Walruses on a beach are recorded by a robotic camera on Round Island, Alaska.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A popular webcam showing large male Pacific walruses lying on the beach with a Hitchcockian number of seabirds flying overhead is once again streaming to the Internet.

The high-definition stream from Alaska’s remote Round Island had been dormant for nearly a decade after private funding ran out, but a high-definition version is back now, thanks to a philanthropic organization that operates a series of nature webcams from around the planet. The walrus cam, part of the Pearls of the Planet series, can be viewed at: http://explore.org/live-cams/player/walrus-cam-round-island.

A monetary grant from explore.org, along with other donations this year, have had an unintended benefit for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

The funds are allowing the Alaska state government — struggling financially because of low oil prices — to put two paid staff members on the island about 400 miles southwest of Anchorage to not only welcome the handful of visitors it gets every year, but also to help prevent boats or aircraft from spooking the 2-ton walruses and sparking a stampede.

If the donation hadn’t come through, Round Island would have been closed to visitors this year.

“It was just serendipity,” said Charlie Annenberg Weingarten, vice president of the Annenberg Foundation and founder of explore.org. “I would have done it anyway, but this is really a cherry on top, knowing we were able to assist them in furthering their research, their love of their work and be able share with the people.”

The state Department of Fish and Game worked with a private donor in 2005 to stream images from Round Island, part of the Walrus Islands State Game Sanctuary. The feed was sent over the Internet and featured at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, another donor this year, where it was widely popular with visitors.