Want to do hands on field work? Share your enthusiasm for refuges with visitors? Be a campground host at a very lovely spot? Eight refuges have submitted their wish lists for volunteers and they are now posted on our Current Volunteer Opportunities webpage. Add some wildlife to your summer. Check them out, check your calendar and apply!
There are someintriguing multi week field projects including hare monitoring on Yukon Flats Refuge and biological monitoring and maintenance at Kanuti’s remote cabin. Both these will require some training so talk to them right away to arrange this. Izembek is looking forblack brant surveyteam members but this year they want two. Friends will pay airfare Anchorage to Cold Bay. And that always fun project ofbanding ducks at Tetlin Refugefor a week is back for a 5th year. Alaska Peninsula Refuge wants help with their visitor center and summer events for the whole summer but two people could split the summer. Airfare, food allowance and refuge housing are provided. Izembek also wants visitor services help but we don’t have money to cover airfare although lodging would be provided. Kenai Refuge needs a campground host at Hidden Lake.
One day or afternoon projectsinclude three big outreach events – theKachemak Bay Shorebird Festival,Seabird Festand theKenai Sports and Recreation Show; help with fencing the banks of the Kenai to prevent erosion during the salmon runs; and cleanups on the Alaska Maritime (April 19) and Kenai (date TBD).Friends cosponsors the Shorebird Festival, May 7 – 11 in Homer and volunteers are neededfor staffing the Friends Outreach Table and the Birder’s Coffee and for helping the refuge with Festival events. You can sign up for either or both Friends and refuge work. The Festival is our biggest project and traditionally our best source of new members and, it’s really fun! Come on down to Homer and help out. May 3 and 4 is the Kenai Sports and Recreation Show in Soldotna and May 30 – 31 is Seabird Fest in Seward. Friends are needed to help the refuges with activities and education at these events.
You can findall projects listedhereincluding who to talk to for more information.Applicationsare needed for most projects and you must be a member for most projects. You can join or renewhere. In addition, refuges with visitor centers – Kodiak, Kenai, Yukon Delta in Bethel, Alaska Peninsula in King Salmon and the Alaska Maritime in Homer can always use help. Contact those refuges if you live in the area.
Volunteering at the Friends Outreach Booth at the 2023 Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival. We need at least 25 volunteers to cover all 5 days of Festival events and outreach.
I was surprised we got as many projects as we did given the DOGE induced chaos at the refuges – uncertain job futures, stripped staff, credit card use suspended making acquiring field supplies impossible and no budget yet for this fiscal year. Should government uncertainties resolve, I think we would get some more projects so stay tuned to our volunteer current opportunities page.
Presented by Matt Conner, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Services Supervisor
This meeting was held on Tuesday, March 18, 5 pm Alaska Daylight Time
Soldotna – Matt Conner in person at Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, Ski Hill Road. Reception follows talk. Homer – Watch Party at the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, 95 Sterliing Hwy. Anchorage – Watch Party at REI Community Room, 500 E. Northern Lights Blvd. And Around the Country on Zoom
Matt Conner crossing Skilak Lake on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in his drift boat.
It is a stressful time. Many of us struggle with less than optimum health. Join Ranger Matt Conner of the Kenai Refuge as he describes how refuges can improve our mind, body, and spirit. Matt went through a personal transformation as the result of a health crisis and is now a certified personal trainer eager to incorporate health benefits in management activities. He was instrumental in adding outdoor exercise equipment to the Kenai Refuge Multi Use Trail with the exercises tied to animal adaptations so that wildlife appreciation and exercise can go hand in hand. Interpretive panels pair the unique abilities of Alaskan wildlife, like balance and core strength, with the same physiological traits in humans. Combining his passion for nature and wildlife and a new found love of fitness training, Matt brings these two themes together in his talk.
He will also discuss the importance of nature and refuges for both physical and mental health. He is knowledgeable in the research on the effects of nature on mental health. Learn about how refuges are a source for whole foods as well as a source for mental and spiritual connection.
Skilak Lookout Trail on the Kenai Refuge provides an aerobic workout as well as stunning views and wildlife watching opportunities.
Biography
It was all because his mom would not let him have a BB gun. That is why Matt said he got into the outdoor field. He was only allowed to have a bow and arrow. By age 13 he was competing on the national level in archery. A family friend took notice of his proficiency and invited him bow hunting starting a lifelong interest in hunting and the outdoors. Matt has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in the human dimensions of forestry from the School of Forestry at Southern Illinois University. He worked at several national parks, the White River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas and the Fish and Wildlife Service Prairie Wetlands Learning Center before coming to the Kenai Refuge in 2014.
Three years ago a medical crisis changed his life. Matt utilized his scientific background to investigate the ideal lifestyle of exercise and diet to turn his health around. Along his journey he earned certifications as Personal Trainer, Nutritional Counselor and Correctional Exercise Therapy from the National Association of Sports Medicine. In addition to managing the large recreational program at the Kenai Refuge, Matt also works in his spare time as a personal trainer and volunteers at Central Peninsula Hospital in the Behavioral Health Division teaching group classes in fitness and nutrition. His life style changes have reversed his medical problems leaving him symptom free. He is a strong proponent of a healthy life style of which exercise and immersion in nature are key components.
Matt is an avid fly fisherman and hiker and loves to spend his falls harvesting free range protein by stick and string!!! (bow and arrow and fly rod). He lives in Soldotna with his wife and has two grown children.
Winter recreation offers serenity plus a good workout. Skiing across Dolly Varden Lake to the Dolly Varden public use cabin on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. pc. Lisa Hupp/USFWS
PC for lead photo: Joseph Robertia courtesy of the Redoubt Reporter
Friends, this is a call to action. Our elected leaders are in the process of dismantling large swaths of the federal government, and public lands are high on their target list.
National wildlife refuges are YOUR lands. National parks are YOUR lands. National forests are YOUR lands. You should be able to visit, hunt on, birdwatch on, and hike on these lands. You should be able to expect these beautiful landscapes, rich wildlife habitat and the wildlife species that call them home to be well managed for the purposes laid out by Congress in their establishment.
In the past eight weeks, many thousands of federal employees have been illegally fired. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to these firings, and they are cutting deeply into the services that you, an American taxpayer, should be receiving. At least 12 Fish and Wildlife Service staff in Alaska were fired, four of them from refuges. In addition, about 14 have taken the “Fork in the Road” (resignation with several months of pay) buyout offers. Others have had positions that were offered and accepted rescinded, some as they were packing to move to Alaska and important positions like refuge managers are not being filled! It is a chaotic situation and difficult to determine just how many employees we have lost. Fish and Wildlife Service leaders are required to submit plans March 13 about how to further downsize. We expect many more people to be terminated in reduction in force actions or early retirements.
We expect these reductions in the workforce will lead to minimal to no management on Alaska’s 76 million acres of refuges. The Fish and Wildlife Service goes into this in a weakened position as refuge staff had already been reduced 30% over the last 15 years. An important refuge like the two million acre Kodiak Refuge home to the largest brown bears now has only 7 staff where five years ago it had 14. Only one staffer (they used to have 4) covers visitor services managing their visitor center (30 cruise ship visits per year), outreach to eight villages on the refuge, public use cabins, bear viewing sites, and over 100 special use permits to be evaluated and administered annually (bear viewing, float plane transporters, set net sites, research projects, hunting guides), and a formerly-active environmental education program. Because of these ongoing cuts, the Kodiak visitor center has been closed all winter for the first time and Salmon Camp, one of the oldest and best children’s refuge education programs, has been reduced from five week long sessions in Kodiak city and the villages to three short visits to villages. The enthusiastic young woman Kodiak had just hired to manage the visitor center and start supplying services to the public again was fired one month into her job by DOGE in the Valentine’s Day Massacre.
It takes staff to manage a refuge and help the public responsibly enjoy and learn about the wonders of the refuge. Salmon Camp on the Kodiak Refuge was one of the most successful programs serving more than a hundred families a year, many of them from the Coast Guard Base Kodiak. With the public use staff cut from four to one, SalmonCamp in Kodiak is no more.
These cuts will affect all public land users, and biological work that keeps our wildlife safe. Next, Congress and the Administration may question why we are holding on to these lands that are “unproductive” and unmanaged. And after that, Friends fear they may add oil and gas as a purpose for all refuges as they did during the first Trump term for the Arctic Refuge, sell off some refuges for development, permit mining, and allow “intensive management” (such as predator control) which is contrary to the refuges’ purpose of maintaining natural biodiversity. Even if refuge lands are not sold, there will be few refuge staff left to protect the original purposes of refuges. These are OUR refuge lands, park lands, and forests. The Administration has already announced plans to heavily log national forests and suspend provisions of the Endangered Species and Migratory Bird acts.
We need you to call your Congressional representatives. Every day. Ask that the staff fired under DOGE be rehired, the vacated positions be refilled, the refuge manager positions filled (only 7 managers for 16 refuges) and credit card use restored so they can buy supplies for the rapidly approaching field season (DOGE put a $1 limit on credit cards). Remind them that you value refuge employees and the work they do to protect wildlife and refuges. Refuges are not for sale! Many members of Congress are starting to complain that they are getting too many phone calls. Good. These elected officials work for US, and they should respond to us, their constituents, not the President. We cannot allow them to dismantle public lands.
Alaska’s two senators are Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Sen. Dan Sullivan. Our House member is Rep.Nick Begich. You can also reach them or any state’s delegation at the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.
If we do nothing, and do not use our voices to speak up in protest, we predict that we will lose many of the public lands and the values they protect that make Alaska great.
The President’s Message By Marilyn Sigman, President Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges
There has never been a time like the present in my lifetime when National Wildlife Refuges—and their hard-working staff dedicated to carrying out the mission of the Refuge system—need friends who share the mission of stewardship of these lands and waters. Many of our members have spent part or all of their careers working in fields related to fish, wildlife, and habitat conservation. Others of you have joined Friends because you enjoy spending time outdoors hunting, fishing, hiking, birdwatching, and canoeing on refuges. You have responded to our calls in the past to speak out to our elected officials in support of good refuge policies and public land management actions. But now the entire system and its mission is under attack.
We are faced with an Administration that is likely to cut the federal budget more deeply than it has already been cut, which has already left Alaska’s refuges woefully understaffed to do the necessary research, conservation work, and outreach and education that promotes long-term stewardship. The Kodiak Refuge Visitor Center has already cut back with a seasonal closure and refuge outreach and education programs in Fairbanks have been canceled indefinitely. Oil and gas development is being targeted on all federal lands. Future layoffs could mean shuttering refuge facilities completely. Some refuges in Alaska are heavily visited, such as Kenai and Alaska Maritime, but others are used almost solely by subsistence users. Visitors would still be able to access refuges, but without any staff on site, we can anticipate increased poaching, garbage dumps, and other illegal uses of refuge lands.
What can we do? An immediate advocacy action you can take is to send in comments on the Izembek road draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement by this Thursday, February 13. Please click the link below to comment. Tell the Administration to choose the no-action alternative.
The Friends Board is committed to developing fund-raising strategies to greatly increase the amount of financial aid we can provide to refuges. If you would like to be involved in this effort, please contact a Board member.
I urge all of you to be friends to the Refuge staff who are feeling attacked by buyout demands and the removal of all references to climate change and the importance of diversity, equity and inclusiveness in the federal workforce as well as the participation of the diverse stakeholders in refuge management. Call, text, or send a thank you email to staff members you know or may have worked with as a Friends’ volunteer. We will also need more volunteers, so look for opportunities posted on the Friends website.
I urge all of you to be a friend to Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuges by writing and calling your Congressional representatives. For Alaskans, Senators Murkowski and Sullivan and Congressman Begich have the power to stop these impacts to OUR refuge lands as do the representatives of Friends’ members in other states.The Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121.
I urge you to be persistent and relentless in speaking up about what is so valuable about the refuges and the mission of stewardship of these unique conservation lands.
“As President, I saw that I could shape one of the most important outstanding questions that remained on the agenda of our country, and that was what to do with the massive amounts of land in Alaska.”
From a 6.15.17 interview in Alaska magazine
And he did. In “shaping . . . . the question” Carter sealed his legacy as the greatest conservation president since Teddy Roosevelt with more impact on Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuges than even Roosevelt. Nine of our 16 refuges, Alaska Peninsula, Tetlin, Innoko, Becharof, Kanuti, Selawik, Yukon Flats, Nowitna and Koyukuk, owe their existence to President Jimmy Carter who died at age 100 on December 29. He was the driving force behind the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) which he signed as one of his last acts as president on December 2, 1980. The seven refuges that predate ANILCA, Alaska Maritime, Arctic, Kenai, Kodiak, Yukon Delta, Izembek and Togiak, were expanded, reconfigured and some renamed by the Act. In all, Carter added 54 million acres to the National Wildlife Refuge System in Alaska tripling its size. Alaskan refuges now make up 80% of the terrestrial acres in the entire nation’s National Wildlife Refuge System.
Carter was no stranger to Alaska. He kept maps of Alaska in his office, visited many times, and was particularly fond of fly fishing. Carter has said his love of the outdoors came from hunting and fishing with his dad in rural Georgia and his sense of stewardship came from his church. PC White House Staff Photographers Collection.
All these new refuges also added diversity. Roosevelt designated the first refuges in Alaska in 1909 but they were small and coastal because the coast was where most of the exploration occurred. Subsequent refuges also bordered on the coast. However, six of the nine Carter refuges are interior refuges in the Yukon River watershed, rich in salmon, waterfowl, moose and furbearers with resources critical to the way of life of Yukon River people. Prior to Carter only two, the Yukon Delta and the Arctic refuges, were in the Yukon watershed, fourth largest watershed in North America. ANILCA also designated 13 wilderness areas and 7 wild and scenic rivers within the refuges. The Act also designated new national parks, monuments and wilderness areas within national forests and parks.
A key provision of ANILCA established rural subsistence as a purpose of all the refuges – new and existing except for Kenai Refuge – and this was at the direction of Carter. “That was a given, with Secretary Andrus and me from the very beginning, that the rights of Natives would be honored. It was a top priority,” Carter said in a 2017 interview. ANILCA acknowledged the importance of living off the land for rural Alaskans and the long cultural ties to the land of Alaska’s Native peoples by safeguarding subsistence rights.
President Carter’s defense of Alaska refuges continued throughout his life. He went to DC twice in the 1990s to convince Congressmen to defeat proposals to open the Arctic Refuge coastal plain to oil and gas drilling. As recently as 2022, at the age of 98, Carter filed a “Friend of the Court” brief ripping a court decision that approved a land swap in order to build a road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Carter truly cared about Alaska wildlife refuges.
Rest in peace President Carter.
The Carters’ idea of a way to spend their 59th anniversary, fishing and birding on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. After speaking at the 25th Anniversary of ANILCA in Anchorage in 2005, Carter and wife Rosalynn stayed at a Skilak Lake lodge on an inholding in the Kenai Refuge. Kenai Ranger/Pilot Rick Johnston now retired, (center) and refuge volunteer Tom Griffiths (left) were flying the river on patrol when they stopped in to meet the Carters. Johnston described Carter as “kind, humble and curious.” Johnston speculates that Carter was the only president to have visited the Kenai Refuge.
Presented by Heather Renner, Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Supervisory Biologist
This presentation was recorded in Homer, AK on Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Homer – Heather Renner in person at the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, 95 Sterliing Hwy. Reception follows talk. Soldotna – Watch Party at Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, Ski Hill Road Anchorage – Watch Party at BP Energy Center, Spruce/Willow Room 1014 Energy Ct. And Around the Country on Zoom
Sea cliffs and remote islands of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge provide ideal nesting sites, protected from terrestrial predators and close to the ocean food source. Aiktak Island in the Semidi Islands is one of the annual monitoring sites of the refuge. PC Ian Shive
As early as summer 2015, Refuge biologists could tell something was amiss at common murre breeding colonies in Alaska. Murres were not showing up to breed like they have year in and year out. And then, the bodies started washing up on the beaches. In winter 2015 – 2016, half of Alaska’s common murre population, 4 million birds, died in the largest single species die-off for any bird or mammal species in recorded history. And they haven’t recovered yet. Hear from Heather Renner, Supervisory Biologist of the Alaska Maritime Refuge, on the refuge’s work to document the scope of this unprecedented tragedy.
When birds die at sea, only a small percentage of the carcasses washes up on shore. What did it really mean in terms of total bird death that 62,000 carcasses were recovered up and down the coast from California to the Bering Sea? Breeding colony counts were needed to give a clearer picture. Unfortunately, for a few years after the die-off, murres didn’t breed successfully, so biologists couldn’t be sure how many had died and how many just weren’t returning to the colonies to breed. When breeding returned to “normal”, biologists learned the true scope of the die-off. Heather is one of six coauthors of a paper published in Science in December of 2024 that caused a considerable stir over the magnitude of the tragedy, the lack of recovery seven years later and the reason – a heat wave in the ocean.
The refuge where much of this drama played out, the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, is an unusual and unusually remote refuge of 2500 islands, headlands and rocks stretched across more than 1000 miles of Alaska’s coastline. It is one of the world’s premiere seabird refuges, with 40 million nesting seabirds. Heather’s team includes biologists working in groups of two to three in field camps on uninhabited islands scattered along the coast. This group of dedicated scientists has been documenting since the 1970’s the status of seabirds, their numbers and breeding success; it was these data that allowed firm conclusions as to the extent of this tragedy. Data used in this analysis spanned two huge marine ecosystems, the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. They also included seabird monitoring data collected on Togiak and Alaska Peninsula/Becharof national wildlife refuges, as well as data collected by Alaska Department of Fish and Game (Round Island) and Middleton Island. Long-term ecological datasets like this are incredibly rare and are urgently needed to understand which species are most vulnerable in our changing ocean. The before photo was taken in 2014 pre die-off and the post die-off photo was taken in 2021, six years after the event. South Island in the Semidi Islands.
Seabirds, the Alaska Maritime Refuge and Alaska are part of who Heather Renner is. She is a life- long Alaskan who has worked for the Refuge for 25 years. She began her career at just 15 working in the Fish and Wildlife Service Regional office fisheries program. From there she worked her way up in other Alaskan Refuges – Alaska Peninsula/Becharof, YukonDelta, Togiak and Kenai – from a seasonal bio tech working in field camps to now supervisor of one of the most respected biological programs in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Heather even met her husband while he was completing his doctoral research in a field camp on Buldir Island. It has been her love for wild and remote places that drew her to Alaska’s refuges and inspired her to stay for so long.
Common murres nest in huge colonies laying their eggs right on the bare rock.
Heather said seabirds interested her because “they thrive in places that might seem miserable to people.” She also said she was excited about the science that could be done with seabirds and the questions that could be answered with 50 years of data. Much of Heather’s focus has been coordinating long-term monitoring datasets of seabirds and using those data to address scientific questions about both seabird conservation and ecosystem change. She is also interested in methods development for monitoring techniques. Heather has a BA in Biology from Colorado College, and a MS in Wildlife Management from Cornell University. She lives in Homer with her family and in her spare time, she enjoys outdoor activities like hiking, trail running and cross-country skiing.
Welcome to 2025! We are just days away from the end of the Biden Administration and the start of the second Trump Administration. We are expecting a number of changes in the new Administration, including a newSecretary of the Interior.President-elect Trump has nominated current North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum for that position. Governor Burgum has a decent record on wildlife conservation, and in particular seems to be a Theodore Roosevelt-type of conservationist. Friends are hopeful that he will lead the Interior Department (and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) with an eye towards land protection and species preservation, and conserving both prey and predator species. He will, however, sit on the National Security Council as the White House’s “energy czar” which will focus his efforts on domestic energy production.
In other news, the secondArctic National Wildlife Refuge oil and gas lease salethat was held last week as required by the 2017 Tax Actresulted in ZERO bidson refuge lands. Friends are thrilled that years of advocacy and work by a huge community of conservation partners, particularly the Gwich’in who rely on food sources from the coastal plain, has resulted in a vocal and explicit renunciation of oil development in the 1002 area. This lease sale was the second and final sale as required by the law. The first in 2021 resulted in the cancellation or reversal of all leases.
We are still fighting the road through theIzembek Refuge. In a draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement released in November, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed trading away lands within the Izembek Refuge and designated Wilderness in order to accommodate a road through the heart of the refuge. You still have a chance to weigh in because thecomment deadline was extended to February 13th.More information can be found here. You cansubmit your comments hereprior to the deadline. You can look on the comment page to see other comments that have been left. USFWS has already received over 52,000 comments! Please add your voice! We do ask that yousubmit a unique commentbecause all comments that are exactly the same are lumped together as one singular comment even if they come from different people. Visit ourFriends web pagefor sample talking points. The Service offers advice onhow to leave a good comment here. Thank you for doing your part to protect the Izembek Refuge!
Presented by Steve Delehanty, Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Manager Andy Loranger, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Manager
Tuesday, January 21, 5 – 6 pm Alaska Time This program was recorded live and can be seen below:
Homer – Steve Delehanty in person at the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, 95 Sterling Hwy. Reception follows talk
Soldotna – Andy Loranger in person at the Kenai Refuge Visitor Center, Ski Hill Road. Reception follows talk.
Anchorage– Watch party at BP Energy Center, Spruce/Willow Room,1014 Energy Ct.
Zoom
The Kenai River is the heart of the Kenai Refuge. With the salmon rich rivers, highway access to Anchorage, canoe country and mountain trails, campgrounds, refuge cabins and a fine visitor center, this is the most visited refuge in Alaska. That visitor use creates love for the refuge but also management challenges unique in Alaska. PC Lisa Hupp/USFWS
Andy Loranger and Steve Delehanty have spent decades as refuge managers of two of Alaska’s most iconic and significant national wildlife refuges – the Kenai and the Alaska Maritime refuges. They are retiring this month leaving a big hole in refuge management in Alaska. In one of their last acts, they will share with us what their years in the refuge system have taught them and what it might mean for us and the future of refuges. They have seen the best from our crown jewels in Alaska – the Kenai with its salmon highways, abundant moose and bear and lovely landscapes from lake country to alpine; the Alaska Maritime – largest seabird refuge in the world with tens of millions of birds, volcanoes, thousands of islands and otters – to other significant wildlife landscapes in Minnesota, Texas, Wisconsin and elsewhere. This is a trying time for refuges. We all will benefit from their enthusiasm for refuges, their wisdom and a sense of the long view. Please join us for this significant event.
Alaska Maritime’s Steve Delehanty Kenai’s Andy Loranger
Biographies
Steve Delehanty has said that being a refuge manager is the best job in the world, except when it isn’t. While the incredible wildlife and wild places bring inspiration and solace, the real professional challenges as refuge manager generally involve people. “I love wildlife”, says Steve, “But I love people even more. Good thing, because I spend a lot more time at work dealing with people than I do with wildlife.” Fifteen years as manager of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge has topped Steve’s 39 year career with the Fish and Wildlife Service that began with an internship on Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota. Over his career, he has worked in Illinois, Montana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Alaska. Except for a brief internship in Illinois, Steve’s entire career has been in states near Canada.
Steve and his wife, Wendy, live in Homer. They have two adult children, one living in Alaska and one in Alabama. He likes hockey more than basketball, tundra more than forest, oceans more than mountains, and national wildlife refuges more than anything else.
Marine mammals, 40 million seabirds, and over 3000 islands characterize the Alaska Maritime Refuge. Most islands are only accessible by ship so the refuge has the largest ship in the Fish & Wildlife Service, the 120 foot R/V Tiglax. Very remote field camps, supervision of the Tiglax in the rough waters of coastal Alaska, and the dependence of the refuge’s abundant wildlife on off refuge food sources in the ocean create unique management challenges on this refuge.
Andy Loranger has been refuge manager at Kenai National Wildlife Refuge for 15 years. This was his second tenure on “the Kenai”. His first was as a wildlife biologist under Dr. Ted Bailey from 1988 to 1992. Andy said, “When I left Alaska to try refuge management in 1992, my only definitive career plan was to return someday. Being given the opportunity to come home to Alaska, and amazingly to the Kenai Refuge, has been an immense privilege.”
Accompanied from the very beginning by his wife Linda, a registered nurse,Andy‘s career journey started as a seasonal biological technician on the Benson Wetlands Management District in Minnesota, and continued in Alaska in the early 1980s with more seasonal employment on field crews conducting Arctic nesting goose research on Yukon Delta and Izembek refuges. This experience led to a permanent appointment as Nowitna Refuge’s first wildlife biologist, and later a similar role at Kenai. Upon leaving Alaska, he managed refuges in Arizona and Texas and served as Chief of the Refuge System’s Division of Natural Resources in the Fish and Wildlife Service’s national headquarters in Washington, DC. Andy received national recognition for his work in 2018, when he was selected as Refuge Manager of the Year by the National Wildlife Refuge Association. Andy said, “The refuges I served on, and my time in DC, helped me realize what true treasures we have in each and every one of our national wildlife refuges, and to appreciate the depth of dedication of our staff, Friends and volunteers.”
Andyand Linda reside in Soldotna and have 2 adult children, John and Emily, who also chose careers in public service. “We were so fortunate to share the wonders of the natural world on national wildlife refuges as a family, and more recently with our childrens’ families, and best yet, with our grandson Ira. In many ways these experience define who we are, and they have truly been the gift of a lifetime for all of us. Our retirement plans are for more of the same!”
UPDATE (as of December 28th): A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who attended the hearings, either in person or virtually! And an enormous shout out to those of you who have submitted comments.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has extended the deadline for comments until February 13th, 2025. Any comments already submitted will still be considered.
A proposed land exchange at the end of the Alaska Peninsula threatens wildlife conservation and the protection of public lands in Alaska. Pristine wilderness and high value wetlands within the refuge would be traded away in order to build a road from King Cove to Cold Bay. We need all Friends to speak up and oppose this land swap! Submit your public comment today- the deadline has been extended until February 13, 2025.
The draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (draft SEIS) completed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service selected Alternative 6 as the preferred alternative- to implement a land swap with King Cove in order to build the road along the isthmus through the refuge and designated wilderness.
In person and virtual hearings:
These meetings took place in December and there are no more scheduled. Thank you all who participated.
Comments We need all Friends to submit comments!! Comments can be submitted online here.regulations.gov. Bullet points for your testimony are below, but we need you to draft your own response– each unique set of comments is counted as one comment, while identical comments (say, if Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges gave out a script for you to copy and paste) are counted as only one comment, regardless of the number of submissions.
Map of the Preferred Alternative showing road corridor, exchange lands. Note how the road bifurcates the refuge at the narrowest part cutting between Izembek Lagoon and Kinzarof Lagoon. Also note the wetlands it will pass through and all the planned “material sites”. I imagine it will take a lot of gravel from those material sites to fill in a wetland like that. Note the significance of that narrow neck for migration. It is also a “blow hole” with winds howling from the Bering Sea to the north to the Gulf of Alaska to the south. Preventing drifting snow on this road would be a significant challenge. Sample talking points for your comments:
The comments taken most seriously by agencies are those in your own words for your own reasons. But here are some thoughts on why the road is such a terrible idea.
Izembek is a world class coastal wetland, recognized as a Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention.
Nearly the entire world’s population of Pacific black brant depend on the Izembek Lagoon complex for migrating and/or wintering as well as hundreds of thousands of other waterbirds.
The trade would cause the refuge to lose high value wetlands in exchange for lower value wildlife habitat.
The road would affect the migration corridor used by caribou, bear and others by bisecting the narrow neck of land between the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. This road would inevitably bring hunters to this narrow crossing.
The trade would set a dangerous precedent far beyond Izembek because it would allow lands established as a Conservation Unit by the Alaska National Interest Lands Act (ANILCA) to be taken out of the refuge and lose its conservation status without the approval of Congress. Congress created the refuge. If the boundaries are to be changed, Congress should do it. To allow the Secretary of the Interior to undue Congress’s work in passing ANILCA threatens all ANILCA Conservation Units – National Parks, National Forests, National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska.
The trade would set another dangerous precedent by taking Congressionally designated Wilderness out of the National Wilderness Preservation System to be traded to private ownership. Again, only Congress should undue a Wilderness designation.
Native groups other than King Cove oppose the swap. Twenty resolutions and a letter representing 78 tribes have been submitted asking for the “no action” alternative.
The trade will only harm the refuge and the purposes for which it was Congressionally created.
The Izembek National Wildlife Refuge is one of the most ecologically significant wetland areas in the world. The entire population of Pacific black brant and Emperor Geese rely on the refuge’s eelgrass beds. The wetlands themselves are internationally recognized as hugely significant for bird populations.
The draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement disregards years of precedent and work to protect Izembek’s wetlands and lagoons. Everyone involved in conservation work understands that roads bring people and development. Izembek should not face that fate.
Over 80 resolutions from Native tribes in Alaska were submitted to Secretary Haaland urging her to choose the “no action” alternative. She disregarded those resolutions.
Thank you, and remember to submit your comments by December 30, 2024February 13, 2025!
Black Brant, Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, PC: USFWS/Kristine Sowl
How did we fulfill our mission of supporting the Alaska National Wildlife Refuges through 1) direct support both financial and with volunteer time, 2) outreach and education and 3) advocacy? Our outreach and education programs were better than ever but budget uncertainty and staff loss made it difficult to develop volunteer projects. Our advocacy efforts faced very stormy weather.
Fairbanks Friends member Gail Mayo (l) with refuge volunteer at the Arctic Interagency Visitor Center in Coldfoot. Volunteering: More than 50 Friends volunteered on eight different refuges. Selawik offered projects for the first time in memory – office and maintenance help and help with camps for village kids. Also, significant this year was the amount of help refuges were requesting with visitor centers. Friends went to Kodiak and Tetlin for month assignments as well as a few weeks for Arctic at the Interagency Visitor Center in Coldfoot. Public events required the most volunteers with Friends helping at the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival, Kenai Riverfest, Kenai Sportsman Show, Migratory Bird Days at Creamer’s Field, Seabird Fest in Seward, Bethel Ducks Unlimited Banquet, and Walks for the Wild at Kenai, Alaska Maritime and Anchorage. Numerous Friends volunteered at Kodiak, Kenai and Alaska Maritime refuges to staff visitor center desks and refuge special events. Izembek and Tetlin needed biological help with brant surveys and duck banding. With the exception of two volunteers that we had travel funding for, all other volunteers paid their own travel although refuges provided housing. For three projects we were unable to help because no one applied. Take a look at the project photos and stories on our volunteer activities page.
In 2024 we had less volunteer requests than we could have because Congress failed to pass a budget until late into the year causing refuges to avoid committing to projects. In addition, some refuges have lost so many staff that there is no one to plan or supervise a project. These conditions are likely to persist in 2025. To have any kind of a volunteer program, we need a volunteer coordinator to help develop opportunities and match members to jobs. See the article below. Interested? Write us at volunteer@alaskarefugefriends.org.
Funding: About $16,000 was approved by the Board to support refuge projects which includes half of our unrestricted funds plus some designated funds for specific refuges which come from bequests, donation boxes and other sources. Some projects are annual such as interns at Arctic Refuge’s Canning River Research Camp, school bus reimbursements for Kenai Refuge field trips, and support for the Migratory Bird Calendar. New this year was support to bring an Unangan artist to Homer for bentwood hat making workshops, support for a scoping meeting in Anchorage for the Alaska Maritime’s rat eradication proposal and for Koyukuk/Nowitna’s river management planning meeting, and a tablet for Innoko. We paid travel for the Friends volunteer to Izembek, a very expensive place to get to, and used some of our funds and a small grant from the Fish & Wildlife Retirees Association to pay the way of an environmental educator to Kotzebue for Selawik Refuge’s art and science camp. We contributed funds to a variety of refuge community events from Christmas bird count activities at Togiak, to the 20th Anniversaries of the Arctic Interagency Visitor Center and the Alaska Maritime Refuge’s Visitor Center and an art opening at Selawik Refuge. We received an additional Fish & Wildlife Service Retiree’s grant of $1600 which paid for seven urban youth to attend the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival. A $5000 grant from the Sam and Mary Lawrence Foundation partially paid for four Native student interns with the Kodiak Refuge and a student intern at Innoko. A $6000 designated gift from the Safari Club is purchasing steel shot to trade out with lead shot and has paid for shipping lead shot off the Yukon Delta Refuge.
Friends has long supported the Migratory Bird Calendar contest with prizes for the many winners from refuge villages. This charming calendar featuring the drawings and writings of village children can be picked up from refuge offices throughout Alaska. If you are a member and not near a refuge office, contact us and we will send one. Outreach and Education: This was a very successful year for our meetings with more attendees than ever. Archaeology in the Aleutians with 200 people had the highest attendance ever and a new watch party in Dutch Harbor that attracted 18. The three meetings this fall averaged 150 attendees between in person, watch parties and zoom. We learned about the Koyukuk/Nowitna/Innoko Refuge complex, the Fish and Wildlife’s new initiative to save salmon – “Gravel to Gravel”, winter recreation on the Kenai Refuge, float hunting on interior refuges, migratory bird work on all the refuges and the Porcupine caribou herd of the Arctic Refuge. Our programs are recorded and you can view those you missed here. Speaker watch parties resumed in Anchorage for the first time since the pandemic. We partnered for some meetings with Backcountry Hunters & Anglers for the Float hunting talk, Campbell Creek Science Center for Porcupine Caribou and REI for Flying Wild.
We Friends were the only ones representing Alaska Refuges at the Migratory Bird Day Festival in Fairbanks. No refuge staff were available due to budget cuts. This is likely to get worse making our role in refuge outreach more critical. Tom Chard, Fairbanks Friends Board member, helping a child with a wildlife game.
Advocacy: This has been an extraordinarily challenging year for advocacy. Although we signed on with a number of other Alaska conservation groups to letters opposing bad Congressional legislation and continued to intervene in Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority’s (AIDEA) lawsuit to reinstate their Arctic Refuge leases, we have lost some major battles to protect refuges. We commented on the Arctic Refuge’s Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) on an oil and gas leasing program in the Refuge and signed on to extensive comments by the Arctic Coalition spearheaded by Trustees for Alaska. The No Action alternative was, unfortunately, not a legal alternative because the 2017 Tax Act requires this lease sale. We supported the alternative with the greatest, but still inadequate protective measures for the Refuge resources and the original purposes for which the Refuge was created. The final SEIS was issued on November 8 and selected this alternative. These protections will guide the second oil and gas lease sale scheduled for January 9.
As I write, the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for Izembek Refuge is out for review with a preferred alternative selected by the Fish and Wildlife Service of trading away high-quality refuge wetlands and designated Wilderness to provide for a road through the heart of the refuge. This was a huge blow after the years we have been fighting this through lawsuits and letter writing. See the advocacy section for more on this and how to comment.
In November the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a land exchange to accomodate a road through the wetlands and designated Wilderness of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. PC Cindy Mom, Seldovia Friends volunteer on Izembek Brant Project.
Friends leadership met with the FWS Alaska Regional Director in May to discuss our concerns about reduced staffing at refuges. Unfortunately, things got even worse as more budget cuts were applied. By the end of January there will be only seven refuge managers left for 16 refuges. Kodiak has lost three out of four of its outreach staff and the visitor center has closed for the winter for the first time in my memory. We have also recently heard that none of these positions will be filled in the foreseeable future. The last Trump administration instituted a six-month hiring freeze. The three refuges in Fairbanks have dropped all their public programs except fulfilling their obligation to partner with BLM and NPS on the Coldfoot Interagency Visitor Center during the summer. The 19-million-acre Yukon Delta Refuge lacks a pilot or a public use person. This is a thorny problem at the Washington and state level and I don’t see that we have made any progress advocating for budgets.
All this reminds us of the quote by noted author and conservationist Rachel Carson, “Conservation is a cause that has no end. There is no point at which we will say our work is finished.” Details and numerous other issues which caught our attention in 2024 are described in our Advocacy Reports here.
This was only our second Friends sponsored Discovery trip this time to the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge. Eight Friends got to see for themselves how special this refuge is. Refuge staff spent a full day with us at headquarters in Bethel outlining their programs and challenges and exploring ideas for Friends help. Our first trip was in 2023 to the Arctic Refuge.
Thank you all for your support that allowed us to accomplish these things. Sixteen refuges and 75 million acres requires all of us pulling together to give refuges the help they need. It is hard to be hopeful looking at 2025 and the change in administration. We need to up our game.
When birds die at sea, only a small percentage of the carcasses washes up on shore. What did it really mean in terms of total bird death that 62,000 carcasses were recovered up and down the coast from California to the Bering Sea? Breeding colony counts were needed to give a clearer picture. Unfortunately, for a few years after the die-off, murres didn’t breed successfully, so biologists couldn’t be sure how many had died and how many just weren’t returning to the colonies to breed. When breeding returned to “normal”, biologists learned the true scope of the die-off. Heather is one of six coauthors of a
In November the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a land exchange to accomodate a road through the wetlands and designated Wilderness of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. PC Cindy Mom, Seldovia Friends volunteer on Izembek Brant Project.