Pacific Walrus

Some 35,000 walrus gather on shore near Point Lay, Alaska. Pacific walrus looking for places to rest in the absence of sea ice are coming to shore in record numbers on Alaska's northwest coast.

(Corey Accardo, NOAA via Associated Press)

A lack of Pacific sea ice is forcing walrus to mass on a beach in Alaska in record numbers, according to news reports.

More than 35,000 walrus were "hauled out" Saturday on a beach near the village of Point Lay, on the Chukchi Sea in northwest Alaska, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

The waters of the North Pacific Ocean are the warmest on record, CNN reports, melting the chunks of sea ice that walrus typically use to as a resting spot while diving for food. Female walrus also use the ice as a place to give birth.

The large gathering was spotted during the NOAA's annual arctic marine mammal aerial survey, spokeswoman Julie Speegle told NBC News by email. Among the thousands of walrus are at least 36 dead ones, according to CNN.

The Associated Press reports young animals are vulnerable to stampedes when a group gathers nearly shoulder-to-shoulder on a beach. Stampedes can be triggered by a polar bear, human hunter or low-flying airplane.

A report from the National Snow and Ice Data Center on Sept. 22 said Arctic sea ice had reached its lowest extent of the year on Sept. 17, the sixth-lowest amount of Arctic sea ice on record, CNN reports.

"It's another remarkable sign of the dramatic environmental conditions changing as the result of sea ice loss," Margaret Williams, managing director of the group's Arctic program, told the Associated Press by phone from Washington, D.C. "The walruses are telling us what the polar bears have told us and what many indigenous people have told us in the high Arctic, and that is that the Arctic environment is changing extremely rapidly and it is time for the rest of the world to take notice and also to take action to address the root causes of climate change."