Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

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

Metadata Updated: September 16, 2025

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.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 16, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 16, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-asc589
Data Last Modified 2024-06-07T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id a497c173-6060-4a8e-a820-f3b50e17e4b9
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial 172.21, 56.34, -161.06, 71.38
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash fe1a2714aeb3606fe19164f7179dfacb08e2efa4423190f513d85cef54a1d205
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": 172.21, 56.34, 172.21, 71.38, -161.06, 71.38, -161.06, 56.34, 172.21, 56.34}

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.