There was a time when Christine Gabriele wondered if she’d ever see one of her favorite creatures again. That 42-year-old female humpback whale — known as whale #219 to Gabriele and other biologists at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve — had been missing from her favorite Icy Strait herring-fishing grounds in Alaska. No one […]
The climate-driven advance of beavers into the Arctic tundra is causing the release of more methane — a greenhouse gas — into the atmosphere. Beavers, as everyone knows, like to make dams. Those dams cause flooding, which inundates vegetation and turns Arctic streams and creeks into a series of ponds. Those beaver ponds and surrounding […]
ALLISON LAKE, ABOVE VALDEZ — Three men dressed in full raingear crept like ants across a bumpy green landscape on Aug. 25, 2023. Using a metal pole that was part of a boat frame, together they lugged a four-stroke outboard motor that seemed to float above the wet greenery. The three men were scientists who […]
Waking to the smell of a wet ashtray (which, as a Child of the Seventies, I can still remember), I knew the wind had shifted. Wildfire smoke hung in the neighborhood. This is not a reason for alarm: The nostalgic scent of vaporized spruce and willow trees is a normal summer sensation here in middle […]