We are happy to announce that Melanie Dufour will be starting work for us this month as our part-time Program Director. Melanie is replacing two part time employees, Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival Coordinator Mallory Primm, who left for a full time job, and media specialist Chessie Sharp who has left the state. Thank you Mallory and Chessie for your great work for Friends. We are hoping that by combining the jobs, both Melanie will be better supported with more hours and Friends will have more of her attention. It is a huge job attempting to manage the largest wildlife festival in the state and support 16 National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska with just a volunteer Board, a few committee members and a part time employee.
Melanie is a long time Homer resident and well connected in the Homer environmental education community. She will be able to hit the ground running on the Shorebird Festival. Melanie has this to say about her new job. “I am so excited to be working with all of the Friends! Sharing the natural wonders of our Refuges and the incredible birds who make the journey to our shores each year is so important for conservation of the same and the gifts that those give to each person who walks on this land, Alaska. I look forward to both sharing new ideas and implementing steps that will assure success and sustainability of Friends of Alaska National WIldlife Refuges.”
Tuesday, September 15, 2020, 5 pm AKDT, virtual only
Take Refuge:
Fire recovery, morels and record visitation define Kenai Refuge’s summer
Please join us on Tuesday, September 15, 2020, 5-6pm (AKDT), for our Friends monthly meeting with featured guest speakers Kenai Refuge Visitor Services Rangers Matt Conner and Leah Eskelin.
After the 2019 summer of the Swan Lake Fire, Kenai Refuge’s visitor services staff were busy planning for repairing fire damage and accommodating morel hunters in expectation of a big post fire morel flush when Alaska’s 2020 travel mandates changed the game and put their work into overdrive. Week after week, for 10 weeks straight, 1000s of visitors found their way out of quarantine to the safety of nature on refuge trails and in its campgrounds. Hear about how the Kenai staff responded to new recreational pressures this summer and rose from the ashes of 2019 to tackle the unexpected challenges of this year.
By David Raskin, Friends President Kenai Regulations
The proposed Kenai Refuge public use, hunting, and trapping regulations and the environmental assessment were released. We submitted comments for Friends (see link on our website). The extensive efforts of many conservation organizations, including Friends, helped to produce more than 35,000 comments to USFWS. Many of us also requested public hearings to rectify the flawed way in which the USFWS minimized the visibility of the release of this program and failed to schedule public hearings. We have been told that these requests are pending approval of a Federal Register notice drafted by the USFWS Alaska Regional Office that would extend the comment period and schedule public hearings. This is a highly political issue, so the bureaucrats in Washington, DC may not allow these to go forward. We will let everyone know what they decide. The Humane Society scientific poll of Alaska residents shows overwhelming opposition to the proposed regulation. This is a very important issue that not only affects the Kenai Refuge but could set undesirable precedents that would negatively impact other refuges.
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Secretary of Interior issued the Record of Decision (ROD) on August 17. The next steps are a call for nominations for a lease sale and an actual lease sale. In their rush to sell leases before the November election, the Administration may shorten the call for nominations from the usual 30 days and proceed quickly to selling leases. The Arctic Refuge Defense Campaign (ARDC) is closely monitoring developments.
On August 24, Trustees for Alaska filed suit in Anchorage Federal District Court on behalf of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, Friends, and 11 other conservation organizations that challenge the Administration’s leasing plan. Read the press release here].This was followed by a similar lawsuit by other conservation organizations that challenged the administration’s application of the 2017 federal tax overhaul that orders oil leasing in the wildlife refuge.
ARDC released the results of a national poll that showed overwhelming national opposition to the Administration’s plan to drill in the Refuge. The ARDC campaign’s highly successful meetings with executives of oil companies, insurance carriers, and financial institutions concerning the dangers of Arctic drilling and the financial risks of supporting such efforts. They have continued their pressure on Bank of America and oil and gas development companies to join the major financial institutions in refusing to fund oil development in the arctic.
Izembek National Wildlife Refuge
Since the June 1, 2020 Federal District Court decision nullified the proposed land exchange with King Cove, road proponents appealed to the Ninth Circuit Federal Court. Trustees for Alaska is handling their appeal, which used similar arguments that were soundly rejected by the district court. We expect the district court decision to be upheld and will be monitoring this closely. If the appeal fails, any new attempt to resurrect the road would require an act of Congress and a signature by the president. Trustees for Alaska and all of our conservation partners remain vigilant for any attempts by the Alaska delegation to have a rider added to other legislation.
Ambler Road
We are following the progress of the federal lawsuit filed by a coalition of conservation groups to stop this damaging road from being built. It would invade the Gates of the Arctic National Preserve and have the potential to disrupt wildlife and habitat that could have major negative impacts on the national park and nearby wildlife refuges. We hope that the lawsuit will halt this costly and destructive project.
Pebble Mine
Army Corps of Engineers performed an unusual about-face, issuing a finding that the Pebble Project failed to provide satisfactory mitigation plans for the proposed mine. This unusual flip-flop b the Corps followed public statements by Donald Trump, Jr., Nick Ayers, former chief of staff to Vice president Pence, and other wealthy mine opponents. All are avid fishermen who want the Bristol Bay salmon protected from this destructive mine. The Corps gave the Pebble project 90 days to propose stream and wetland mitigation plans, but it seems unlikely that they will be able to put together such a plan because of lack of options.
By Mark Bertram, Supervisory Wildlife Biologist, Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge
In recent years, you may have seen a Canada lynx, heard of a lynx sighting from a friend or read about one in your local newspaper.Lynx populations have been high in much of Alaska, so they have been out and about.That population high is fueled by snowshoe hares, the primary prey for lynx.Every decade or so, hare populations skyrocket and then crash.Lynx populations follow the same cycle as hares but lag by one or two years.Interestingly, this predator-prey cycle occurs in sync across boreal Alaska.
Dr. Knut Kielland, with the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, has studied this intimate predator-prey relationship since the 1990s.In 2014, he teamed up with Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge to examine a long-standing scientific theory that the peak of the 10-year hare cycle acts in a synchronous “traveling wave” across the Alaskan and Canadian boreal forest, similar to a rippling wave in a pond.
But just what is it that sets the wave in motion and carries it over thousands of miles through the boreal biome?Weather patterns have been suggested, perhaps related to cyclical sunspot activity, but these patterns are inconsistent.The most likely explanation is long distance movements by predators.Both lynx and great horned owls disperse over 700 miles in search of food.Predators moving great distances from food-poor to food-rich areas could explain these 10-year patterns across the landscape.
Photo by Lisa Hupp, FWS
Kanuti, Koyukuk, and Yukon Flats Refuges and Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve have since partnered with Dr. Kielland and Tetlin Refuge to collectively examine lynx movements across the northwestern reaches of North America’s expansive boreal forest.Our goal is to identify which habitat characteristics are critical as dispersal corridors so land managers can maintain viable lynx populations across Alaska conservation units.To follow lynx movement, we capture lynx in walk-in live traps and attach a radio collar that records location every 4 hours.Every few days, the collars upload stored locations to a satellite, from which we can subsequently download data.
In the past four years, 163 lynx were captured and fitted with radio collars near Tok, Fort Yukon, Bettles, Galena and Wiseman, providing hundreds of thousands of locations.Some lynx stay close to home while others disperse in all directions over great distances (Figure 1).For instance, Tetlin Refuge biologists collared an adult male near Tok in 2017 that took a year-long sojourn through the Yukon and Northwest Territories, eventually settling west of Great Slave Lake, 2,100 miles away!In February 2019, another adult male was collared near Bettles.That April, he headed northwest 550 miles through the Brooks Range to the Chukchi Sea coast near Icy Cape.In May, he beachcombed south for 200 miles, double-backed along the North Slope for 500 miles to the Dalton Highway at the Sagavanirktok River, and then meandered southwest through the Brooks Range.Since October 2019, he has taken a respite in a secluded stretch of the Killik River headwaters.
Movements of 163 telemetered Canada lynx across Alaska and northwestern Canada, 2018-2020
We have recorded long distance dispersals for both young and old, male and female, with daily travel averaging 10 miles and up to 27 miles per day!There appear to be no natural barriers to movement as lynx have trekked across the Brooks and Alaska ranges, and the Wrangell, Cassier and Mackenzie mountains while crossing the formidable waters of the Yukon, Tanana, Porcupine, Copper, Kuskokwim and Mackenzie rivers.Collectively, this collared sample of Alaska lynx from four refuges and one park have traveled from the Chukchi Sea to British Columbia to the North Slope to the Yukon Delta, traversing through 20 conservation areas thus far.
Hare populations are now decreasing across Alaska.In response, we expect more collared lynx will disperse in search of food across the landscape.As more than 1,000 lynx locations are downloaded daily, university, refuge and park biologists will look closely at these dispersal movement patterns in search of terrain that dispersing lynx prefer.Identifying landscape corridors that link conservation units in Alaska and Canada will prove valuable in future land use planning.
Want to learn more and see more stunning lynx photos?Author Mark Bertram will be our speaker at our October membership meeting, October 20 at 5 p.m. on zoom.Put it on your calendar and watch next month’s newsletter and our web site meetings page for the zoom link.
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