Sustaining a healthy human-walrus relationship in a dynamic environment: challenges for comanagement

Native communities in the Bering and Chukchi seas have long relied on walrus for a multitude of nutritional, social, and cultural needs. Impacts to walrus in the past have resulted in profound consequences to these communities. For example, on St. Lawrence Island during the 1878-1880 "Great Famine" as many as 2000 people (> 90% of the island's population) starved after the walrus herds were decimated by Yankee whalers. Loss of walrus was further confounded by a wave of fatal contagion and difficult hunting conditions attributable to short-term climatic changes. Today, the ability of coastal hunters to access, harvest, transport, store, and utilize walrus is still affected by a dynamic suite of endogenous and exogenous factors, including ecological, social, economic, and political conditions. Impacts specifically as a result of changing climate will affect Native Alaskan hunters within the context of these diverse and sometimes global factors. The Eskimo Walrus Commission (EWC) works within a comanagement agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to address these challenges. However, the EWC's goals may differ from the USFWS within the current comanagement and policy context. Whereas the USFWS is primarily interested in walrus population health (assessed through estimates of population size and native harvest), EWC is primarily interested in a broader scope, encompassing the health of the human-walrus relationship. New scientific tools associated with the study and management of linked human-ecological systems may provide a framework within which to address these goals. Here we present an overview of the challenges, needs, and research relating to climate change that are of interest to the EWC and in particular, the sustained health of the human-walrus relationship.