Category Archives: Alaska

Journal of Mammalogy

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journal of mammalogy 2-14Here are the articles of interest in the most recent issue of the Journal of Mammalogy:

If you are in javalina country, learn more about where to find them, based on research in the southern San Andres Mountains, New Mexico

If you have an interest in Great Plains pocket mice, their taxonomy may be more confusing that you think.

If you work at high elevation, it may interest you that pikas may survive by eating things they usually don’t.

How will climate change effect the ecology of the Great Plains? Voles are strongly affected by snow cover, otherwise, it looks like other factors are more important to rodent survival.

If you are concerned with invasive species, particularly honeysuckle, white-footed mice will eat just about any native species before they go for the fruits of an invasive honeysuckle species.

If you work with Indiana bats: they congregate in larger numbers during colder winters, possibly tipped off by late summer weather patterns.

If you work with brown bears: even when they are able to eat an all-protein diet, they will select foods that keep the protein balance in line with the percentage found in other omnivores.

Or, read the entire issue. A subscription or fee is required to get beyond the abstracts.

Smoothing Ruffled Feathers

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It took a long time to sort out, but this week the the federal Justice Department clarified its stand on native people possessing eagle feathers. The policy said that tribal members can possesses or wear feathers from bald or golden eagles. They can also lend, give or trade the feathers or bird parts to other tribal members, as long as money doesn’t change hands.

Further, tribal members can keep eagle feathers that they pick up off the ground, but they can’t kill or harass the federally protected birds to get the feathers. There’s a federal depository for eagles that were accidentally killed, and tribal members can apply to receive feathers or parts from the repository for ceremonial purposes.

The US Fish and Wildlife department also issues a few permits for tribal members to kill eagles for religious purposes.

The Summit County Citizens Voice was the article getting all the buzz. Read the article, here.
You can also check out the Washington Post‘s take on the issue, here.

But now that we have eagle situation solved, other migratory birds are an issue. An Alaskan man was stunned to find out that selling items decorated with bird feathers is illegal, the Anchorage Daily News reports. As a member of the Tlingit nation, he felt that he was just doing what his people had done for generations. He settled the case for a $2,005 fine.

Unfortunately, the article does not clarify how the federal Migratory Bird Act applies to tribal members, but it is likely that the rule is similar to the rule for eagle feathers and parts.

Read the Anchorage Daily News story here.

Photo by Dave Menke, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Avian Malaria in Alaska

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Human beings do not get avian malaria, which is a good thing for the human beings in Alaska. Avian malaria is, however, caused by a parasite that is closely related to the one that causes human malaria, and that might be a good thing, too. Of course, the news for birds is bad all around.

A study by San Francisco State University researchers, published in the journal PLoS ONE, collected blood samples from birds in Alaska over a latitudinal gradient in Alaska, from 61°N to 67°N, and found the avian malaria parasite as far north as 64°N.

This is a huge threat to the Arctic’s rich bird life, because the birds there have never been exposed to avian malaria and they may be highly susceptible to it, says San Francisco State University Associate Professor of Biology Ravinder Sehgal, one of the study’s co-authors.

The finding may supply medical researchers with a valuable model of human malaria and climate change. The spread of malaria (the human kind) is one of the most threatening aspects of climate change on human health.

For anyone charged with managing populations of wild birds — whether they are songbirds, water fowl or upland game birds, the presence of avian malaria at up to a latititude of 64°N is worth noting in hunting plans, endangered species recovery plans, and when investigating disease outbreaks in birds.

Read the PLoS ONE paper, here. (This is an open access journal.)
Read the SF State U press release, here.
Read a brief analysis of the findings in Climate Central, here.

Photo: SF State Associate Professor of Biology Ravinder Sehgal holds a Common Redpoll, one of several bird species in Alaska researchers discovered were infected with malaria. Credit: Ravinder Sehgal, SF State.

New Research on Avoiding Bear Attacks

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Bear researcher Tom Smith of BYU“If you act appropriately and you carry bear spray, you are much better off than just blundering into bear country with a large firearm,” said Brigham Young University researcher Tom Smith in a university press release.

Smith has a paper out in early view in the Journal of Wildlife Management that details the findings of his research into bear attacks in Alaska. He believes his findings apply to bear attacks elsewhere too.

The research confirms some old tips (such as “hike in a large group”), but also has some findings that may be controversial regarding guns versus bear spray — a particularly important topic now that guns are allowed in national parks.

As reported in the Jackson Hole News & Guide, people carrying firearms were more likely to be injured by a charging bear than were people carrying bear spray. The amount of bluff charges against both people carrying either firearms and bear spray is reportedly equal. Apparantly, what happens during the bluff charge is key. And firing a gun seems to drive the bear into a real attack.

Smith says in two different newspaper interviews that when it comes to avoiding injury in bear attacks, it’s not which firearm you carry, but how you carry yourself.

Read one BYU press release with lots of tips through EurekAlert, here.
Read a BYU EurekAlert press release that focuses on debunking bear spray myths, here.
Read the Jackson Hole News & Guide article on the study here.
Read the article in the Billings Gazette, here.
Journal of Wildlife Management article here (fee or subscription required)

Photo: BYU bear biologist Thomas S. Smith published a study on the effectiveness of bear spray for deterring aggressive bears. Here he is pictured with an unconscious “mother” polar bear – “If she were conscious, she’d be holding me,” Smith said.  Credit: Thomas S. Smith

Deep Snow Means Moose Troubles in Alaska

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Alaska is on pace to have twice as many moose die from being struck by cars and trains than in a typical year, an article in the Anchorage Daily News says. Deeper-than-typical snow cover is luring the moose on to plowed roads and railroad tracks, where walking is easier, so they burn fewer calories.

Read the article from the Anchorage Daily News here.

Some 600 moose have been killed by cars and trains in just the south-central region of state this winter, says another Anchorage Daily News article. That article says that the Department of Fish and Game issued a permit to the Alaska Moose Federation to feed the moose hay, and to create trails between natural feeding areas in an attempt to keep the moose out of the roads and off the railroad tracks.

The issue is public safety, the article says. Alaska has plenty of moose, but the danger to human life and property from moose collisions is severe.

With the balmy winter weather in the lower 48 this year, Alaska’s moose problem may seem exotic, but you never know where and when the snow might fall or what cervid might take to the roads in response.
** More on Moose **

Read much more about the Alaska moose-in-roads issue in the outdoors column of the Alaska Dispatch. This lengthy article is filled with details about the moose feeding action, including Norway’s very different take on the problem, and offers links to articles in the Los Angeles Times and Charleston Gazette that had a “save the moose” angle.

Photo: This moose was photographed in the parking lot of the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Anchorage office in 2006. Photo by Ronald Laubenstein, courtesy of the USFWS

Bosses say: Don’t Talk; Don’t Conserve

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A bit of irony: "Prepared in Mind and Resources"In South Carolina, a member of the state’s wildlife commission has told a member of Department of Natural Resources to stop participating in the state’s Savannah River Maritime Commission, which is charged “to represent this State in all matters pertaining to the navigability, depth, dredging, wastewater and sludge disposal, and related collateral issues in regard to the use of the Savannah River.” (See full text of S.C. state code, here.)

It’s also one of several entities suing to stop the dredging of the Savannah River, The State newspaper of South Carolina reports.

Read all the details in The State article, here. (As well as some details about the sudden retirement of the state’s DNR chief after 37 years on the job.)

In Alaska, the commissioner of the state’s Department of Natural Resources wants to remove the words “conserve,” “enhance,” and “future generations” from the department’s mission statement, the Anchorage Daily News reports.

Since the the old mission statement said (according to KSKA, Alaska public broadcasting) that the department’s mission is: “To develop, conserve and enhance natural resources for present and future Alaskans,” That leaves, “To develop natural resources for present Alaskans.”

The change was proposed on Jan. 17.

Alaska and RI Ban Felt Waders

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On January 1, 2012, Alaska and Rhode Island became the third and fourth states to ban the use of felt-soled waders in an effort to reduce the spread of the invasive algae, Didymo, and other invasive and noxious aquatic species. (The first two states are Maryland and and Vermont.)

A Missouri rule banning the waders in the state’s trout parks goes into effect March 1, 2012

Read about the Alaska ban in the Alaska Native News, here.
Read about the Rhode Island ban in the Rhode Island Striped Bass blog. (This regulation was passed so stealthily that I haven’t been able to find a brick-and-mortar news organization that covered it.)

Read an older round-up of felt-soled wader news in USA Today, here.

Keep track of the news on felt-soled wader bans on a state-by-state basis at the Center for Aquatic Nuisance Species website, here. (And bookmark the site for future felt-soled wader ban questions.) 

Our previous coverage on the subject is here.

Photo: What’s on your waders? A biologist conducts a fisheries survey in Wyoming. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Banning felt waders

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Maryland, Vermont, and Alaska are the first states to ban felt-bottomed fishing waders in an effort to slow the spread of the algae known as didymo, and other invasive species. (Well, the Alaskan ban doesn’t take effect until next year, but it is on the books.)

Idaho and Oregon tried to ban felt waders, but the legislation didn’t pass, reports this USA Today story on the wader ban. Nevada will consider a ban as part of an invasive species plan, the article says.

Missouri has taken another route. It is using wader washers at the state’s four trout parks. Read all about it in the Missouri Department of Conservation press release. Info about the wader wash stations is half-way down, below the list of phone numbers. One Ozark skeptic opines here, but gives many more details about Missouri’s attempt to slow didymo by educating anglers.

Photo: What’s on your waders? A biologist conducts a fisheries survey in Wyoming. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Alaska says: Please don’t taze the bears

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The State of Alaska has made it illegal for the public to use a Taser on wildlife. The stated fear is “catch and release” hunting — that someone would stun a moose or a bear long enough for a photo op, then release the animal, an article in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports.

The Taser X3W

You might think that the inevitable injury to the “hunter” would nip this practice faster than any law would, but with yet another Jackass movie coming out in a few months, what more proof do you need that some people never learn?

The Alaska law seems wiser with the knowledge that Taser International recently introduced the Taser X3W Wildlife Electronic Control Device, a stun gun specifically designed for wildlife management. (The company’s press release for the product is here.)

It can, and has been, used to haze bears, but it can also be used in place of tranquilizer darts under certain conditions. One suggested use is to stun an animal so that a tranquilizer can be injected more accurately. Another use is to stun the animal briefly (15 seconds is one time I saw), for quick actions like taking a chicken feeder off a moose’s head. (As mentioned in the newspaper article.)

The magazine Wildlife Professional has a review of the use of stun guns on wildlife in its current issue. You can read it here. That article contains a link to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s operating procedures for stun guns.

Photo: TASER International