During November and December, southward movement is the general 
pattern, but it seems far less purposeful than spring movement. Walruses 
usually appear in the vicinity of St. Lawrence Island late in November. 
Ordinarily the bulls appear first followed by groups of both sexes, mostly 
cows, in early December. By late December most have passed St. Lawrence 
Island and the winter ice pack is well formed. The regular wintering 
pattern is established by mid-January. 
In summing up the migration pattern, it appears that movements 
are largely active, with the females' movements more directed than the 
males’. Walrus movements parallel ice movements, but if necessary the 
animals swim, and even swim against the prevailing direction of ice move- 
ments. Fay believes that the range reduction of recent times is hardly 
attributable to climatic change, a view in which Dunbar (1956) concurs in 
relation to the Atlantic walruses. 
Food Habits 
Walruses' food habits, at least qualitatively, are reasonably 
well known. Essentially all authors agree that molluscs supply the bulk 
of the walruses' food. Brooks (1954) noted in addition some echinoderms, 
annelids, sipunculoid worms, priapuloids, and arthropods; none of these 
groups occurred in significant amounts in the diet, however. Occasional 
individual walrus are said to feed on seals, but again, such feeding is 
of ligtle consequence in terms of the food intake of the entire population. 
The amount of food required by walruses is not well known. 
According to Fay (1955), a captive 6-month-old individual was fed approxi- 
mately 20 pounds of solids plus 3 or 4 of liquids daily; an older indivi- 
dual (2% years), when it weighed 1,200 pounds, consumed approximately 60 
pounds of food a day (Spackman, 1958). Stomachs of animals killed by 
Eskimo hunters have been found with over 100 pounds of food. On the 
other hand, Brooks (1954) found that 60 of 71 bull walruses' stomachs 
examined by him at Barrow during August were empty. These rather frag- 
mentary data suggest that at certain seasons the bulls fast or that 
feeding is infrequent, but that rather large amounts are ingested when 
the animals do feed. 
Walruses are evidently capable of feeding at depths as great 
as 50 fathoms (Fay, 1955), but the majority of the foraging is at 30 
fathoms or less. There is no reason to believe that walruses suffer 
from want of food, except perhaps in unusual circumstances such as when 
they may be trapped by ice in a restricted area. The range that they 
occupy is enormous, and almost uniformly shallow and productive; fur- 
thermore, the same area within historic times supported a population 
four or five times as great as at present. 
The young apparently nurse for approximately 18 months or more 
although captive young walruses are able to subsist on solid food by the 
time they are 6 months old. 
