Alaska Bears Harass Unmanned Science Instruments

Alaska Bears Harass Unmanned Science Instruments By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]I[/fusion_dropcap]nterior Alaska is a hungry place — lots of boreal forest and swampy wetlands with big, flat rivers winding through. Wildlife sightings, especially of big mammals, are rare. But a recent video posted by a seismologist makes the Tanana River flats look like the Serengeti. A [...]

Moose Not Easy To See On Big Alaska River

Moose not easy to see on big Alaska river By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]L[/fusion_dropcap]OWER TANANA RIVER — On a day like this 121 years ago, a hungry U.S. Army explorer passed here at the mouth of Fish Creek, where clear water collides with the cloudy Tanana. Henry Allen did not stop to fish. He had food, [...]

Coyotes are everywhere, even in Alaska

Coyotes are everywhere, even in Alaska By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]L[/fusion_dropcap]ast Friday, an email popped up in all the mailboxes of people with the Geophysical Institute: Someone saw what might have been a wolf on the trails north of the UAF campus. "Please be cautious if skiing in the area." A few people responded, saying they [...]

Alaska Polar Bears Walking a Treadmill of Ice

Alaska Polar Bears Walking a Treadmill of Ice By Ned Rozell Stronger winds and thinner ice are forcing Alaska polar bears to work harder to remain in Alaska, according to scientists who have studied increased movements of both sea ice and bears. "There's an energetic cost to stay in Alaska," said David Douglas of the [...]

The Beauty of Alaska’s St. Matthew Island

The Beauty of Alaska's St. Matthew Island By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]S[/fusion_dropcap]T. MATTHEW ISLAND — I'm resting on a mattress of tundra plants that are growing more than 200 miles from the nearest Alaska village. While I have snuck away here to my own private ridgetop, eight other people, all scientists, are somewhere on this 30-mile-long [...]

Wood Bison Settling Home in Shageluk, Alaska

Wood bison settling home in Shageluk, Alaska By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]T[/fusion_dropcap]hese nights, Tom Seaton is dreaming less about red-brown, steaming, humpbacked hulks. He's also getting more sleep, knowing dozens of wood bison that galloped to freedom behind his snowmachine last spring are wandering new country, munching grass and having babies. So far so good in [...]

Alaska’s wildfires and the changing boreal forest

Alaska's wildfires and the changing boreal forest By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]I[/fusion_dropcap]n late July, more than 300 wildfires are burning in Alaska. With burned acreage totals one month ahead of the historic 2004 fire season, summer 2015 is again the year of the wildfire. Many scientists are not surprised. In papers written a few years ago, [...]

NOAA Fisheries rescue harbor seal pup near Juneau

NOAA Fisheries rescue harbor seal pup near Juneau Alaska: [fusion_dropcap]J[/fusion_dropcap]uneau, AK — An orphaned harbor seal pup is in stable condition at the Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) in Seward, after being picked up from a Douglas Island beach earlier this week. When NOAA Fisheries marine mammal experts received a call late Monday morning from two [...]

Spectacled Eiders Overwintering in the Bering Sea

Spectacled Eiders Overwintering in the Bering Sea By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]L[/fusion_dropcap]ike flecks of pepper on chowder, all of the spectacled eiders on the planet are now gathered amid sea ice and steaming open leads in the Bering Sea. "It's a mass of life in this desolate area," said Matt Sexson, who once rode an icebreaker [...]

Dinosaurs in the Wrangell Mountains

Dinosaurs in the Wrangell Mountains By Ned Rozell [fusion_dropcap]T[/fusion_dropcap]he more Tony Fiorillo explores Alaska, the more dinosaur tracks he finds on its lonely ridgetops. The latest examples are the stone footprints of two different dinosaurs near the tiny settlement of Chisana in the Wrangell Mountains. Fiorillo, a dinosaur hunter with the Museum of Nature and [...]