John Ahkvaluk , 56, a polar bear guard revealed that this is not a good sign for the village. It’s the first time in several years that bears come at this time of the year. “It’s a warning that they got no food out there and they came looking for it here,” he said. After the incident, Luchie Manlangit, the school principal, and I invited John Ahkvaluk to talk to the kids and to share some protocols if polar bear will come around again.

There has been a surge of plastic trash that has been washing up on beaches in Nome and across the Bering Strait Region.

St. Lawrence Island, home to two native villages in the region, is also the summer home of several migratory seabird species, including kittiwakes, auklets, murre and shearwaters. Over the last several years, though, the bird colonies on the island have been shrinking, and no one has been able to determine why.

Stormy weather stalled a search and rescue effort on Monday for a man from White Mountain, whose 4-wheeler broke through thin ice at the edge of Golovin Bay on Sunday.

In May and June, dead birds, mostly murres, have been washing up on beaches on St. Lawrence Island, Shishmaref and east Norton Sound.

Back-to-back winter storms hit Nome and the region with very strong, screaming winds and accompanying blowing snow. While the first storm on Friday seemed just like a warm up, the second storm hit the region with very strong winds that knocked out power in Wales, ripped buildings apart in Golovin and brought water levels up 6.73 feet over normal. The high winds also pushed away ice cover.

The community of Gambell fought a distemper outbreak among its dog population this spring and managed to squash the epidemic in its early onset. Distemper is a deadly disease that can afflict dogs and wildlife alike and also has been documented in the North Atlantic to jump from dogs to marine mammals like seals.

Alaska State Troopers said on Tuesday that Curtis Worland, a Court Service Officer for the Nome AST post, was killed by a musk ox in the afternoon.

A week of several freeze and thaw cycles left Nome and the region with puddles on ice and scenes that look more like breakup in spring rather than the customary snowy landscape of December. The rain on ice interrupted normal life in Nome.

For four years in row now, March has failed to deliver glorious weather for spring outings, safe travels and happy hunting. Instead, March has come to be synonymous with dangerous weather condition.

A rough legged hawk got a second lease on life when a Gambell woman and her mother happened upon the injured bird while riding their ATV, coming to its aid and then sending it to a bird sanctuary in Anchorage, where the animal will be nursed to health to be released back into the wild.

Residents across the Bering Strait have continued to report unusual amounts of foreign trash washing up on their beaches. After months of working on the models, NOAA has been able to pin the source of the debris as likely somewhere southwest of St. Lawrence Island in the Gulf of Anadyr.

By Diana Haecker

Starting on the night of Wednesday, November 4, and continuing through Friday, a major storm ripped through the Norton Sound region, causing widespread closures and some damaging flooding.

Researchers stepping off the research vessel Norseman II in Nome last weekend, brought significant news of having found very high concentrations of a phytoplankton called Alexandrium catenella in regional waters. Alexandrium is an algae that can produce saxitoxins, which can cause dangerous paralytic shellfish poisoning in people. The scientists issued an advisory, notifying Norton Sound Health Corporation, UAF Sea Grant and the Alaska Division of Public Health.

Near Nome, reports of seal pups and walrus calves hauled out on beaches are piling up at an unprecedented rate.

The last few weeks have seen another alarming uptick in the number of dead, emaciated seabirds found washed  up on the shores in the Bering Sea.

Three researchers from the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center completed a trawl survey of the Northern Bering Sea in 2017 and found a dramatic increase in pollock. 

Public health officials confirmed that four Nome residents had been hospitalized in early January with preliminary results pointing to poising from foodborne type E botulism from an aged beluga flipper.

By Julia Lerner Richard Jessee, a longtime summer miner, survived an aggressive bear attack near his cabin last week.