A timely grant means a live stream is back online and Round Island, where 14,000 male walruses gather every year, can welcome visitors once more

Internet users across the world now have access to a remote Alaskan island and its thousands of marine mammals, after the state received a grant to bring a dormant live stream of walruses back to life.

The multimedia organization explore.org provided a grant to the Alaska department of fish and game, that with other donations, allows it to fund a stream of live footage of the creatures on Round Island, in southern Alaska. A private donor helped the fish and game department start a live stream of the island in 2005, but it was cancelled, primarily for lack of funding.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A robotic camera, top right, monitors dozens of walruses on a beach on Round Island, Alaska. Photograph: AP

The money will also allow the state to employ two people on the island, where they will welcome visitors and try to control vehicles from disrupting the walruses – which can be up to 12ft long and may weigh up to two tons. Without the funds, the island would have been closed to visitors this year.

Only 42 people visited Round Island last year, according to the AP, but up to 14,000 male Pacific walruses travel to the island while the females raise pups elsewhere.

Humans who want to visit the island face treacherous conditions.

“Round Island is a remote wilderness far from medical facilities,” the state warns. “Weather can be extreme and visitors are expected to be entirely self-sufficient. You must be in good physical condition to get on to and around the island.”



For everyone else, the camera will be available indefinitely, except for one week where it will be offline while Alaska Natives have a walrus hunt.