The Arctic Report Card—a compilation of northern science by researchers from all over the planet, most of them doing work in Alaska—came out in mid-December at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Chicago.
New research by UAF and Audubon Alaska found that nearly 300,000 birders spent about $378 million in 2016.
The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center near Portage received a $250,000 grant from shipping firm Matson to fund an Ocean Education Center on the shore of Turnagain Arm.
At the beginning, in late March of 2019, there were two characters in the drama: the dark-eyed female, smaller of body, her sides black as well as orange; and the dashing male. He was larger, his coat a brilliant orange, with black highlights on his flowing tail, feet and ears.
The Alaska blackfish is an evolutionary loner that fins through lakes and tundra ponds across much of the state. Not much larger than a banana, the fish is different from others in the state because in addition to gathering oxygen through its gills, it can pull oxygen from free air.
In addition to helping with oil spill response, Alaska ShoreZone data assists with fisheries research, recreation reconnaissance, climate change research, and even helping calibrate drone software for NASA.
Most of the large animals that have walked the surface of Earth the last 100,000 years are no longer here. Why?
New seafloor maps show for the first time the course of ancient ice masses. They show how they shaped essential habitat for the western Gulf of Alaska’s abundant fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.
Milan Shipka, the director of the UAF Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, said the transfer reflects a shift in program goals.
In 1960 the Alaska Department of Fish and Game conducted a wolf-planting experiment on Coronation Island in southeast Alaska. Alaska’s only wolf-stocking experiment taught biologists the importance of habitat size.