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.

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.

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.

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

Strong south winds hit 71 miles per hour in St. Michael, Shishmaref had its sea ice blown away and the Nome Airport saw 0.64 inches of precipitation – mostly in the form of rain - last weekend. The storm that hit on Saturday, Dec. 18 and continued all day Sunday brought the total precipitation for December thus far to 2.04 inches.

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.

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.

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.

Back-to-back blizzards with tons of snow and high winds have hammered Nome since late January and the accumulation of a total of 76 inches of snow is now beginning to take a toll on residents.

Starting last week, regional residents reported numerous dead seabirds washing up on regional beaches. Alaska Sea Grant Agent Gay Sheffield said there were carcasses of murres, puffins, shearwaters and a kittiwake starting on July 28; in Golovin, Solomon, Nome and a dead Little Diomede.

After experiencing an unprecedented closure of subsistence salmon fishing, the Port Clarence district, including Teller and Brevig Mission, is now open for fishing.

By Diana Haecker

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.

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.

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.

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

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. 

High winds that pushed water high up on south facing shores of the Seward Peninsula cause shoreline erosion on the Chukchi Sea coast of Shishmaref, last week.  

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.