Play or Prey? Watch Walruses Interact With Seabirds | National Geographic

Walruses were observed exhibiting a wide variety of behaviors around seabirds in the Chukchi Sea.
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Walruses have been anecdotally observed attacking seabirds. But now, a study conducted off Kolyuchin Island in the Chukchi Sea, near Russia, shows that at least some walrus-seabird interactions may actually be play behavior, at least on the walrus’s part. Out of 74 encounters witnessed, only one resulted in the death of a bird. The majority of these encounters involved young walruses and also included episodes where walruses would play with dead seabirds that had been dropped by birds of prey or washed in with the tide.

Read more about the complex prey behaviors researchers observed in these walruses, behavior rarely observed in non-human primates.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/walruses-playing-dead-birds-oceans/

Learn more about walruses.
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/walrus/

Play or Prey? Watch Walruses Interact With Seabirds | National Geographic

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