Media

Watch Great Migrations Tonight

The Daily Galaxy alerts us to the following:

Walrus Migration
Walrus Migration Shot

This stunning image of Alaska’s annual walrus migration is from the new National Geographic mini-series, Great Migrations, which will premiere this Sunday in high-definition and include seven episodes focused on the inspirational, often harrowing animal migrations across the globe.

The story goes on to highlight various quotes from articles about current global warming concerns and the major haul-out that has occurred this fall, which we have blogged about int he recent past. In case we get fooled for a minute thinking that walruses are just good models for stuffed animals and amusing cartoon characters, the Daily  Galaxy article ends with the quote:

Unless we dramatically reduce our greenhouse emissions, the walrus is on a trajectory toward extinction

Here’s a link to the entire Daily Galaxy story.

Here’s a link to the Great Migrations page at National Geographic.com (warning this page launches with rather loud advertising audio). My son and I will be tuning into watch this show tonight, and I hope they’ll make it available on-demand, since I’m notoriously bad at watching shows when they are actually scheduled to be on. Oh, it’s on the National Geographic channel by they way.

One more interesting note, to me at least. The photo heading the post, and the Daily Galaxy post, is by Paul Nicklen and is available as Desktop Wallpaper from National Geographic.com and you can buy a photographic print of this photo at the National Geographic photo store at this link. I did! I’ve had this photo framed on my wall for over a year, after I saw it in the print edition of the Geographic (April 2009). So uh, don’t sue me Paul, for using your print on this post – I bought one!

I remember back in the day when the occasional National Geographic special would be a family event, where we would all gather around the TV and wait for that short lead in “Special!” long before cable TV and several constant National Geographic channels. Looking forward to that feeling tonight. I’ll be watching for walruses!

Great walrus illustration print

I stumbled across this print on Twitter the other day – the artist is Scott D. Ferguson (@Sc0tticus). He draws a webcomic called “Nerf This“. I like his illustration style. I’m also beginning to think I’m the only one online that doesn’t currently draw a webcomic…

You can purchase the print at the nerf-this web store at this link. The perfect accessory for any drawing room, library, or old school wood-paneled smoking den festooned with hunting trophies.

Walrus Photo Gallery @ National Geographic

Here’s s a link to the excellent Walrus photo gallery at National Geographic.com

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/photos/walruses

National Geographic has been the gold standard of wildlife photography pretty much my whole life, and these photos are no exception.

Target, there’s no excuse for this….

The $1 aisle at Target, contributing to the American educational experience…

Which one is NOT a walrus?
We have a labeling problem

What’s wrong with this picture?

Royce Cobblepot Video Interview and links!

So as I mentioned in the original post (Royce Cobblepot: Incredible Walrus “Furry” Costume) Royce himself commented on the blog at random prior to my posting about his costume. I asked if he’d be willing to do a short interview and talk about his costume and love of the walrus for our readers, and he agreed!

I wasn’t expecting more than an email response, and would have been very grateful for just that, but Royce greatly exceeded my expectations by creating an incredible interview video just for the site! Here it is:

Royce also provided some additional links in his original email response, including a link to his YouTube channel which is here:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E7698DB86425895B

Thanks Royce! You’re officially a “friend of the blog!”

The Beatles: I Am the Walrus Music Video

I had to link to it sooner or later. No search for the word Walrus on any web search engine, Twitter or anything else will fail to turn up a link to this song. So for you Beatles fans, here’s the psychedelic cartoon video:

AMAZING Underwater Walrus Photography

You have to check out this gallery of amazing underwater walrus photography by Goran Ehlme via the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/sci_nat_beasts_of_the_deep/html/1.stm

Here’s the link. This is amazing stuff. I’m going to do some research on Goran’s work, and I’ll post a followup.

Rotor the Walrus

Rotor the Walrus
Rotor the Walrus

As part of my ongoing quest to make you readers aware of walruses in popular culture, I give you Rotor the Walrus, a character in the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon series. I became aware of Rotor by accident, I’m too old to have watched the Sonic cartoons and never played the games, but my young son has been very into Sonic for some time. One night when I had half an eye on the TV, I noticed Rotor! So here he is. Not as well known as other popular cartoon walruses (like Chumley, which is the most popular search term that brings viewers to this site). Rotor is the mechanical genius of Sonic’s team of “freedom fighters”. He is self-described as a nerd, and this quote appears on his fanclub site (linked below). “If I spend my time working on this, I don’t have to face other people”, which I suppose is a very walrusy sentiment.

Here’s a link to an info page about Rotor:
http://info.sonicretro.org/Rotor_Walrus

Here’s his wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_the_Walrus#Rotor

Rotor even has a fanclub site:
http://sonicsatam.com/thewalrusfanclub/

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