Alaska Salmon Complete a 1,000-mile Journey, and Life

Alaska Salmon Complete a 1,000-mile Journey, and Life By Ned Rozell MOUTH OF THE DELTA RIVER — On a morning with biting air in the single digits Fahrenheit, this river smells like sulfur and is splashy and loud. Bald eagles and ravens swoop in the updraft of a nearby rock bluff in what looks like [...]

Wolves a defining part of Alaska landscape

Wolves a defining part of Alaska landscape By Ned Rozell The wolf tracks appeared as they always do, as a surprise. On a day between fall and winter, with the leaves fallen and browning but the ground not yet hard, I was walking with my dog and an a.m. radio. We were descending a four-wheeler [...]

Finding far-north lynx den part of cycle study

Finding far-north lynx den part of cycle study By Ned Rozell In her study of one of the farthest north lynx populations in North America this summer, Claire Montgomerie used her ears. While looking at the satellite tracker a female lynx was wearing, Montgomerie saw the animal was hanging around a hillside north of the [...]

Dogs Have Made Alaska Home For Thousands Of Years

Dogs Have Made Alaska Home For Thousands Of Years By Ned Rozell When people first walked across the Bering Land Bridge thousands of years ago, dogs were by their sides, according to researchers who wrote a paper published in the journal Science. Scientists from Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles used dog DNA material — some [...]

Discovering A New Dinosaur In Alaska – Pachyrhinosaurus Perotorum

Discovering A New Dinosaur In Alaska - Pachyrhinosaurus Perotorum By Ned Rozell There's a new kind of dinosaur out there, and it lived in Alaska. Its bones, long turned to stone, are part of a cliff in northern Alaska. That's where dinosaur-hunter Tony Fiorillo brushed dirt away from a portion of its massive skull - [...]

Tundra Swans Take Two Distinct Paths to Alaska

Tundra Swans Take Two Distinct Paths to Alaska By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]S[/fusion_dropcap]kiing to work over a persistent spring snowpack, I looked up to see a large white bird flapping gracefully over the spruce tops. A few gentle honks confirmed it was a tundra swan. After a long winter when all the large birds were black, [...]

Life Returns to Alaska’s Kasatochi Island After Volcano Eruption

Life Returns to Alaska's Kasatochi Island After Volcano Eruption By Ned Rozell Nine years after it erupted, Kasatochi Island is just beginning to resemble its neighbors. Kasatochi is a speck in the middle of the Aleutian chain between Dutch Harbor and Adak, about 75 miles east of the latter. The volcanic island had no modern [...]

Are Alaska Ravens Responsible for Wolf Packs?

Are Alaska Ravens Responsible for Wolf Packs? By Ned Rozell People who study animal behavior think they may have found out why wolves hunt in packs — because ravens are such good scavengers. Scientists who watched wolves on Isle Royale in Lake Superior came up with the raven-wolf pack theory after puzzling over a question: [...]

Northern Alaska Lake Trout Living in Mystery

Northern Alaska Lake Trout Living in Mystery By Ned Rozell In early March up on the frozen Arctic Coastal Plain, as the wind sculpts snow into drifts, it’s hard to tell northern lakes from surrounding tundra. But lurking deep beneath that flat white world are toothy predators as long as your arm. In pools 60 [...]

More tropical nights in Alaska’s future?

More tropical nights in Alaska’s future? By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]B[/fusion_dropcap]y the end of this century, Alaskans may be enjoying tropical evening breezes for about a week each year. That's an increase from the almost zero such nights we currently savor. But it could happen, according to a graduate student who has tightened the grids of [...]