grab a meal and a beer or two at the Walrus!

Menu, hours, etc are on their site which I like very much:
http://www.thewalrusrestaurant.com

I gotta get a t-shirt from this place. I love their logo. Judging form their Facebook page, this is a well-loved establishment with lots of great food and drink offerings. Makes me want to plan a road trip!

They are on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bismarck-ND/The-Walrus-Restaurant/168002072851

And Twitter:
http://twitter.com/TheWalrusBiz

Walrus Attack!

I had seen the image that accompanies this blog post before, but a little searching turned up the story that goes along with it…

Walrus attack
That's one big walrus!

…suddenly right in front of our boat the water exploded up and an enormous whiskered face launched up out of the water. He was so close that he put a front flipper up against the kayak and I could smell his breath. Walrus are HUGE, and those tusks are not small either! He dipped back under the water and I thought he was going to come up from under us and try tip us over.

This is an old blog post, from 2005, but the picture gives a great idea of how large a walrus is compared to a low-riding sea kayak. This encounter must have been frightening indeed.

Here’s the link to the original post, at Travelblog.org:
Never Mind The Polar Bears, Beware of the Walrus!

Amusing Walrus Page

Here’s a link to an amusingly-written, info and link-packed page by Grig “Punkie” Larson. Called, coincidentally, the World Wide Walrus! Mr Larson is a writer by trade, and the author of the (now out of print) Saga of the Punk Walrus (info page here). Anyway, I like this page. Mostly because it’s a fun read, and clearly a predecessor of this site, but not least because I’m old enough to miss the “old” World Wide Web and coming across still-existing old-school pages like this makes me smile.

Today Show Highlights Plight of the Pacific Walrus

My buddy Kevin who works for the NASA Earth Observatory, Twittered me a link to a WWF (World Wildlife Fund, not World Wrestling Federation) story about the recent haul-outs in Alaska and Russia. I have a post in drafts about that, but he also alerted me to the fact that the Today Show ran a piece about the haul-out and the retreat of sea ice. Since I don’t watch Today since I, you know, have a job during the day – I had no idea about this piece. It’s online though, and here’s the link.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891

Simon the Walrus: UK Argos Advertisement

First, a disclaimer: No, walrus do NOT forage around atop the ice for food, I am aware that they root around the sea floor with their whiskers. And no, walrus and penguins do NOT happily co-exist in the frozen north (or more properly south). Suspend your disbelief and enjoy the post.

“Simon the Walrus” is currently advocating the benefits of grocery delivery in the UK. These spots are amusing, and it’s fun to see a walrus being used as an advertising spokesmodel. From his accent, Simon must have gone to a good school, with a dignified voice that befits his station.

But even more enjoyable is the “behind the scenes” video posted to Youtube by Argos, showing how the spot was shot and how Simon was made and animated – I assumed it was CGI. I was wrong. Check this out!

We got the experts, the top guys in this business, to do this walrus…

The spots are created by UK Ad agency CHI & Partners.

Greenpeace: Pacific Walrus Require the Protections of the ESA

Here is a link to a form letter to Congress, via Greenpeace, on behalf of the Pacific Walrus. You can customize the text of the letter, but the supplied text of the letter reads:

The Pacific walrus meets the criteria for listing under the Endangered Species Act and must be listed immediately if it’s to have a chance at survival and recovery.

An unprecedented number of walruses have hauled out on the North Slope of Alaska this summer because their sea ice habitat has retreated hundreds of miles away. Walruses that are forced to haul out on land have a harder time finding food and are more vulnerable to disturbances that could lead to stampeding and trampling mortalities.

The recently-released U.S. Geological Survey study shows a 40% chance that walrus will be on a pathway to extinction by the end of this century. As scary as those odds are, they are likely far too optimistic because the study relied on  modeling that underestimates greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and rates of Arctic sea-ice loss.
The report also dismissed as negligible the impacts from reduced food supply for the walrus. Sea-ice loss in the Bering Sea is already leading to declines in the walrus’s bottom-dwelling prey; ocean acidification is making Arctic waters increasingly corrosive and potentially lethal to the clams and mussels it eats. Still, the USGS determined that these threats have negligible influences on the walrus’s future. The study would have found a significantly worse outlook for  walruses if it had used more realistic assessments of these threats.

The Pacific walrus needs the full protections of the Endangered Species Act to survive into the coming century. Please list the Pacific walrus under the Endangered Species Act, designate critical habitat, and design and implement a recovery plan as soon as possible.

Here is the link to the form/letter:
https://secure3.convio.net/gpeace/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=723

At the risk of being added to Greenpeace’s mailing lists – I will be filling out this form.

Online Walrus Resources: USGS and Biological Diversity.org

Two great pages with lots of Walrus info, and in the case of the USGS, the Pacific Walrus International Database (PWID), described as:

The Pacific Walrus International Database (PWID) is a comprehensive set of Pacific walrus biological data collected by several participating organizations in the Bering and Chukchi Seas. Data compilation was focused on abundance and distribution data, however, other types of data are included. Data categories include: land and ice haulout counts, sex/age composition, reproduction, mortality, harvest statistics, and morphometry. As of September 1998, the database includes reference to 33 data sets. The PWID includes metadata for every data set, but for some data sets the data may have been retained by the data owner.

There are a lot of research-oriented walrus resources here. Note being familiar with this type of government-run site, I’m impressed with the amount of data available. Looks like a solid resource for anyone whose interest in Walrus requires some deep data.

Here’s the USGS walrus info page:
http://alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/walrus/index.html

If your interest runs more towards conservation and endangered species concerns, you should visit the Pacific Walrus page at the Center for Biological Diversity. Here is the mission statement from their website:

At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law, and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive.

Here’s the information page on the Pacific Walrus :
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/Pacific_walrus/index.html

The page includes a link to…wait for it… A Pacific Walrus cellphone ringtone! (signup required)