Refuge Research – Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges

“The Trip of a Lifetime!” Surveying Brant on the Izembek Refuge

By Cindy Mom, Seldovia Friends member

I had the privilege to volunteer on the brant survey at Izembek National Wildlife Refuge this fall. Afterwards, it took me two days to get home from Cold Bay to Seldovia, and even when my cargo was unpacked and put away, I felt like my mental and emotional experiences from Izembek were still very present – not unpacked yet at all. What a beautiful and wild place! I still see the thick luscious eelgrass in my mind’s eye, and all those brant slurping it up with pure delight. The raucous sounds of thousands of happy geese can’t help but make you happy, too.

The Refuge staff and visiting biologists welcomed me to the Brant crew, and made it easy to explore and enjoy the Refuge. Our six-person crew (usually split into two groups of three) visited the brant goose habitat, the incredibly extensive eelgrass bed of Izembek Lagoon. To get to our observation points we hiked across the tundra or boated in inflatable skiffs to shallow waters or shorelines. Once there, we set up spotting scopes and counted flocks of brant, using clickers to tally adults vs. juveniles. While one or two people scoped and counted, one person recorded data and watched for bears.

The Izembek Lagoon is one of the very few places on earth that I have visited that feels still intact, and complete, and of-itself. Pc Cindy Mom

As the entire population of Pacific black brant, about 150,000 birds, stages for about eight weeks in the Izembek Lagoon Complex, Izembek’s Brant Age Ratio Survey provides an estimate of the age composition of the entire arctic and subarctic breeding populations. This survey provides the only measure of annual productivity for the brant and an index of recruitment as most first-year mortality occurs between hatch and fall migration.

The absolute best part was getting to work with an amazing crew of wildlife biologists, who know how to efficiently get the job done and still have fun while doing it. Everyone had such obvious and infectious enjoyment in the work and the beautiful wild Refuge, it made it easy to deal with the discomforts of field work in wet, windy, and cold conditions. I truly feel this was the trip of a lifetime, and appreciate the opportunity to explore the Izembek Refuge, learn about eelgrass and brant, see walruses and several life birds, and contribute something to this important study. My travel expenses were covered by the Friends, which made this trip possible; otherwise, it would have remained an unreachable dream. Thank you, Friends!

Wet, windy and cold. It was October out there! We only lost two survey days to extreme weather. I organized the refuge library on those days. PC Randall Friendly.

Chasing Answers in the Arctic: Researching the Effects of Climate Change on the Porcupine Caribou Herd

Presented by Heather Johnson USGS Research Wildlife Biologist and Paul Leonard Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Supervisory Biologist
Tuesday, Oct. 15, 5 – 6 AKDT

This event was held with in person speakers at Fairbanks and Anchorage, at watch parties in Soldotna and Homer and on Zoom.

The Porcupine caribou herd is currently the largest in Alaska and one of the largest herds in North America. Each summer, it undergoes one of the longest terrestrial migrations on Earth to birth calves on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But what is the future of the herd given changing climate conditions? Join us to hear about how an innovative research project aims to discover whether and how a changing climate will impact the herd. Arctic Refuge Supervisory Biologist Paul Leonard will share with us the significance of the Porcupine caribou herd as a cornerstone of the ecological, cultural, and economic landscape of the Arctic Refuge, and as a vital part of the livelihoods and traditions of Indigenous peoples of the region, including the Iñupiat and Gwich’in. Lead researcher Heather Johnson of US Geological Survey (USGS) will discuss the research she is conducting on the Porcupine caribou herd in collaboration with partners including the refuge. Their research aims to understand the influence of changing climate conditions on summer habitat for caribou in the Arctic, the impacts of these changes on caribou behavior and population dynamics, and the implications for the future of the Porcupine herd. As part of the project, caribou wear video camera collars so researchers can ‘see’ life from a caribou’s perspective, footage we look forward to sharing with you!

Cow caribou carried video cameras which turned on every 20 minutes to takea 10 second video. This allowed researchers to see what they were eating, what habitat they were using, if they had calves and other important information.

This is a partnered program with the Campbell Creek Science Center serving as not only our monthly meeting but also their Fireside Chats monthly talk series.

Biographies

Heather Johnson is a Research Wildlife Biologist at USGS Alaska Science Center in Anchorage. Heather has a PhD in Wildlife Biology from the University of Montana, a Masters in Wildlife Science from the University of Arizona, and a Bachelors in Ecology from the University of California, San Diego. Heather’s research focuses on understanding how changes in climate and land-use are influencing the behavior and population dynamics of large mammals, and how management strategies can minimize impacts. In her free time, Heather loves doing just about every type of outdoor adventure, especially when it means playing outside with her son.

Paul Leonard grew up in the rolling hills of central Kentucky and spent most of his youth playing out of doors and being constantly curious about the living things around him. He came to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2019 after finishing a postdoctoral fellowship at Clemson University in South Carolina. His research and ecological interests are focused on recognizing and quantifying the spatial patterns in the distribution of natural resources and understanding the reasons for those patterns. He strives to synthesize large, complex spatial data on land use change, climate change and other human caused impacts to develop decision support tools and conservation strategies for diverse communities at a landscape level.In his free time, he likes self-powered adventures in the outdoors via boat, bike, and foot. He also spends a fair amount of time studying, photographing, and reading about birds.

Chickaloon Flats: A Hidden Gem on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge

By John Morton, (retired Kenai Refuge Supervisory Biologist) Within sight of almost half of all Alaskans lies a little-known tidal estuary. Perched along Turnagain Arm on the northwestern Kenai Peninsula, the 27,000-acre Chickaloon Flats is the only part of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge that touches marine waters. It represents 7% of the total estuarine area in Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound, the two water bodies that form the peninsula. As such, it’s a small but important part of the Pacific Flyway for migratory shorebirds and waterfowl.

Yellowlegs and other shorebirds foraging in a tidal pool on Chickaloon Flats.

But how important? Sadie Ulman, before becoming a biologist at Arctic Refuge, did her graduate research on shorebird use of Chickaloon Flats in 2009-2010. The last part of her thesis, which addressed that question, was published recently in the journal Waterbirds. Sadie documented that 23 of 37 common shorebird species breeding in Alaska use Chickaloon Flats during migration. With peak daily shorebird population estimates of 23,000 in the spring and 95,000 in the fall, this stopover site hosts a lot of birds for short periods of time. But Sadie took it another step, using stable isotope analysis of feathers to determine where six of those shorebird species spend their winter. Feathers maintain an isotopic signature of what was eaten during the relatively short period of feather growth. This allows individual shorebirds to be sampled during breeding to estimate the geographic origin of their feather growth during the previous nonbreeding season. A combination of values from three stable isotopes (d2H, d13C, and d15N) are used to infer feather molt origin on a broad geographic scale because predictable spatial patterns of d2H occur in precipitation on a continental scale, and d13C and d15N are then used to further distinguish if the feather was grown in a terrestrial versus marine environment. Sadie used drop nets and decoys to catch (and band) migrating shorebirds that stopped over on Chickaloon Flats, from which she pulled feathers. What did she find? Greater Yellowlegs using Chickaloon Flats likely molted in southwest Alaska, and Short-billed Dowitchers in southcentral Alaska. Lesser Yellowlegs likely molted in western Alaska and a latitudinal band across Canada, and wintered throughout the Lower 48. Least Sandpipers wintered from Oregon and south in North America but showed an isotopically similar possibility in Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. Long-billed Dowitchers molted primaries across the western U.S. and Canada. Pectoral Sandpipers using Chickaloon Flats likely molted near the Rio de La Plata in southeastern South America!

Sadie Ulman looking for shorebirds on the Chickaloon Flats. Amazingly, this tidal wetland, hidden in plain sight from Anchorage (15 miles from Potters Marsh), has significant value as a stopover for many shorebird species breeding in Alaska. Belugas and brown bears also forage for silver salmon in the Chickaloon River and other parts of the estuary are used as haulouts by harbor seals. The good news is that Chickaloon Flats is conserved within the Kenai Refuge. The bad news is that it’s not protected from natural disasters. During the 1964 Great Alaskan Earthquake, the entire estuary dropped in elevation and was inundated by mud. Even today, Chickaloon Flats really does tilt downward to the east and south. However, as Sadie showed in a 2019 article in Northwest Science, the marsh is slowly recovering.

Pioneering Alaska Pilot/Biologist Jim King Takes his Last Flight.

by Patricia Heglund, Homer Friend and retired USFWS Biologist

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.- Margaret Mead

Jim King was one of those people who changed the world. Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuges lost a staunch advocate and conservation leader with his death in March at home in Juneau at the age of 97. Jim was such a gift to me when I was starting my graduate work and throughout the remainder of my life. Jim’s remarkable life and many awards and achievements are documented in a touching memorial from his family and a Fish and Wildlife tribute . I’d like to focus on one place and a couple of stories to help Friends better understand the significance of Jim’s work.

I met Jim King in 1984 when I was a graduate student planning to conduct research on the new, Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Jim had a special knowledge of and affection for the Yukon Flats. He and his wife Mary Lou honeymooned at Fort Yukon while Jim flew aerial surveys and banded waterfowl. The work was for an environmental study of the potential effects of building a hydroelectric dam on the Yukon River at Rampart Canyon. As proposed, the dam would have flooded nine Alaska Native villages and tens of thousands of wetlands that were breeding grounds for 1 – 2 million ducks, geese and swans. The dam would have created a lake about the size of Lake Erie. Waterfowl that Jim and others banded at big lakes on the Yukon Flats, like Ohtig and Canvasback, were harvested in 46 states and over half of the Canadian Provinces. Based in part on Jim’s work, the US Fish and Wildlife Service strongly opposed dam construction and in 1967, Morris Udall, Secretary of the Interior, voiced his opposition to the dam. The project was canceled in 1971 eliminating the immediate threat to the people and waterfowl of the Flats and allowing for a different future for the land as a National Wildlife Refuge.

Jim King piloting N754 on a waterfowl survey. I was so inspired by flying with Jim that I got my pilot’s license.

Jim once told me a story of how he, and maybe others, photographed several areas of Alaska from his plane using a simple point and shoot camera. He created a picture book of recommended refuges, adding descriptions of the locations and details on the use of the area by breeding waterfowl. Jim took his book to Washington DC to the Secretary of the Interior. In 1980, several of the areas he documented were added to the National Wildlife Refuge System by President Jimmy Carter. I remember being amazed at how accessible someone like the Secretary of the Interior was to a flyway biologist back in the 1970’s.

Jim King (right) and Bruce Conant taking a lunch break on the wing of N754, a deHavilland Beaver modified specifically for low level (less than 500 feet) wildlife surveys by the Fish & Wildlife Service. This legendary plane, well-known all-over bush Alaska for over 35 years, now hangs in the Anchorage airport.

Jim’s and my friendship continued over the years. Jim hosted me at his house on Sunny Point and introduced me to his dear wife, Mary Lou, and their menagerie of waterfowl. In more recent years, Jim and I sat on a panel reviewing the biological program at Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Jim always sent me copies of his latest publications, including his last book, Attending Alaska’s Birds, fascinating reading for anyone who appreciates the history of Alaska. I last saw him at his home in 2019 when on his urging I finally brought my family to meet him. Jim was developing dementia and I don’t think he really knew who I was. But nevertheless, Jim and Mary Lou welcomed us graciously. It’s hard to think of Jim as gone. When I think of him, I see him in a western-style shirt, scrimshawed bolo tie around his neck, smiling, relentless in his pursuit of conservation. I am grateful to have known him.

Nunivak Island: Home on the Range

By Kyra Neal, Wildlife Biologist, Yukon Delta Refuge

About 30 miles offshore from where the Kuskokwim River meets the Bering Sea, nestled in Shoal Bay, there is a small island village called Mekoryuk, home to around 200 mostly Yup’ik and Cup’ik people. In this place, the mayor is the same person who takes the trash trolley to the transfer station, the city office workers are the same people who teach kindergarten, the reindeer caretaker is the same person who jump started your ATV, and the elders stop by the roadside to share wisdom of their years growing up and to welcome you to their community on Nunivak Island.

Data gap plot on the western side of Nunivak Island in the Bering Sea.

Nunivak Island is also home to 700 muskox and 3,000 reindeer. Grazing has occurred on Nunivak Island for hundreds of years, first by caribou until they were extirpated in the late 1800s and then by introduced reindeer and muskox in the last century. The condition of their range was evaluated intensively in 1989 with 10 trend plots involving 40 quadrats and two transects for each location.
Kyra Neal pulling fall dandelion near the Mekoryuk sewage lagoon road.

Since 1989, Nunivak Island has become increasingly connected to mainland Alaska with more flights, boating, muskox hunting, and tourism. Consequently, Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge partnered with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in 2022 and 2023 to reevaluate the range condition and survey the island and village of Mekoryuk for invasive species at two different spatial scales. One is a fine-tooth comb and the other is more of a broad-stroke brush.

Reindeer at the facility in Mekoryuk
Let’s start with combing the luxurious locks of the tundra. Arriving at each plot via an R-44 helicopter, we applied the same methodology to evaluate range that was used in 1989. Within these 40 20×50 cm quadrats, we estimated ground cover for each species including lichen, shrubs, forbs, grasses, bare ground, rocks, and even scat. In 10 of these quadrats, we measured production by a double sampling clip and weigh method. Changes in ground cover and productivity will tell us how grazing has affected the range. Certain lichens are favorites of reindeer and can be depleted to bare ground exposure when overgrazing occurs. For invasives, we scouted disturbed areas in Mekoryuk by foot and in our monitoring areas, combing the tundra for anything out of place. Roads, barge ports, ATV trails, airstrips were all observed by foot in search of non-native species and plots with a high percentage of bare soil.

Pulling out our broad-stoke brush, range was surveyed between the established transects. Using NRCS reconnaissance methods, we scored range conditions based on evaluating the amounts of lichen, bare soil, presence of grazing and scat on two acres between transects. For our invasive species broad brush, we evaluated bare soil vectors for invasive species to get to the interior of the island. We used aerial imagery of ATV trails and disturbed areas to help us identify potential hot spots for introduction of non-native plants to the ecosystem.

One of our 20×50 cm quadrats used for sampling ground cover to assess the condition of the range.

What did we uncover? Well, good news and bad news. The good news is there are no invasive species on the Yukon Delta Refuge. The bad news is we did find some fall dandelion on the road leading to the airport and up to the sewage lagoon in Mekoryuk. We removed as much of the fall dandelions as could be done by hand and notified the village council president of our finding. Our range evaluation showed that the western side of Nunivak was heavily grazed, but the rest of the island has high quality grazing range for reindeer to enjoy!

Plot transects laid out by Karin Sonnen and Katie Schmidt (L) while Blaine Spellman collects data (R) on an established transect. All three work for the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Yellowlegs are noisy, but we’d sorely miss them if they disappear…

By Chris Harwood, Wildlife Biologist, Kanuti National Wildlife Refuge

I’ve conducted literally thousands of songbird surveys in my almost 30 years with Alaska Refuges. On Kanuti Refuge, the listening conditions at my survey count points are typically excellent—little to no wind and, of course, no car traffic. Really, the primary aural challenge is filtering out the species and individuals I’ve already identified and counted from possibly new ones.

In the boreal forest, however, there is one natural distraction that tests my ability to concentrate during surveys (and even tries my patience!). Songbird surveys in the Interior often coincide with late incubation, hatch, or brood rearing of Lesser Yellowlegs…and nothing can ruin a songbird survey quite like a Lesser Yellowlegs vociferously defending its nearby nest or chicks.

Breeding (especially, successfully hatching) yellowlegs have little competition where alarm-calling stamina (and volume) and defensive mobbing and distraction displays are concerned. Just try and hear that distant, soft-singing Blackpoll Warbler with a yellowlegs flitting in front of your face and screaming in your ear because you’re too close to its chicks you’ll never see.

Well, it now seems that such survey distractions might be getting less common—and that’s not a good thing. The Lesser Yellowlegs population has declined by 70–80% over the past four decades across boreal North America. And it’s not just a Canadian yellowlegs problem. We believe Alaska yellowlegs are declining, too.

So, why the decline? Well, there’s a team of Alaskan and Canadian researchers who are now looking into threats to yellowlegs throughout their annual life cycle, including legal and illegal harvest in the tropics. Click here to read their report.

Through near-annual survey work from our administrative cabin along the Kanuti River, I have determined that Lesser Yellowlegs are still pretty common on a nearby study area. Given that this major yellowlegs research project lacked a study site in interior Alaska proper, I proposed that Kanuti Refuge join the boreal-wide “Yellowlegs Team” in 2018. So we purchased 10 GPS transmitters to track where some of our yellowlegs migrate and overwinter so possible threats along their annual route could be assessed.

We invited Laura McDuffie with USFWS Migratory Bird Management to the cabin in June 2019 to help us capture yellowlegs and deploy our transmitters (Laura’s M.S. thesis includes analysis of yellowlegs movements). The timing of Laura’s arrival was perfect—yellowlegs eggs started hatching that day!

We captured 13 adult yellowlegs over six exhausting days and marked them all with uniquely coded leg-flags (green with two white characters) and one blue band to denote them as “Kanuti” birds. Ten adults also received GPS transmitters. In the fall, we also contributed funding for the project’s genetics work.

Once they departed Kanuti Refuge, all but one of our 10 transmittered yellowlegs stopped initially and briefly on Yukon Flats Refuge before heading down the Central Flyway through the Great Plains of southern Canada. As of 20 August 2019, six of the yellowlegs had fanned out to points farther south, including Florida, Mexico, Cuba (2 birds), Ecuador and Peru.

Four of the 10 transmitters were still reporting as of 1 January 2020. Two of our birds are wintering in southeastern Brazil, another in northeastern Argentina, and the fourth in western Mexico.

This spring, a field assistant and I will return to the cabin with the hope of re-sighting any of the birds marked last June. After hatch, we will also attempt to mark new birds as part of an ongoing effort to study adult survival. The Yellowlegs Team is currently assessing whether more transmitter work is needed in coming years.

Kanuti Refuge hopes to remain an integral member of this amazing continent-wide research partnership as we strive to better understand what it takes to ensure Lesser Yellowlegs remain common.

Tetlin Refuge’s Trumpeter Swans: A Comeback Story

By Poppy Benson

One of the delights of traveling on the Alaska Highway through the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge is spotting graceful trumpeter swans on refuge lakes and ponds. The trumpeter, the largest waterfowl species in North America, is such an iconic Tetlin species that it was chosen for their logo used on their signs and publications. It is hard to believe that at one time, no trumpeter swans could be found on what was to become the Tetlin Refuge.

Trumpeter swans were nearly decimated from the United States for the skin and feather trade between 1600 and the 1800s. In 1935 only 69 individuals were known to exist in the US although others may have survived in remote parts of Alaska and Canada. No trumpeter swans were documented in the Upper Tanana Valley where the refuge is located until 1980. In 1985, the aerial swan survey recorded just 97 swans and 13 broods on and around the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge. Since then the population has exploded. In 2015, the last swan survey, there were almost 2000 swans! This is consistent with swan recovery throughout the country. Nation-wide swan populations have increased exponentially at a rate of 6.2% per year between 1968 and 2010. Over half of North America’s trumpeter swans breed in Alaska.

Will this growth continue or has the swan population on the refuge peaked or is it about to peak? The number of broods has been declining since it peaked at 147 in 2005. The 2015 survey found that a greater proportion of adult swans are not breeding successfully. Could all the available wetland breeding habitat already be occupied by swans? This year’s swan survey should help answer some of those questions. The data presented here is from “Thirty Years of Swan Surveys at Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge (1985-2015)” by Kristin DuBour. You can access it here.

Why Did the Moose Cross the Road?

By: Poppy Benson, Friends Board
Photo by: Mike Criss, National Wildlife Federation

Right through the middle of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge runs the Sterling Highway – lifeline and only road to the communities of the Kenai Peninsula, plus the only access for Anchorites and tourists to the rich fishing streams, beaches, trails and other natural playgrounds of the Kenai Peninsula. Traffic in summer can be overwhelming with well over a million and a half vehicles a year. When wildlife crosses highways it is dangerous for people and wildlife – all wildlife. Moose, the most frequent victims, are as likely to die in vehicle collisions on Kenai Peninsula roads as to be harvested by hunters. Unlike in hunting, moose that die on the roads tend to be cows and calves needed to sustain the population.

When the Alaska Department of Transportation began planning to upgrade the 22 miles of highway through the refuge, refuge staff knew they needed to address wildlife concerns. This past summer highway construction was completed, including five highway underpasses for wildlife, one large bridge, and fencing in spots. These are the first wildlife highway structures in Alaska outside of Anchorage. Kenai Refuge Supervisory Biologist John Morton recently gave a talk about these new wildlife improvements and the need. You can view his powerpoint here. To learn more about this issue check out the Refuge Notebook article Morton wrote about this early this year.

The Kenai Refuge’s vision statement on its website states: “The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge will serve as an anchor for biodiversity on the Kenai Peninsula despite global climate change, increasing development, and competing demands for Refuge resources. Native wildlife and their habitats will find a secure place here.” The refuge’s work in securing the wildlife underpasses is one example of refuge staff working to ensure that increased development did not take an unsustainable toll on wildlife. Well done staff!

GET TO KNOW YOUR ALASKA REFUGES: YUKON FLATS NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

Did you know that Yukon Flats is a world-renowned breeding ground for waterfowl, or that it is the third-largest national wildlife refuge in the nation?

The staff focus much of their efforts on monitoring the status of animals and habitat that are important from both a local and national perspective. Through a diverse program of biology, education, outreach, and enforcement, Refuge staff work with partners to conserve these important resources. Here is a brief summary of staff activities and items of interest between October 2018 and September 2019.