Adult walrus are huge. They are the third largest carnivoran species after both species of Elephant Seal.
More than that though is where their weight is distributed. The hide is thick, up to 4 inches (10 cm) around the neck and can make up 20% of the weight of a walrus. Then there is the blubber layer beneath that which can be up to 6 inches (15 cm) thick.
One solid hit from an adult walrus tusk will put a bear down. Those things are as thick as a man's forearm.
There's this 2 minute video that shows that walrus are seriously dangerous for polar bears to attack. The footage looks like it was a female that struck the bear going after her offspring.
That being said, anything that is not a healthy adult is fair game. Sub-adult, juvenile, young and sick adults would be vulnerable to predation. All walrus are still very much scared of polar bears and would much prefer to flee than fight.
Also, when I made that initial post, I actually forgot about the size difference between the Pacific and Atlantic subspecies of Walrus. All the size estimates I remembered were for the Pacific population, which is noticeably larger than the Atlantic population.
The Atlantic population, even adults, are more on par with large polar bears in terms of size, leading to this footage from Russia that I only just found when I was looking for that previous video. Lol.
The guy doesn't mention where in Russia the footage is from.
So in the Atlantic side of the Arctic, everything out of the water is on a polar bear's menu. In the Pacific, only fully grown healthy adult Walrus are too dangerous.
More than that though is where their weight is distributed. The hide is thick, up to 4 inches (10 cm) around the neck and can make up 20% of the weight of a walrus. Then there is the blubber layer beneath that which can be up to 6 inches (15 cm) thick.
One solid hit from an adult walrus tusk will put a bear down. Those things are as thick as a man's forearm.
There's this 2 minute video that shows that walrus are seriously dangerous for polar bears to attack. The footage looks like it was a female that struck the bear going after her offspring.
Also, when I made that initial post, I actually forgot about the size difference between the Pacific and Atlantic subspecies of Walrus. All the size estimates I remembered were for the Pacific population, which is noticeably larger than the Atlantic population.
The Atlantic population, even adults, are more on par with large polar bears in terms of size, leading to this footage from Russia that I only just found when I was looking for that previous video. Lol.
Thanks for the detailed post. Highly appreciated. Learned a lot of new things with this especially the differences between the Pacific/Atlantic walruses. Cheers mate