The walrus is one of the Arctic’s most enigmatic animals. With three-foot long tusks and a droopy mustache, everyone knows what these marine mammals look like, but few ever see them in the wild. For Kirk Johnson, a paleontologist and Sant Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the walrus has been a creature close to his heart for 40 years.
Join us at the National Museum of Natural History for a screening of PBS Nature Walrus: Life on Thin Ice followed by a conversation between Kirk Johnson and PBS Executive Producer Fred Kaufman moderated by Associate Director for Advancement and Communications Virginia Kromm.
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About the episode:
Follow a paleontologist on an Arctic adventure to uncover the hidden lives of walrus and the threats they face as climate change shrinks the sea ice.
Most of the world’s walrus, about 250,000 of them, live in the frigid seas between Russia and Alaska. Johnson embarks on an Arctic adventure to uncover the hidden lives of these lumbering giants and the threats they face as climate change shrinks the sea ice. He follows the fate of one young orphan, who is rescued and rehabilitated at the Alaska Sealife Center. What kind of future lies ahead for her, and for the walruses in the wild?
