ATTU ISLAND, Alaska – Against the backdrop of a crisp, blue sky and snow-scattered mountains, a bright orange excavator sharply claws at the earth near Massacre Bay. With each dip of its bucket, contaminated soil, tar and old, rusted diesel drums are unearthed from their decades-long resting place. Once a bustling active military site, the […]
Anchorage, AK—In the dead of winter, the arrival of spring and the return of Alaska’s migratory birds seem like a long time off. But don’t despair; a colorful reminder of our departed feathered friends, the 2016 Alaska Migratory Bird Calendar, will soon be available for free at 13 participating U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offices […]
“If only animals could talk,” said Veronica Padula, a UAA graduate student researching seabird decline in the Aleutian Islands, “then they could tell us what’s wrong with them.” Instead, Padula and ecology professor Douglas Causey must take the long path to an answer—research that involves lengthy and stormy boat treks through the Aleutian archipelago right […]
MIDDLE FORK, CHANDALAR RIVER — Two-hundred miles straight north of my home in Fairbanks, I’m at the northern edge of a forest that carpets the continent all the way to Labrador. Here for a meteorite search with an astronomer, I have helicoptered into a place humming with life. This dark spot on the nighttime map […]