I t is summer in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s northern coast where massive ice sheets have fractured giving way to wide swaths of bone-chilling 29 F 1 7 C water About 40 walruses are piled together on an ice floe basking in the sun One small walrus only a few months old croaks and cries Panic-stricken it has been dragging itself around the edge of the ice peering into the dark sea for nearly an hour Earlier while the walruses had been WALRUSES 7
swimming a pod of killer whales had attacked and the young walrus’s mother was killed Alone and unprotected the baby walrus senses doom Nearby an adult female walrus approaches the orphan Her own offspring does not need her milk anymore but the milk still flows At first the youngster shrieks in fear but cold and hungry it follows the female into the water where it takes the nourishment offered by its newly adoptive mother 8 LIVING WILD
