Environmental

Rising mercury levels leave their mark on yellow-billed loons.

Moon Over Homer

Wolf facts

1. In the Harry Potter universe, werewolf Remus Lupin’s name is directly related to the Latin word for wolf (lupus) and suggests an association with one of the founders of Rome, Remus, who was suckled by a wolf. The dual nature of Lupin’s werewolf nature suggests that in the Potter realm, there are two sides to everything.
2. The last wolf in Yellowstone Park was killed in 1926. In 1995, wolves were reintroduced and, after just ten years, approximately 136 wolves now roam the Park in about 13 wolf packs.
3. Currently, there are about 50,000 wolves in Canada; 6,500 in Alaska; and 3,500 in the Lower 48 States. In Europe, Italy has fewer than 300; Spain around 2,000; and Norway and Sweden combined have fewer than 80. There are about 700 wolves in Poland and 70,000 in Russia.

Ermine in Alaska

Ermine are adapted to a wide variety of habitats. It prefers wooded areas with thick understory near watercourses, and often occupies early-successional or forest-edge habitats, wet meadows, marshes, ditches, riparian woodlands, or river banks with high densities of small mammals and adequate subnivean foraging space. Coastal ermine may exhibit a preference for low elevation riparian and marine shoreline and estuarine habitats. They are well-adapted to snowy environments and range into alpine areas. They have been documented year-round living at 2,000–3,000 ft in the Sierra Nevada, California and also successfully inhabit tundra habitats throughout northern Canada and Alaska.

Beautiful Scenery

Bear Viewing

Bird Facts

1. Birds play a central role in many creation myths. Birds are also often associated with the journey of the soul after death or as mediators between the dead and living. They can also appear as oracles or tricksters.
2. The game Angry Birds has sold more than 7 million copies on Apple’s iPhone. The game was made by a team of just four people. It was such a low priority for the company that it took over 8 months to finish.
3. Wind farms kill approximately a half-million birds per year in the United States, according to a 2008 Fish and Wildlife study. Nearly 10,000 birds, almost all of which are protected by the migratory bird acts, are killed every year at the wind farm in Altamont Pass, CA, alone.
4. Approximately 200 people have died since 1988 because of airborne collision between airplanes and birds. Bird strikes cause $300 million of damage each year to aircraft. The first recorded bird strike was in 1905, when Orville Wright’s plane hit a bird and killed it.

Leave No Trace Camping and Hiking

1. Trash your Trash
Put litter—even crumbs, peels and cores— in garbage bags and carry it home or throw it in trash receptacles. Extra food, even apple cores and banana peels can do great damage to wildlife. Did you know it takes up to two years for orange or banana peels to decompose in nature; more than 10 years for plastic bags and more than 80 years for aluminum cans to decompose?
2. Dog Dogma
Use a plastic bag to pack out your dog’s poop to a garbage can. Dog waste can be harmful to the natural environment and can cause the spread of invasive species.
3. Take Only Pictures. Leave Only Footprints
According to U.S. state and national park services, Americans logged 1.6 billion visits to national and state park lands last year. If we all took a memento from nature during those visits, the landscape would change. Fill the memory card on your camera rather than your pockets and leave nature as you found it for others to enjoy.
4. Keep Wildlife Wild
Human food is unhealthy for all wildlife and feeding them can have unfortunate consequences such as drawing them to people and roads and making them sick.
5. Refuse the Makeover
No need for a major remodel of nature. Bring your own lightweight camp or picnic furniture and conveniences such as camp gas stoves, sleeping pads, chairs and lanterns. When you leave, it should look as though you were never there.

Thank You to All Who Have Served

Alaska Brown Bears

Brown and grizzly bears are classified as the same species even though there are notable differences between them. Kodiak bears (brown bears from the Kodiak Archipelago) are classified as a distinct subspecies (U. a. middendorffi) from those on the mainland (U. a. horribilis) because they have been isolated from other bears since the last ice age about 12,000 years ago. “Brown bears” typically live along the southern coast of the state where they have access to seasonally abundant spawning salmon. The coastal areas also provide a rich array of vegetation they can use as food as well as a milder climate. This allows them to grow larger and live in higher densities than their “grizzly” cousins in the northern and interior parts of the state.

Wildlife of Hallo Bay

Come Bear Viewing