The State - News from Jan. 11, 1987

A walrus skull snagged in a fisherman’s net off the Northern California coast indicates the big tusked mammals once roamed much farther south than believed, according to scientists. Today walruses are found only in the Arctic Ocean more than 3,000 miles north of where the skull was dredged up by a fisherman in 340-foot deep waters at Cordell Banks, a rich fishing area about 20 miles off the coast northwest of San Francisco. Researchers at the California Academy of Sciences said the skull has not been dated but may be as much as 27,000 years old.