Dozens of walruses were found dead earlier this month at their seasonal haulout near Point Lay. The findings came just about a day after locals said they saw an airplane they believed to be flying inappropriately over the herd, which comes to shore each year once the sea ice recedes past the continental shelf and it becomes too deep for them to feed.

Several hundred Pacific walruses have started to gather on an island off the northwest coast of Alaska — the earliest the animals have been observed leaving the water for the annual ritual, according to federal wildlife officials.

Walruses over the last decade have come to shore on the Alaska and Russia sides of the Chukchi Sea as sea ice diminishes because of global warming.

Pacific walruses are beaching on Northwest Alaska shores, peppered with bleeding skin legions that have been observed on dying ringed seals in Arctic Alaska, according to federal biologists.