Walrus Oil (Alaska Native)

Walrus Oil: Nutrition and Cultural Context

Walrus oil is rendered from the blubber of the Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens), one of the most important subsistence animals for Alaska Native communities of the Bering Sea coast — including St Lawrence Island Yupik (Siberian Yupik), mainland Yupik, and Inupiaq peoples. The walrus is hunted primarily in spring and autumn as it migrates through Bering Strait waters. Walrus provides meat, hide (for boat covers, building material, and clothing), tusks, and blubber in a single harvest — an example of the comprehensive utilisation of subsistence resources characteristic of Alaska Native traditional ecological knowledge. Walrus oil is used for cooking, for dipping dried and fermented foods, and for preserving. As with other marine mammal oils, walrus blubber fat is exceptionally rich in long-chain omega-3 fatty acids and represents a critical nutritional resource for communities in environments where plant-based omega-3 and vitamin D sources are limited. The subsistence harvest of walrus is tightly regulated and limited to Alaska Native communities.