Their bodies cooling with the October air, wood frogs are now snug in leafy blankets all over Alaska. Down there inside those thumb-size frogs, even smaller creatures are hitching a ride. These tiny parasites have the power to make frogs develop up to a dozen extra legs, or no legs at all. Don Larson just […]
With a whisper, middle Alaska is undergoing its biggest change of the year. Billions of snowflakes waft to the dark, wet ground, linking their spiky, broken arms as they collide, settling into a white cushion. The great albedo change of 2019 might be here. Snow is covering this part of Alaska that gets coldest in […]
More than 100 volcanoes pimple the adolescent skin of Alaska, spreading from ear to ear. Some are loud, flamboyant and obnoxious. Others are sneaky and quiet, escaping notice until a pilot sees a gray plume that wasn’t there yesterday. Because people live on the slopes of these volcanoes and thousands more fly through their blast […]
After reading my column about biologists who once stocked a Southeast Alaska island with wolves, a reader mailed me a book. In it, the author detailed people’s attempts to import raccoons, wild pigs and other creatures to Alaska. In addition to well-known events like the recent introduction of wood bison to the Innoko River country, […]