A chemical signature recorded on the ear bones of Chinook salmon from Alaska’s Bristol Bay region could tell scientists and resource managers where they are born and how they spend their first year of life. This bone, called an otolith, accumulates layers as a fish grows, similar to trees. These “growth rings” are produced throughout […]
A salmon-rich river in Alaska’s Upper Cook Inlet that would be impacted by development of a proposed coal mine is now listed among the nation’s most endangered waterways. The national non-profit conservation organization American Rivers on April 7 listed the Chuitna River, which flows from the base of the Alaska Range to Cook Inlet, as […]
Under its own power, an earthworm gains about 30 feet of new territory each year. But that does not help explain how worms got to Alaska. “It’s almost geologically slow,” Matt Bowser, said of the earthworm’s locomotion. Bowser, Alaska’s closest thing to an expert on earthworms, is an entomologist with the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. […]
JUNEAU—On Tuesday, the House Fisheries Committee passed House Bill 119 sponsored by Representative Andy Josephson (D-Anchorage). The bill seeks to protect the world-famous Bristol Bay fisheries from the harmful impacts of any large-scale metallic sulfide mine located within the boundaries of the existing Bristol Bay Fisheries Reserve. “In a couple of months thousands of stakeholders […]