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 […]
The harbor seals of Alaska’s Iliamna Lake, which make up one of only five freshwater seal populations in the world, have long been a subject of fascination for their separateness from the seals that swim in the nearby ocean waters. Now scientific research has confirmed something that has long been suspected: The Iliamna Lake seals, […]
The Alaska we experience today and our children will experience in the future is not the Alaska of the past. According to the 2024 Arctic Report Card, released this week by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration and co-authored by ten University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists, warming is affecting caribou populations, heat-trapping gas releases and […]
Scientists are using samples from subsistence-harvested bearded seals to establish kin relationships (parent-offspring, siblings) and to produce population estimates. In its first application in Alaska, researchers are using close-kin mark-recapture methods to estimate the size of the bearded seal population. Close-kin mark recapture methods were developed by Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Marine […]