Morphological Measures of Pacific Walruses Collected in the Chukchi and Bering Seas 1972-1991

This dataset contains morphological measures of Pacific walruses sampled in the Chukchi and Bering Seas between 1972 and 1991. From 1972 through 1991 the Soviet Union employed industrial methods to harvest and process Pacific walruses to enhance the Russian Far East economy. Under the oversight of the Pacific branch of the Soviet All-Union Scientific Investigational Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO), offshore harvesting crews worked from specialized marine mammal hunting ships (ZRS) throughout the spring, summer, and early autumn in the marginal sea ice habitats of the Bering and Chukchi Seas. They launched small (~7 m) wooden boats to approach walruses resting on ice pans, which were dispatched with standard hunting rifles. Harvested walruses were hauled back to the ZRS vessel for processing. Soviet cruises that contributed data to this dataset include ZRS Zagoriany (1976 spring), Surveyor (1978 spring), ZRS Zubarevo (1978), ZRS Zagorskii (1980 March 6 - April 23), ZRS Zvyagino (1981 February - March), KS Entuziast (1982 July 25 - August 23), ZRS Zakharova (1984 autumn, 1985 March 15 - April 26 and 1987 autumn), ZRS Zaslonovo (1991 March 28 - May 21). Beginning in 1981 harvesting extended into United States waters of the Pacific Arctic with permission of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the auspices of the 1972 Area V bilateral agreement in the area of the environment. This bilateral agreement enabled direct liaison between Soviet and U.S. biologists who then arranged to collaborate collecting data from these offshore harvest efforts that may be used to understand basic walrus biology and monitor changes in their condition and reproductive success. Throughout the harvesting efforts, trained biologists inspected, measured, and weighed walrus specimens that had been landed onto the processing vessel. Harvest locations, observations, and measurements were recorded into numbered journals and standardized datasheets. This dataset contains these data. Originally these data were managed by VNIRO, however, to promote data curation during the post-Soviet period VNIRO formed an agreement with USGS Alaska Science Center (which at the time was the U.S. National Biological Survey) to maintain a copy of these data and provide access to them for studies vetted by representatives of the original data collection agency. This current database is published with permission of the original data curator, Dr. Yuri Bukhtiyarov.