Four days and 700 miles after departing from Victoria, British Columbia, Team Pure and Wild Freeburd sailed into Ketchikan, making them the winners of the 2017 Race to Alaska.
Oceans
Recreational boating deaths spiked in 2016 in Alaska, Coast Guard reports
Nineteen people died in Alaska recreationally boating in 2016, according to a Coast Guard report released last month. That’s up from just 7 in 2015.
Coast Guard rescues four off yacht run aground near Sitka
The Coast Guard says the yacht’s passengers were retrieved and taken back to Sitka.
7 years after BP oil spill, oyster farming takes hold in South
The “off-bottom” production method, in which oysters are grown in hanging baskets tumbled by waves, is starting to flourish on the Gulf coast — and demand for these boutique bivalves is growing.
Study: Exxon Valdez oil spill didn’t cause Prince William Sound fisheries crash
A recently published scientific study says the 1989 Exxon-Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound is less to blame for salmon and herring declines than previously thought, but critics say it’s not that simple.
Melting ice keeps polar bears in perpetual motion, study says
A new U.S. study of polar bears off Alaska’s coasts says faster-moving sea ice brought on by rapid global warming is adding to the animals’ physiological stress. That adds to problems for polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea, research ecologist George Durner said.