Media

Bluey The Walrus

This is “Bluey The Walrus” who is a boss-level character in the video game “Diddy Kong Racing”. H’es found in the”Snowflake Mountain” area of the game. Apparently he’s pretty hard to beat, at least is the Nintendo DS version of the game.

Here’s the wiki entry about Bluey over at Super Mario Wiki.

I’ve done a fair amount of research towards cartoon walrus characters, and have been noticing the frequent use of the walrus as a video game character – I sense a new category of posts. In fact, I’ve just added a category for video games to the blog’s category list. We’ll see what else I can find. As for Bluey, I’ll put my son, a voracious player of all DS games, on the case and we’ll see if we can get some hands-on Bluey racing experience.

WOW, a walrus . . . get it?


I don’t play World of Warcraft (OK, I played Guild Wars for several years) – but if I did, I’d be this guy.

The Rare and Deadly Vampire Walrus!

Bob Canada's Vampire Walrus

Cartoonist Bob Canada turns us on the Vampire Walrus, horrific scourge of the arctic. His posting is as amusing as this drawing. Beware the vampire walrus!

The Vampire Walrus’ wings are mostly for show, as they are far too small to lift its impressive bulk off the ground.

Here’s the link to the full post on Bob’s Blogger site:
http://bobcanada92.blogspot.com/2009/10/rare-and-deadly-vampire-walrus.html

Bob’s a designer and cartoonist from Indiana. Not Canada. I like his drawing style. I like the fact that he posts sketches along with the final art – I always like the energy contained in an artists sketches, sometimes more than the final.

Little Walrus Warning

This delightful little book is from the Smithsonian’s “Oceanic Collection”. There are books for all kinds of species like green sea turtles, etc. My girlfriend’s very young niece apparently saw this book at the Smithsonian gift shop, or some bookstore (they live in Northern VA) and though of me, since she knew I lied walruses. This book showed up out of the blue. It’s a small little book directed at kids, but it was perfect for my son’s first book report. It tells the story of Little Walrus, and how he makes his last trip with his mother before taking his own place in the herd. It’s a fun little book for a young child who is just learning to appreciate the walrus!

Here’s the link to the book on Amazon – throw it in with your next purchase: http://amzn.com/1568992726

See a walrus?

This image is part of a very creative ad campaign from the World Wildlife Fund. If you make end-of-year donations to charity, please consider supporting the work of the WWF by “adopting” a Pacific Walrus from WWF.org.

Growing Up Walrus

Well, I came at this sort of backwards, since I didn’t know about Nereus, the subject of this episode until after his passing (after a good life at the Indianapolis Zoo).

Since this post – I have learned who Nereus was – and I discovered this show! It’s an episode of an Animal Planet series called “Growing Up…” which focuses on many different types of wild animals. This episode is so fun to watch. Although there are some moments at the beginning where the viewer is not sure what is to become of Nereus, it is after all a one-hour show and the little walrus rebounds and thrives. It’s amazing to see the personality and playfulness of this rapidly-growing little animal as he grows into his surroundings. One of my favorite scenes has Nereus swimming, and splashing around with his flippers as he plays with one of the adult female walruses, as well as the amusing sequence where he discovers snow for the first time. This is definitely worth watching ESPECIALLY if you have kids around. Even if they give you the eye-roll when you pull out and animal show, they will be won over by Nereus.

Here’s the link to the DVD of Growing Up Walrus at Amazon.com.

There’s another very nice blog posting about Nereus, this show and the passing of “Sitka”, one of the adult female walruses from this episode on “Buddy’s Bemusings” at this link.

Found alone on a beach in Alaska, an orphaned baby pacific walrus is rescued and finds a new home thousands of miles away at the Indianapolis Zoo. Named ‘Nereus’, the baby walrus receives ’round the clock care from his human keepers as they prepare him to join the zoo’s family of enormous adult walruses.

I loved this show – I’ve watched it three times now with various family members and I can tell you that Nereus has converted some of them to walrus lovers!

I posted about Nereus’ passing here: “RIP Nereus: Indianapolis Zoo Loses Their Beloved Walrus”

I love this walrus photo

Samka (morse walrus) by Lucie Gattou

I love this photo, from Canadian Photographer Lucie Gattou. She allows downloading of the image from her Flickr stream, via a Creative Commons license. I  have recently printed an 8×10 to frame and stick up on the wall! Great shot.

Here is the link to Ms. Gattou’s Flickr Stream.

Here is the direct link to the main page for this photo.

Dancing Walrus: Intuit Sculpture by Aqjangajuk (Axangayu) Shaa

Photo © 1997-2010 Spirit Wrestler Gallery

This dancing walrus is one of many sculptures by Inuit carver Aqjangajuk (Axangayu) Shaa. Represented by the Spirit Wrestler Gallery in Vancouver, BC. Sorry for the seemingly dashed-off post, but I wanted to share this fun work wit readers of the blog. I need to look into shamanistic native sculpture and the meaning of the walrus within this form of art.

Click here to visit Mr. Shaa’s page at Spirit Wrestler gallery including a catalog of available pieces.

Umky Patrol: Protecting us from polar bears, protecting walrus from themselves.

This video just showed up on YouTube.  This is from the from the World Wildlife Fund and explains their “Umky Patrols” which is a partnership with the Chukchi in Northern Russia. Primarily to keep polar bears from continuing to intrude on villages and become scavengers, the patrols are also protecting the large walrus haul-outs occurring (apparently) on the Russian “side” as well. Their protection of the walrus is centered on controlling panicked stampedes among the large haul outs, which result in crushed calf walruses. The walrus portion of this video starts at 1:29, although there are some disturbing images of dead walrus – so this one’s probably not for the younger kids.

The Umky Patrol highlighted here is in Russia – but we’ve got the same issues going on in Alaska. In fact the Chuchki apparently recently visited their counterparts in Alaska to share expertise and hopefully extend the protective efforts to “our” fragile Arctic animals as well.

Chukotka, by the way – is directly across the Bering Strait from Alaska and is the closest Russian territory to the US. That part of Russia that Sarah Palin can “see” from her back porch – it’d be Chukotka. That would make these Pacific Walruses.

For more on WWF’s work in the Arctic, and on the Umky Patrol, visit: http://www.panda.org/arctic