Tongass Narrows Sunrise
Front Page Feature Photo By RODNEY GAUTHIER ©2017

Photo of the Month PFD: Online filing for the 2017 PFD began at 9:00 am on January 1, 2017 and ends March 31,2017. https://pfd.alaska.gov Ketchikan: Public Meetings Ketchikan: Upcoming Events Historical Ketchikan June Allen Dave Kiffer Louise B. Harrington Ketchikan Weather Ketchikan's Forecast Ketchikan's Historic Weather Nat Weather Service KTN Ketchikan Tides & Currents Search the News Ketchikan Alaska Sitnews RSS widget

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According to a ADF&G news release, Cook Inlet beluga whales, considered a distinct population segment, historically numbered between 1,000 to 2,000 animals. The population declined to a few hundred in the late 1990s, due largely to unsustainable subsistence harvests during the mid-1990s. Subsistence harvests were reduced in 1999, but the population has failed to rebound. In response to petitioning by Cook Inletkeeper and others, the NMFS listed Cook Inlet beluga whales in 2008 as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Surveys in 2010-2014 have since placed the population at 284 to 340 animals according the Alaska Division of Wildlife Conservation.

Under the NMFS recovery plan the ADF&G said, Cook Inlet belugas would be down-listed to threatened status when the population reaches 40 percent of their historic environmental carrying capacity (estimated in the plan as 1,300 whales) and delisted when numbers reach 60 percent carrying capacity. These demographic criteria are problematic because the number of animals in a population is not necessarily an indication of the risk of extinction. Further, the plan includes threats-based recovery criteria that are not measurable and impossible to meet. These issues make delisting Cook Inlet beluga whales under the recovery plan unattainable, which will necessitate a bureaucratically difficult delisting outside of the plan.

The Alaska Division of Wildlife Conservation said, to the NMFS's credit, the recovery plan emphasizes adaptive management, a flexible strategy through which management actions are revised according to new research findings and the response of the beluga population to previous management actions. The NMFS recognizes the plan will require regular updates to account for new information and (hopefully) increased understanding of why Cook Inlet belugas have not recovered.

The Alaska Division of Wildlife Conservation said they are committed to the conservation of Cook Inlet beluga whales. - More...
Sunday PM - January 08, 2017

Alaska Science: The rigors of research in the cold By NED ROZELL - Rod Boertje knew it was getting cold when Park Service rangers took the dogs inside. Boertje, then a graduate student in wildlife biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, was doing a study on caribou in Denali National Park in the early 1980s. Park rangers, saying it was too cold for the sled dogs that had brought Boertje to his study area, mushed the dogs back to a warm kennel. Boertje stayed behind, watching caribou to see what they did in the winter. He’s one of a few scientists who have done field work in Alaska on the coldest days of winter.

Fairbanks endures 40 degrees below zero, when the safest place for field scientists is in front of a computer.
Photo by NED ROZELL

Boertje brought three thermometers with him on his graduate study. He confirmed 60 below while he and another student watched caribou in a valley below.

“It was real marginal,” he said. “You put on all the gear you had to sleep, then got into your 40-below bag. There was still no way to keep warm unless you were moving.”

Boertje says he would never work at those temperatures today, and not just because he’s no longer a graduate student.

“Airplanes don’t work that well and helicopter pilots won’t fly at all,” he said of 40 below temperatures and the ice fog that comes with them.

And the caribou? Boertje said the animals didn’t seem to mind the cold temperatures.

“They had a very similar pattern to summer time. They’d lay down, then get up to graze for about an hour just like they would if it was warm.” - More...
Sunday PM - January 08, 2017