Counting Walrus from Space on World Walrus Day

It's officially world walrus day today, 24th November. Fancy counting some from space?

When you think of wildlife conservation efforts, you might imagine biologists on snow-scooters, tracking animals across ice sheets, or tagging creatures with GPS devices. The innovation behind the “Walrus from Space” project, run by WWF-UK in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and other Arctic partners, flips that script: now you can help to save the Arctic walrus from your laptop.

The Arctic is warming at nearly four times the global average, an alarming fact for cold-adapted species like the Atlantic walrus. Their traditional habitat is sea ice: vast platforms where they haul out, rest, nurse calves, and conserve energy. But as summer sea ice shrinks by about 12.6% per decade, these platforms are now disappearing.

When sea ice vanishes, walrus are forced to rest on land, often farther from their feeding grounds, meaning they must swim longer distances, expend more energy, and face increased risks. Changes in prey species, such as shellfish that struggle in more acidic waters, further complicate the picture.

Add to that rising shipping and industrial activity in the Arctic as it opens up, and you have a species facing multiple threats in an environment where data is scarce. The fundamental question is: how many walrus are there, and how are they faring in the face of rapid change? The answer: we simply don’t know enough yet.

The project launched in 2021 with a striking premise: use high-resolution satellite images across remote Arctic haul-out sites, and invite the public to become “Walrus Detectives”. Participants scan images for walrus, count them, and feed this data back to scientists.

Why satellite imagery? Because vast areas of the Arctic are difficult or impossible to access regularly. Satellites provide frequent, wide-area coverage without disturbing the animals, and also allow consistent monitoring over time. The project’s roadmap spans thousands of miles of coastline across Canada, Greenland and the Norwegian Arctic.

So far, over 11,000 volunteers from 68 countries have reviewed more than one million satellite images. These citizen contributions have enabled scientists to process two years’ worth of imagery and count walrus in one full year of images. 

In addition to the remote imagery, the project team conducted ground-truthing in July 2022 at Ny-ålesund in Svalbard: their scientists used drones and boats to match ground counts with high-resolution imagery and to validate the satellite method.

• Accessibility to action: You don’t have to travel to the Arctic to contribute; if you have a computer and internet, you’re invited to join in.
• Meaningful involvement: Instead of passively reading about endangered wildlife, you get to actively help count individuals, compile data, and fuel conservation decisions.
• Connection to remote places: The project offers a window into wild, remote landscapes most people will never visit — making the “articness” of the Arctic real.
• Conservation relevance: The data gathered will shape scientists' understanding of the impacts of climate change on a key Arctic species and inform policy and protection efforts.

Engagement for travellers: If your travel interests include polar regions, wildlife or citizen science, this project offers a natural tie-in, it helps you explore the Arctic intellectually, not just visually.

Although definitive results are still pending, the progress to date is promising: four years’ worth of imagery collected, two years searched, one year counted. 

But the pace of change in the Arctic is anything but slow. As sea ice retreats, haul-out patterns may shift, feeding grounds may degrade, and the resilience of walrus populations will be tested. The “Walrus from Space” project positions itself as a vital tool in tracking and ultimately safeguarding these changes.

For travellers eager to align their journeys with conservation, this kind of project deepens the connection between what you see in the field and the broader environmental story. If you plan an Arctic expedition in the future, you might not just observe the walrus, but also help document their status from afar.

The Arctic holds few greater icons of raw wilderness than the walrus: massive, gregarious creatures lining icy coasts, entirely at home in some of the planet’s harshest places. But as climate change speeds up, even these masters of the ice are being challenged.

The “Walrus from Space” project is creative, inclusive and globally relevant. It provides a real-world way for people everywhere to engage with polar conservation, not simply as spectators, but as active contributors. For wildlife enthusiasts, polar travellers or anyone concerned with how we care for our wild world, this initiative stands out as a model of how technology, public engagement and conservation science can combine to protect the