Background Articles

The majestic birds of the far north are traveling as far south as Bermuda.

Tar ball deposition on Goa's beaches affecting marine life, says NIO study on Business Standard. To carry out study the NIO also collected samples from Baga, Candolim, Calungute and Mandrem beaches from North Goa and Velsao, Betalbatim, Colva and Benaulim from South Goa.

For decades, the crab piled up in fishing boats like gold coins hauled from a rich and fertile sea. But the very ocean that nursed these creatures may prove to be this industry’s undoing.Scientists fear ocean acidification will drive the collapse of Alaska's iconic crab fishery.

The village is one of the biggest archaeological sites discovered in the Arctic. Local residents hope the research will tell them more about their ances

By century's end, rising sea levels will turn the nation's urban fantasyland into an American Atlantis. But long before the city is completely underwater, chaos will begin

Add the deadly eastern equine encephalitis virus to the list things we might find more of in our climate-changed future.

Study finds genetic evidence of climate-change adaptation.

There is increasing concern regarding the role of climate change in driving bacterial waterborne infectious diseases. Here we illustrate associations between environmental changes observed in the Baltic area and the recent emergence of Vibrio infections and also forecast future scenarios of the risk of infections in correspondence with predicted warming trends.

Threatening the Inupiat village of Selawik, Alaska, are sinkholes that have formed beside the river that provides the community its drinking water, as well as an important food source.

Management of the fishery for California sea cucumbers Parastichopus californicus in the Pacific Northwest is limited by a lack of natural growth rate estimates.These findings are an important addition to the knowledge of California sea cucumber biology and are valuable for the stock assessment, fisheries management, and aquaculture of this species.

Kays, along with fellow curator Robert Feranec, developed a new kind of carbon isotope test on hair and bone that proved the Sacandaga Lake wolf lived on a diet in the wild, and had never been a pet or zoo specimen fed by humans. Seeing the animal was not a coyote, the hunter gave the wolf carcass to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which called in federal wildlife officials, who confiscated it. The DEC issued a statement saying the study shows federal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials need to reverse efforts to remove endangered species protections for wolves in the Northeast. Said Christopher Amato, assistant commissioner for natural resources, "We continue to believe that natural recovery of wolves in the Northeast is possible and urge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its recent proposals and to update its wolf recovery plan to reflect this new scientific information and support the natural recolonization by wolves." In July 2004, federal officials proposed removing the wolf from the endangered species in the east, due to growing wolf populations from recovery efforts in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Residents of northern Russia, Norway and Greenland were exposed to greater than usual ultraviolet radiation last winter when the Arctic stratosphere experienced its largest ozone hole on record, scientists reported in the journal Nature this week. According to Washington Post science writer Andrew Freedman, the news is surprising -- in part because it may for the first time indicate a link between ozone holes and global warming.

A big chill in the Arctic stratosphere ripped open the biggest ozone hole in Arctic history last winter. But nice blanket of UV-blocking ozone kept Alaska covered up — this time.

Our results showed that local fisheries have negatively impacted the marine biodiversity of the ecosystem causing sharp declines of common dolphins and major fish stocks and weakening the robustness of the marine food web.

A concentration of pelagic sharks was observed in an area of western Queen Charlotte Sound, British Columbia, during systematic shipboard line-transect surveys conducted (2004 to 2006) for marine mammals throughout coastal waters of British Columbia. Surveys allowed only brief observations of sharks at the surface, providing limited opportunity to confirm species identity. Observers agreed, however, that salmon sharks Lamna ditropis (Lamnidae) were most common, followed by blue sharks Prionace glauca (Carcharhinidae). Both conventional and model-based distance sampling statistical methods produced large abundance estimates (similar to 20000 sharks of all species combined) concentrated within a hotspot encompassing similar to 10\% of the survey region. Neither statistical method accounted for submerged animals, thereby underestimating abundance. Sightings were made in summer, corresponding with southern movement of pregnant salmon sharks from Alaska. The previously undocumented high density of these pelagic sharks in this location has implications for understanding at-sea mortality of returning Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp. (Salmonidae) and for assessing conservation status of sharks in Canada and beyond. We recommend that a dedicated Canada-US sightings and biological sampling programme be considered, perhaps under the UN Transboundary Species Fishery programme.

Shorter, milder winters caused by global warming to blame for steady decrease in size of St Kilda sheep, experts say

Ice skating on Goodacre Lake in Beacon Hill Park was a common winter pleasure in the past. Generations of Victorians glided under the Stone Bridge on natural ice and circled the islands in the moonlight.

A parasitic isopod that scientists identified five years ago has all but decimated mud shrimp populations in coastal estuaries ranging from British Columbia to northern California - with the exception of a handful of locations in Oregon from Waldport to Tillamook.

Alaska Wildlife News is an online magazine published by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game