Background Articles

Warmer winters and thicker layers of insulating snow are spurring creation of more taliks, sections of ground that doesn’t freeze even in winter.

It's become the norm in recent years — the closure of the once-popular recreational salmon fishery on the Yukon River. And it's happening again this summer, for both chinook and chum salmon.

The City of St. Mary’s and its two tribes, the Yupiit of Andreakfsiy and the Algaaciq Tribe, held a community meeting on June 9. There, resident Geraldine Beans said that community leaders chose an optional evacuation for elders and people who are considered vulnerable. Other residents will have to wait. The fire is the largest in the history of the Lower Yukon valley. It’s been burning for a week and a half, since May 31, and has grown to about 50,000 acres.

While mining giant Nornickel has said the local ecosystem is "satisfactory," environmentalists paint a different picture.

By Megan Gannon

It is egg hunting season in many rural Alaska communities, and harvesters want to know if they should be concerned about eating eggs from wild birds. According to guidance from the State of Alaska and USFWS, the risk from avian flu for people is very low.

Cases are being detected all over the state, from the Aleutians to Mat-Su to Haines and the Interior.“What we’re seeing this year is an unprecedented level of highly pathogenic avian influenza in wild birds,” said Andy Ramey of USGS.

Rekordmange båter på fotojakt etter isbjørner. Nå undersøker Sysselmesteren på Svalbard flere mulige brudd på svalbardmiljøloven.

A survey is out and an open house is planned on May 14 for the Fairbanks North Star Borough's Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. A public survey is out, and an open house is planned for 4 p.m. May 14 at J.P. Jones Community Center in South Fairbanks.

As cases of avian flu continue to spread across Canada, B.C. poultry farmers are implementing quarantine measures from the highly infectious virus that can cause mass death in chicken flocks.

The territorial government issued a public service announcement earlier this week, warning people about a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza. N.W.T. hunters say they are worried about harvesting birds that may have the virus.

The advice to hunters, don’t shoot or harvest game that appears sick. If you found an animal injured or dead, just leave it there. When processing, wear rubber gloves and washing the area the game was cleaned on. You should also cook game to an internal temperature of at least 165°F.

Beavers were not previously recognized as an Arctic species, and their engineering in the tundra is considered negligible. Recent findings suggest that beavers have moved into Arctic tundra regions and are controlling surface water dynamics, which strongly influence permafrost and landscape stability. Here we use 70 years of satellite images and aerial photography to show the scale and magnitude of northwestward beaver expansion in Alaska, indicated by the construction of over 10,000 beaver ponds in the Arctic tundra. The number of beaver ponds doubled in most areas between ~ 2003 and ~ 2017. Earlier stages of beaver engineering are evident in ~ 1980 imagery, and there is no evidence of beaver engineering in ~ 1952 imagery, consistent with observations from Indigenous communities describing the influx of beavers over the period. Rapidly expanding beaver engineering has created a tundra disturbance regime that appears to be thawing permafrost and exacerbating the effects of climate change.

While the risk to human health is low, Gerlach has said that avian influenza could pose a threat to not only the state’s domestic birds but also wild birds, including geese, shore birds, vultures and eagles. There’s no treatment for birds that are infected, and the mortality rate for poultry and raptors like hawks, eagles or owls is especially high. Possible signs of infection includes the “sudden death of multiple birds in the flock, nasal discharge, sneezing, and coughing, or respiratory distress."

"Our hunters have a vast knowledge on a healthy bird. They know what a healthy bird looks like. If a goose has the symptoms of avian flu … people shouldn't eat it," said George Diamond of Cree Public Health.

News of avian flu outbreaks in dozens of states in the lower 48 have wildlife managers and bird hunters on edge as the spring migration gets underway in Alaska.

Zoos across North America are moving their birds indoors and away from people and wildlife as they try to protect them from the highly contagious and potentially deadly avian influenza. Penguins may be the only birds visitors to many zoos can see right now, because they already are kept inside and usually protected behind glass in their exhibits, making it harder for the bird flu to reach them.

Copper River Seafoods is ending its run in the old Snug Harbor Seafood plant, leaving one major salmon processor in the area.

On Thursday, for the first time, the sheen was reported in Krestof Sound, an area where Pacific herring are known to spawn in the spring.

Ten years ago, Mike Gibeau, then the carnivore biologist for Banff National Park, identified a problem: collisions between grizzly bears and trains were increasingly prevalent. Between 2000 and 2010, ten grizzly bears there were struck and killed by trains and several more unconfirmed strikes were reported.