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Ships could pose a risk to seabirds migrating through Alaska’s waters. Researchers mapped where ship traffic overlapped with bird traffic to pinpoint areas where flocks are more likely to smack into vessels, a phenomenon called “bird storms.”

In the early 2000s, a group of researchers got caught in a bird storm. Jeff Williams was retrieving fishing nets on a research vessel in the Aleutian Islands when, suddenly, hundreds of fork-tailed storm petrels descended on the scientists. 

Williams leads the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The refuge spans waters from the Inside Passage through the Aleutians and north to the Chukchi Sea. 

“It was around one of the breeding colonies, and we had to have the lights on to retrieve the nets,” he recalled. “It was one of these foggy nights, birds just come flying in.”

The birds seemed attracted to the ship’s lights like moths to a flame. So the scientists shut them off. Then they blew hair dryers to warm up the dazed, wet and cold storm petrels before releasing them. It was autumn, so many of them had just fledged their nests. 

He said the birds fluttered down onto the boat and not many of them died. But other flocks aren’t as lucky. 

“Some birds like eiders … larger waterfowl, they’re flying really fast. If they have a collision with a boat, they’re going so fast that they probably die,” he said. 

Williams said these so-called ‘bird storms’ happen multiple times a year in the Aleutians, especially when massive colonies gather to feed and breed.

But he said there isn’t much data on how many birds actually die when they interact with boats in Alaska’s waters, or how often that happens. 

A paper published in the journal Conservation Biology last month made a first attempt at assessing the potential risk to birds by mapping where they are most likely to interact with vessels in much of Alaska’s waters from the Gulf of Alaska, through the Aleutian Islands to the Arctic.  

Williams said the findings track with what he’s experienced and plenty of anecdotes he’s heard.  

“We’re kind of in the early periods of just recognizing some of that — what’s going on,” he said. “We know it happens. Even on vessels that try to do the right thing, it still happens.”

The researchers overlapped seabird observations from the North Pacific Pelagic Seabird Database between 2006 and 2022 with Automatic Identification System data, which tracks large boats. The analysis included about 1.3 million bird observations and 1 billion vessel location pings from thousands of boats. 

Kelly Kapsar, a postdoctoral researcher at Michigan State University, crunched the data and made a risk score from zero to 100 based on the overlap.

“If it’s zero, no seabirds there, no vessels,” she said. “One hundred was the maximum amount of seabirds and the maximum amount of vessels that we saw.”

She found bottlenecks where that overlap was highest, and two spots jumped off the map: Unimak Pass and the Bering Strait. Auklets, shearwaters and northern fulmars were most exposed to vessel traffic in these areas.

Unimak Pass is a narrow pathway through the Aleutian Islands notorious for its frequent bad weather and ship wrecks. It’s one of the primary routes for cargo ships traveling between Asia and North America, and oil tankers moving south from the Arctic. The Bering Strait separates Russia and Alaska and is an important international pass for ships heading for the Arctic Ocean.

Marine traffic is increasing. As the climate warms, some productive fisheries are shifting north and Arctic sea ice is melting, opening up the high latitudes for longer periods. 

The International Maritime Organization established areas to be avoided through Unimak Pass and the Bering Strait in an effort to reduce ship wrecks and damage to the environment. But there is no guidance for where or when crews should adjust ship lights to avoid attracting birds.

Ben Sullender, the director of geospatial science at Audubon Alaska and one of the authors of the paper, said these passageways are vital for millions of migrating seabirds. He suggests measures ships could take to try to avoid them. 

“Make sure that that light is aimed at the deck where you need it, not up into the sky where it can draw in birds from a much further area,” he said. “There’s other things like changing the wavelengths of the light,” since some birds can be attracted to higher-energy wavelengths on the light spectrum like blue, green and ultraviolet. 

But he said this research is simply a first stab at seeing where the overlap could become a conservation problem. The study doesn’t identify any actual impacts of vessels on birds, he said, since there wasn’t enough data to analyze that statewide. 

The analysis also did not include Southeast Alaska due to data gaps, but the research team is hoping to make similar maps for the region in the future.

Alaska State Troopers are asking Kenai residents to be on high alert after a bear attack left a jogger seriously injured on Tuesday morning.

The attack occurred in a neighborhood near the intersection of Chinook Drive, just west of the Kenai Spur Highway. According to a trooper dispatch, a 36-year-old woman was attacked near her driveway at around 5:45 a.m. She was later found by a neighbor and flown to an Anchorage hospital.

Officials with the Kenai Police Department and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game assisted troopers in searching for the bear. Troopers say the bear has not yet been found, and will continue to search the area. It is unclear what type of bear caused the attack.

Troopers say residents should be cautious when going outdoors. They recommend supervising pets and children, and securing attractants like trash or food. If you see a bear, troopers say keep a safe distance and do not approach it.

Communities in Southeast Alaska are ramping up calls on the federal government to better manage the region’s booming sea otter population and its impacts on key fisheries.

The City and Borough of Wrangell approved a resolution in July urging federal agencies to work together with Alaska Native tribes and the state to address the proliferation of sea otters across Southeast.

Around the same time, the borough called on more than a dozen other governments and organizations to follow suit. So far, at least two communities have: Petersburg is considering a similar resolution, and Haines approved one last month.

The concern largely revolves around sea otters’ impact on species that are crucial for commercial and subsistence fishermen in Southeast Alaska. Critics say the otters’ eating habits are leading to the decline of species ranging from crab and oysters to sea cucumbers and abalone.

“In the 60s and 70s, you could drop a crab pot anywhere in Glacier Bay and catch all kinds of crab,” Haines Borough Assembly Member Craig Loomis, who supported the resolution, said in an interview earlier this week. “Now, it’s almost impossible to catch a crab.”

There is some scientific research that backs up the general concern. That includes a study from 2013, which found sea otters were escalating the decline of sea cucumbers.

But there’s still a long list of questions around the animals’ ultimate impact on the marine ecosystem and fisheries more specifically.

A paper published in 2024, for instance, concluded that while “the initial reintroduction of sea otters to Sitka Sound coincided with a notable decrease in abalone numbers,” the ongoing implications of otters on abalone are “much less clear and direct.”

What is certain is that the region’s sea otter population has increased dramatically since the 1960s, when the state reintroduced them. That happened after the species nearly disappeared amid the Russian fur trade.

The most recent population survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that there were around 22,000 otters in the region in 2022 – more than double the estimate back in 2008.

According to the survey, the population is still far below the number of otters the region should be able to support: 48,000.

Still, commercial and subsistence fishermen have reported major consequences from the repopulation for years. In Wrangell’s regionwide call to action, for instance, the city and borough manager wrote that the issue is at a “breaking point” in the community, and has led to the “near-collapse” of once-abundant crab fisheries and dive harvest areas.

Robert Venables, the executive director of Southeast Conference, said the population has also hit mariculture farmers.

“There was one that told me they felt like they were setting a cafeteria because they were being raided on a regular basis,” he said.

Notably, surveys and local observations indicate otters so far have not established a major presence in the Upper Lynn Canal, near Haines. But Loomis, the borough assembly member, says he’s concerned that will change.

“Now, are the sea otters coming this way? Absolutely,” Loomis said.

Similar efforts go back years

The resolutions coincide with a proposal last month from Alaska U.S. Rep. Nick Begich to roll back parts of the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act.

That law covers mammals, including sea otters. That means they are managed by the federal government and can only be hunted by coastal Alaska Native people for subsistence or traditional crafts.

The recent Southeast resolutions call on federal agencies to develop new management plans, provide disaster assistance to impacted fisheries and loosen restrictions that limit how Alaska Native hunters can use sea otters.

“The federal management mandate does not really allow an aggressive approach to managing that species,” Venables said. “So Wrangell’s taken the lead on that, and Southeast conference and others have spoken out in support. ”

It’s far from the first time the issue has come up. Communities, crabbers and dive fishermen have raised concerns about the issue and sought relief for more than a decade.

As recently as 2023, officials in Ketchikan pressed the Alaska Board of Game to devise a management plan for otter populations. The board dismissed the proposal given that the sea otters are protected under federal law.

And in 2019, federal and state officials gathered with scientists, fishermen and tribal groups to pinpoint potential solutions. That meeting resulted in a document that indicated next steps could entail more research, developing local harvest plans, and seeking funding to launch a sea otter skin sewing program.

When asked for comment, staff at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service passed along several resources related to sea otter management in Southeast but did not respond to questions about the resolutions or the issue more broadly. Staff at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game declined to comment and directed KHNS to the federal agency.

A dead humpback whale calf washed ashore near Douglas Harbor over the weekend. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials completed a necropsy, but don’t yet know how it died. 

The dead whale drew a somber crowd Saturday as officials collected the animal.

Frank Lynn Pierce was one of the onlookers. He’s a local photographer who’s lived in Juneau for nearly 50 years. He says it’s odd to see humpbacks in Gastineau Channel.

“I’ve been documenting this unusual situation,” he said with his camera in hand. “I’ve never seen a whale in this area before, let alone a dead one.”

As the tide came in, Pierce snapped pictures of the bloated male calf. It was upside down, bobbing partially out of the water. 

Julian Caballero was among the crowd watching. 

“It wasn’t even that bloated a couple hours ago, so it must be pretty fresh,” he said. 

He said it’s sad to see such a young whale dead. He saw NOAA researchers tie a buoy to the body, and then a U.S. Coast Guard boat towed it through the channel to an area where researchers could do a necropsy. 

The NOAA Fisheries Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network completed the examination on Sunday. But Jennifer Angelo, a communications manager for NOAA Fisheries, said the tissue samples that help determine the cause of death can take months to analyze in a laboratory.

Two black bear cubs were electrocuted to death after climbing a utility pole in downtown Juneau Monday night, temporarily knocking out power in part of the Flats neighborhood.

Juneau residents have seen the family – three cubs and a mother bear – wandering downtown in recent weeks.

Tara Thornton witnessed the incident on West 12th Street around 11:00 p.m. 

She said she heard people hollering and saw a car turn around in her driveway, so she went outside and saw that a bear had made a mess of the trash. As she and her husband cleaned up, they heard a zap.

“Moments later, we see a bear cub fall from the top of the telephone pole,” she said.  

The cub died. Thornton said people gathered around to see what was happening, which didn’t help the situation. She and her neighbors tried to direct traffic away from the scene so another cub would feel safe to climb down. 

Meanwhile, she said the sow was pacing nearby and trying to carry both her dead cub and its wailing sibling away from the crowd. 

Roy Churchwell, Alaska Department of Fish & Game’s regional management coordinator, and his colleague arrived at the scene after the first cub died. They managed the onlookers.

“We’d ask them to go into their houses and kind of quiet things down, and that was happening,” he said.

In situations like this, he said the best way to protect bears is to give them space.  

But then, the cub that was still up on the utility pole hit the transformer. The electric shock killed it instantly and knocked out power in part of the Flats neighborhood.

Churchwell said it sounded like a gun went off. 

Thornton said this could have been prevented. Now, she wants to see metal sleeves or other barriers go up on the utility poles in town to keep bears from climbing to their deaths.

Churchwell said a third cub survived the ordeal and appeared uninjured with its mother when he was called to respond to the sow chasing someone in the Evergreen Cemetery Tuesday morning. 

It’s been three weeks since the Alaska Department of Fish and Game seized dozens of animals from a popular wildlife attraction outside Haines. But a number were left behind, and now the owner is now calling on the state to return to the property and retrieve them.

Fish and Game reported removing 39 animals from the Kroschel Films Wildlife Center in late June amid ongoing concerns about the facility and the animals it houses. But a recent inventory lists closer to 60 animals, which leaves about 20 unaccounted for.

The discrepancy is the latest dispute in a years-long saga between the agency and the center’s owner, Steve Kroschel, over animal welfare and permitting concerns at the popular tourist destination.

The facility has been closed for nearly a year after losing its required permits. Fish and Game and Alaska Wildlife Troopers raided the center last month after executing a search warrant that indicated Kroschel is under investigation for animal cruelty. Two animals died during the operation.

“We’re working on just going back through and double-checking to determine how many of each species still remain there,” said Ryan Scott, who directs the department’s division of wildlife conservation.

Kroschel, for his part, is calling on the agency to retrieve the rest of the animals as soon as possible.

In a Wednesday email exchange with Fish and Game seen by KHNS, he raised concerns over animals that were left behind – and about others he thinks escaped, including several weasels and an arctic fox.

“What is important is that you and those under your direction finish what you have started,” he wrote. “Animals require care 24 hours a day 7 days a week.”

Reached via text on Thursday evening, Kroschel reiterated that point.

“How the heck do they think I am supposed to maintain freezers, phone, time, care, etc without any revenue for a year now?” he wrote, in a nod to the revocation of his federal permit to operate last summer.

Kroschel is not currently at the facility. He said he is in Russia working on a documentary, but that another staff member is on site and caring for the animals.

The agency says it’s working to resolve the discrepancy and always planned to return for the rest of the animals.

Asked why that hasn’t happened yet, Scott, of the wildlife conservation division, said, “there’s more at play there that I can’t discuss.”

He said he doesn’t have any information about animals escaping, adding that staff were “extremely careful” during the operation to avoid that.

Scott also said that as he sees it, it’s Kroschel’s responsibility to take care of any remaining animals.

“We took over two-thirds of the animals, so that leaves a whole lot of resources for what he has left,” Scott said. “In my opinion, it’s his responsibility to maintain care for them until we can get there to take them.”

The agency said earlier this week that 37 animals have been temporarily placed in three Alaska facilities: The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Portage, the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage and Bird TLC in Anchorage.

The agency added that some of the animals will remain in those facilities permanently. Others could be moved elsewhere, such as educational facilities in Washington, Minnesota, Colorado and Canada.

An Alaska Wildlife Troopers spokesperson said the investigation is ongoing and no charges have been filed.