Walruses have a discontinuous circumpolar Arctic and sub-Arctic distribution (Fay 1981, Rice 1998). The Pacific subspecies is normally found from the Bering and Chukchi Seas to the Laptev Sea in the west and the western Beaufort Sea in the east, with vagrants south into the North Pacific Ocean to Japan and to southcentral Alaska (Fay 1982). The Atlantic subspecies occurs in numerous subpopulations from the eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland to the western Kara Sea, including the Barents, White and Pechora Seas, and Svalbard and Franz Josef Land (Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada 2006, North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission, undated). Historically, Atlantic walruses occurred south to the Gulf of St Lawrence in the northwestern North Atlantic. Vagrants have been reported from New England, Iceland and in western Europe south to the Bay of Biscay. All subspecies of Walruses are found in relatively shallow continental shelf areas and seldom occur in deeper waters.