Social animal needs contact to survive

Everybody needs a shoulder to lean on now and then. A walrus calf at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, Alaska, is getting one 24 hours a day.

Twenty trained staff members, working in pairs, are touching, massaging and cuddling a calf all day and all night as part of its recuperation. The calf, estimated to be about 6 weeks old, was found last month without its mother several miles outside Nome. Walrus are highly social and spend two years with their mothers, said Jennifer Gibbins, marketing and communications director for the centre.

“They need constant contact,” Ms. Gibbins said. “Part of the caregiving is providing that constant contact and tactile interaction. The calf was spotted in mid-June on the deck of a mining barge.

“He weighed 54 kilograms and was severely dehydrated,” Ms. Gibbins said.

The calf initially was fed with a tube down its throat that sent food directly to the stomach. The calf now sucks down up to a litre of formula seven times a day. As the calf rehydrated and recuperated, he became more active. He now weighs 65 kilograms. The cuddling is critical, she said.