Reader Todd Mackinaw recently admired how the great horned owl can thrive from the Brooks Range in Alaska all the way to Uruguay in South America. The knee-high owl known for its “plumicorns” — tufts above its ears that resemble horns — haunts every forested bit of Alaska. Right about now, in early April, many […]
The four-propeller drone sitting briefly on a rocky and dusty surface in Central America in early March had an impressive diameter of nearly 7 ½ feet. From afar, however, it appeared as just another small rock or outcrop in the steaming crater of Costa Rica’s Poás volcano. This small speck had a big and innovative […]
Spotted seals in some of the most remote marine areas around Alaska are consuming significant amounts of microplastics in their diets, according to a new University of Alaska Fairbanks–led study. The paper, published in the current issue of Marine Pollution Bulletin, analyzed the stomach contents of spotted seals harvested by subsistence hunters in the Bering and […]
Rick Thoman noted in a recent report that the paucity of 2024-2025 snowfall in Anchorage and other Southcentral Alaska locations may be unprecedented in the era of modern records. “For the three locations with 50-plus years of snowfall data, both Anchorage airport and Alyeska had the lowest mid-winter totals, while the Matanuska Experiment Farm was […]