By Federal Wildlife Officers/Canine Handlers,                                                        Pete Harvey and Robert Barto

Alaska’s Resource Protection Teams: Patrol Captain/ Canine Handler Rob Barto with Eider and Senior Federal Wildlife Officer/ Canine Handler Pete Harvey with Togo. pc. Lisa Hupp

Imagine you are a Federal Wildlife Officer on a very busy National Wildlife Refuge. You just received a call from a concerned citizen stating they heard gunshots near a refuge lake while they were observing nesting migratory birds. The bird watcher stated they saw a huge flock of birds leave their nests as soon as the shots were fired. When the flock cleared, three birds lay motionless on the ground. It was not hunting season.

You respond to the area and try to locate the individuals responsible, but they are gone. So begins your investigation. The large lake is surrounded with high grasses. You follow a trail of flattened down grass to an area where it looks like someone had laid down. You search in vain through the grass to try and locate any shell casings or other evidence. Where do you go from here? 

You know that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has nine Resource Protection Canine Teams throughout the country, and one of the teams is located in your area. You call up the team and ask for their assistance. 

                  Eider ready to go to work,. pc: Lisa Hupp  

This is where Federal Wildlife Canine Togo or Eider and their handlers Peter Harvey and Rob Barto come in.  We are certified as Resource Protection Teams. This means Togo and Eider can detect illegally taken wildlife (currently certified in caribou, moose, brown bear and black bear detection), locate evidence of illegal activity (casings, knives, bullet fragments, etc.), track for missing persons, and help apprehend dangerous and violent offenders.  Togo and Eider are one of the very few K-9s in the world that are trained for wildlife detection AND handler/public protection. 

In this scenario, we would be able to use Togo and Eider’s unique ability to locate “articles” or “evidence” that has human odor. For instance, they would be able to locate any shotgun shells or rifle casings. Both canines are trained to perform a specific function that alerts us to when they have located evidence with human odor. Such evidence could be used in either our or other officer’s investigations.  

Both teams are based on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge but work throughout the state.  In addition to the Kenai, the K9s have worked on the Yukon Delta and Tetlin Refuges and assisted the BLM during caribou hunting season along the Steese and Taylor highways.  They have participated in search and rescues and duck, moose and caribou hunter law enforcement. In one case with a happy ending, Pete got a call about a hunter harvesting a sub legal moose.  Togo was sent out and quickly found the car but the harvested moose turned out to be legal!  Both dogs live with their handlers in kennels but not as house pets.  

Federal Wildlife Canine Togo was born in the Czech Republic and came to Alaska after training in Pennsylvania. Togo and Pete got to work in August of 2022. Togo got his name from the famous dog team that carried lifesaving medicine to the town of Nome, Alaska, during the 1925 Serum Run. He enjoys being active outdoors, hiking, swimming and eating milk-bones.  Federal Wildlife Canine Eider is a four-year-old German Shepard and Belgian Malinois mix. He came from Belarus and was trained in Michigan in 2020.  Eider was the first FWS K9 certified for both wildlife detection and handler protection. 

Meet the Dogs

Do you want to see these dogs in action?  Come to our indoor/outdoor presentation at the  Kachemak Bay Shorebird  Festival in Homer, Saturday May 6, 2 pm for adults and 4:30 pm for Junior and Teen Birders.  You must register because space is limited, but you can do that online here.

by Poppy Benson, Outreach Coordinator

Alaska is burning and so are Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuges.  Over one million acres in 400 separate fires are burning across the state.  Forty-five of these fires are on refuges with 200,000 acres aflame.  Almost every one of Alaska’s 16 refuges has had a fire with the majority of the fire activity on Kenai, Yukon Flats, and Arctic Refuges.  The largest refuge fire is the 100,000 acre Swan Lake Fire on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.  This fire was started by lightning in early June in a limited fire management area. Firefighting efforts are concentrated on protecting the towns of Sterling and Cooper Landing, the highway, and HEAs power line while allowing the fire to burn in the wild part of the refuge.   Backfires lit along the Sterling Highway and on the western edge of the fire have been very successful in boxing in the fire and preventing it from spreading in the direction of Sterling. 

A real benefit of this fire is that it is burning up heavy fuels which will make the towns and the refuge much safer for decades from the risk of a more catastrophic fire. Kenai Refuge biologists learned in earlier studies that black spruce burns about every 80 years, and it has been 80 years since this area last burned.  In the higher elevations, the fire is burning up spruce bark beetle-killed white spruce.  It is a fire-dependent landscape and will adapt.  Positive impacts on wildlife will come as the fire will alter the habitat to an earlier successional stage where “moose food” such as aspen and birch will sprout in the burned areas.  The fire has exhibited some extreme fire behavior burning in the tundra and riparian areas.  The negative impacts of that on wildlife are yet to be determined.  The biggest human impact from the fire has been the smoke which has been particularly hard on communities east of the refuge.  Numerous refuge trails, campgrounds, and public use cabins have been closed due to smoke and fire crews working in the area but none have been damaged so far.  The famed Swan Lake Canoe Route, just west of the fire, has also not been impacted.  

Fire conditions have been extreme because a series of high-pressure domes parked on top of the Kenai Peninsula for weeks preventing rain, creating record temperatures, drying fuels and preventing smoke from rising into the high atmosphere.  According to USFWS Regional Fire Management Coordinator Doug Alexander, “I’ve been up here 10 years and I can’t believe how hot it is.  It is nearly 90 degrees every day on that fire.”   Record high temperatures have been recorded throughout the state with Anchorage hitting 90 degrees for the first time ever.  Fortunately, in just the last few days, the normal marine airflow has begun to return, giving firefighters a break by moderating fire behavior.  You can follow the progress of the Swan Lake fire here.