An experienced exhibition guide who has led trips to the Arctic and Antarctic calls the spectacle created by a walrus that hauled itself up on Middle Cove Beach on the weekend shocking and sad.

Wayne Broomfield of Quark Exhibitions told VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly that people were getting far too close to the animal and at one point completely encircled it.

Despite tape put up by DFO officers, people were still getting too close and Broomfield says he’s sure it was all the attention that drove the walrus back into the water.

He believes the animal, which was in poor condition, very thin, and well out of his zone, had likely hauled up on the beach to rest or die and was driven back into the water by all the attention.

He’d like to see future incidents better managed.

Broomfield, who has witnessed many walrus in his time, is leaving for Norway tomorrow to see more walrus in their natural environment.