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Floating to the Hunt on National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska

This meeting was held on Tuesday, September 17, 2024, 5-6 pm AKDT
The recording of this event can be found below:

Presented by Barry Whitehill
Yukon Flats Deputy Refuge Manager (Retired)


Ivishak River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

From the mountains to the lowlands, rivers can take you to wilderness hunting.  Floating has been Barry Whitehill’s primary vehicle for accessing national wildlife refuges in Alaska in order to hunt moose, sheep, and caribou.  He also just loves rivers.  Barry’s love of rivers was honed through a career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service which enabled him to traverse remote Alaskan rivers for work.  His retirement in 2009 as the Deputy Refuge Manager at the 8.6 million acre Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in central Alaska gave him the time and opportunity to undertake extended personal float trips. He has floated over 1000 miles of Alaska’s rivers in one summer!  Barry knows Alaska rivers.  

Feast or famine is often the dynamics of Alaska’s ecosystems.  As a hunter in that setting, the difference between success and failure can be the ability to tap into the natural rhythm of the land. Barry considers floating to the hunt a great way to match the pace and terms of the Alaska landscape. Barry will share with us lessons learned in over thirty years of floating to these Alaska hunts.  He will talk about some of his favorite rivers primarily on the Arctic, Kanuti and Yukon Flats refuges all accessed out of Fairbanks.  He will also share tips for planning a float, logistics and gear.

Barry Whitehill’s biography in his own words:

I grew up in eastern Washington and considered myself fortunate to have public lands close at hand.  Starting with my first elk at age 14, it became obvious to me that dropping into deep, dark holes and undertaking challenging floats on public lands consistently brought success as a hunter.  Also, rivers and wild places rejuvenate my soul.  Later, I found this true when living in Idaho, northern Nevada, and, since 1992, in Fairbanks, Alaska. I am a Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges member and on the Board of the Alaska Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers.  Both organizations do much to support our national wildlife refuges and our opportunities to float and hunt and enjoy these public lands.


Kanuti River on the Kanuti National Wildlife Refuge.

Background on Hunting on Refuges

Some of you may be surprised to learn that hunting is one of the “Big Six” priority wildlife dependent recreational uses of national wildlife refuges along with wildlife viewing, wildlife photography, interpretation, education and fishing.  These were established as priority recreational uses in the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997.  Some lower 48 refuges are closed to hunting to protect species where the populations are not large enough to support hunting or where hunting would conflict with other priority uses.  All national wildlife refuges in Alaska are open to hunting except for very small areas adjacent to visitor facilities and the Skilak Loop Road on the Kenai Refuge where wildlife viewing, wildlife photography and small game specialty hunts (youth, bow, and falconry) are the priority uses. Protection of species is accomplished through game regulations usually set by the state. Many Alaskan households utilize wild meat as a big part of their diet.

Subsistence hunting for rural residents is also one of the purposes of all national wildlife refuges in Alaska as established by Congress in the Alaska National Interests Lands Act (ANILCA) of 1980.

Riverside camp on the Ivishak River, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Friends partnered for this program with the Alaska Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, a group dedicated to “ensuring North America’s outdoor heritage of hunting and fishing in a natural setting, through education and work on behalf of wild public lands, waters, and wildlife.”  They have been advocates for refuges, wilderness and wildlife including taking positions opposing the Ambler Road and defending the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge during the 2016 takeover and occupation by the Bundys.

 




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Conserving the Whole Lifecycle of Salmon: Gravel to Gravel in Alaska

Tuesday, April 16, 5-6 pm AKDT
Presented by Boyd Blihovde: Senior Advisor for Conservation, USFWS Alaska
This presentation was recorded.  Watch below:

Salmon have been in trouble in western Alaska and for a long time.  The people of the rivers who depend on salmon for much of their food resources and cultural identity are hurting.  Boyd Blihovde, head of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s new Gravel to Gravel Initiative, will share with us this situation and his hopes for what this new approach will bring.  Boyd, then manager of the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge,  was in the thick of it in 2022 when salmon conservation discussions reached a peak in the villages of Western Alaska and beyond.  Protecting Pacific Salmon’s entire lifecycle (from the spawning grounds to the ocean, and back to the spawning grounds) was not a new concept.

Yukon River smokehouse.  Putting up salmon for the winter.  pc  S. Zuray

However, during several hearings and listening sessions with villages and tribes, it became clear that rebuilding salmon runs across Alaska was critical for indigenous people and other rural subsistence users. Leadership from the Department of Interior heard this message from the Tribes and responded with Gravel to Gravel.  It is one of nine “Keystone Initiatives” in the United States that are being prioritized by the Department of Interior to focus agency attention and resources on priority conservation issues. The primary goal of Gravel to Gravel is, through tribal engagement and participation, to restore salmon streams and ensure food security to subsistence users within the lower-Arctic, Yukon, and Kuskokwim region of Alaska and into Canada.   However, Boyd added that “we hope our efforts just bring back salmon numbers for everyone and all users.”  Our vision is: “With Tribes centered, we unite to care for salmon, from gravel to gravel.


Fish drying racks and fishing boats are a key part of life in the salmon dependent villages of western Alaska pc USFWS

Bio: Boyd Blihovde is the Senior Advisor for Conservation at the USFWS Regional Office in Anchorage. He was the Refuge Manager at the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge based in Bethel, Alaska, from 2020 to August 2023. Prior to moving to Alaska, Boyd was the Refuge Manager at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, located in Los Fresnos, Texas.  He began his Service experience in 1989 as a GS-3, Youth Conservation Corp member at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge eventually moving on to the University of Central Florida, receiving a bachelor’s and master’s degree in biology.  Boyd studied and researched sea turtles on Archie Carr Refuge Canaveral National Seashore, and Puerto Rico and conducted research and wrote his thesis on the terrestrial behavior and site fidelity of gopher frogs.

More recently, Boyd and his wife Gisela have focused more attention on their twins (Ava and Taylor). Boyd writes “The kids have been a lot of fun and have changed our focus from work and self to family and fun.”




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Three Amazing Rivers of the Central Yukon Watershed with Refuge Manager David Zabriskie

Friends Membership Meeting
This event was held on Tuesday, March 19, 5-6 pm AKDT

  • Homer – Watch Party at Alaska Maritime Refuge Visitor Center, 95 Sterling Hwy.
  • Soldotna – Watch Party at Kenai Refuge Visitor Center on Ski Hill Road
  • Anchorage– Watch Party at BP Energy Center, Spruce/Willow Room, 1014 Energy Ct.

Three wildlife-rich refuges along the central Yukon River are named after the rivers that define them – Koyukuk, Innoko and Nowitna.  Ecologically speaking, these rivers are the heart and lifeblood of the three National Wildlife Refuges.   They are also the primary access to the refuges for the people of the central Yukon and beyond. Refuge Manager David Zabriskie who is the manager for all three refuges, will share with us his work to protect the Nowitna River, a National Wild and Scenic River, and more broadly the role all three of these rivers play in the lives of the wildlife and the people of the Central Yukon River Watershed.  For a preview of this beautiful river David will be sharing with you, check out this two minute video.

 

The Nowitna River with the Kokrine Hills in the background.  pc: USFWS

David Zabriskie’s Bio: After working as a U.S. Navy Aviation Electronics Technician for four years, David pursued his passion for conservation, completing a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in wildlife/forestry and began his Fish and Wildlife Service career through the Student Career Experience Program at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama. From there, he gained valuable experience working in the diverse landscapes of Mississippi, remote Pacific Islands, Tennessee, Alaska, and Arizona before returning to Alaska to work in Galena as the Deputy Manager and now Refuge Manager.  


David Zabriskie on the Selawik Refuge

David’s travels have provided him with the opportunity to work with diverse partners and communities across the country on amazing rivers like the Tennessee River and Colorado River. He has also led the Alaska Region’s first Comprehensive River Management Plan for the Nowitna Wild and Scenic River. In his spare time, David’s interests in photography and herpetology often lead him to remote locations around the planet for new discoveries.




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What We Think We Know: The Deep Past of the Ancient Unangan Aleut

Tuesday, February 20, 2024 5-6 pm AKT
With Archeologist and Author Debra Corbett

Friends Membership Meeting, ALL welcome.
The Zoom Recording of this event can be viewed below.

We ALL thank you so much Debbie for sharing your experience and knowledge with ALL of us.  It was great! 

Since then, exploring and trying to understand the ancient human history of these islands has been an all-consuming passion.  Along the way I worked with amazing people and experienced transcendently beautiful land and seascapes. The past and old ways lie close to the surface if you listen. Ever so gradually we learned about the people, the culture and the rich history tied to this place.  I will talk about my experiences working in the islands for 30 years and hit some of the highlights of our research. 


Debbie Corbett photographing a site on Hawadax in 2001. pc WAAPP

For 9000 years people flourished in the Aleutian Archipelago, a 1000-mile chain of islands stretching from mainland America nearly to Asia.  The rich marine environment supported 40,000 people before the coming of the Russians compared to a scant 8000 today.  In spite of this long human history and complex and interesting social organizations of the ancient Unangax, very little archeological work was done in the Aleutians perhaps because of the remoteness or the weather.  Debbie’s work was pioneering, and she is considered the foremost Aleutian archaeologist today.  Most all of the Aleutians are in the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.  

Debbie’s hot-off-the-presses book that she coauthored with Diane Hanson, Culture and Archaeology of the Ancestral Unangax/Aleut of the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, will be available for purchase and signing at the talk in Homer.  The book is available online from multiple sources. 

Biography by Debra Corbett

At age seven I decided I would be an archaeologist; no other option ever entered my mind.  I got my BA at the University of Arizona, and worked for a few years in Idaho and Arizona before heading north in 1983, to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).  The job was investigating historic sites claimed by the newly created Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Native Corporations.

That summer BIA sent two crews to Adak Island.  Since I had actually been in a small boat, I was picked for one of the crews.  Of the 12 of us, ONE, not me, knew anything about the Aleutians and none of us had been there before.  My crew spent three months in a rat-infested cabin with an inflatable boat, in the Bay of Islands one of the most beautiful spots on earth.  I was completely enmeshed in the magic of the islands.

I worked for the BIA until 1989 then went on to get an MA in Fairbanks, studying–you guessed it–the Aleutian Islands.  One day my advisor approached me with a phone number on a scrap of paper and said “This crazy bird biologist in Kansas wants to find an Aleutian archaeologist.  Call him!” and my future was set.  After completing my degree, I went to work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), largely because the agency manages the islands as part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.  Unusual for any agency, FWS allowed me to participate in a multi-year research project with the crazy biologist, Dr. Douglas Causey, and some of his colleagues.  From 1997-2003 we were the Western Aleutians Archaeological and Paleobiological Project (WAAPP).  Along the way we experienced the best and the worst the Aleutians have to offer, shipwreck, injury, laughter, frustration, fear, transcendent joy, and unbelievable archaeology.  

In December 2012 I discovered I was eligible for retirement and left the best job in the world so I could spend more time doing research and writing on the prehistory of the Aleutian Islands.  Long time friend and colleague Diane Hanson here at University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) talked me into writing a book on the prehistory of the Aleutians Islands.  We finished that book and here I am, to tell you all about 30 years in the Best Place in Alaska.







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Waterfowl on the Yukon Delta

Tuesday, October 17, 5-6 pm AKDT, Randall Friendly, Waterfowl Biologist
This presentation was recorded; watch recording below.

  • Bethel – Randall, Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge Waterfowl Biologist, will be speaking live at the Refuge Visitor Center (across from the hospital) with potluck to follow. Bring your favorite dish to share.
  • Homer – Watch Party with snacks at Alaska Maritime’s Islands & Ocean Visitor Center
  • Soldotna – Watch Party at Kenai Refuge Visitor Center on Ski Hill Road
  • Kodiak – Watch Party at Kodiak Refuge Visitor Center

The vast, watery Yukon Delta Refuge nestles between Alaska’s largest rivers, the Yukon and the Kuskokwim Rivers, where the tundra meets the Bering Sea. At 19 million acres, Yukon Delta has edged out the Arctic Refuge as the largest wildlife refuge in the country. Its diversity of habitats supports one of the largest aggregations of waterbirds in the world.  Presenter Randall Friendly was raised on this land, went off to college and has recently returned as waterfowl biologist for the Yukon Delta Refuge. Let him show you his homeland and hear from him why waterfowl has so inspired him. He will talk about how and why the refuge manages waterfowl from banding programs with Cackling geese and Brant and capture-mark-recapture with Emperor geese.

Greater White-fronted Goose, Kigigak Island, Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge pc:  Kristine Sowl, USFWS

Biography by Randall Friendly:  I am from Tuntutuliak a Yupik village of about 800 people.  It is located along the Kuskokwim River on the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge in western Alaska about 40 miles downriver from Bethel, the largest town on the Delta.  I grew up with a subsistence lifestyle of hunting and fishing with my family.  I found out I wanted to work with ducks and geese after my first season working as a technician for the US Fish and Wildlife Service working in remote places on the Yukon Delta. I saw how incredible it was to see the diversity of nesting birds like on Kigigak Island. Since then, I decided one day I wanted to continue working with waterfowl and learn more about them. With mentoring by ANSEP (Alaska Native Science & Engineering Program) I studied for my Bachelor’s at the University of Alaska Anchorage in biology.  I completed my Master’s from the University of Alaska Fairbanks this summer in wildlife biology.  My thesis was on threatened Spectacled Eiders and how their wintering conditions affect reproduction. While in college, I had a chance to work on Kodiak, and Arctic Refuges as well as Yukon Delta.  What I like most about my job is that I get to work with amazing people who are enthusiastic about wildlife and that I get to work outside of the office environment.

I recently moved to Bethel to work full time for the Yukon Delta Refuge as a waterfowl biologist.  I have been enjoying some family time after being away for college for quite some time. I like to spend time outdoors whether it is fishing, hunting, or gathering. Having moved to Bethel, I am looking forward to the opportunities to enjoy the outdoors with family and friends.

Read an interview with Randall about how the ANSEP program welcomed a boy from the village and helped him realize his dreams. And hear from Randall in this podcast about his hopes for his work, a chance to inspire others and his masters work on spectacled eiders. 




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Walk for the Wild 2023, Across Alaska!

Let’s take a moment to celebrate the incredible Refuge Staff and Friends Volunteers that have taken action to help Wildlife Thrive in Alaska! AlaskaTeam16! held 4 LIVE events, drawing 130 participants, which were held in.

  • Bethel
  • Homer
  • Kenai
  • Kodiak
  • All assisted by Friends Members/Volunteers


    Runners for Yukon Delta Refuge in Bethel!


    Alaska Maritime Refuge sign-in and snacks table on the Homer Spit Trail



  • Finishers at the Yukon Delta Refuge 5K.


    Kodiak Refuge Staff & Friends volunteer Leslie Slater


Walk for the Wild walkers on the Marsh Lake Trail, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

We also offered Virtual option for folks to Walk for the Wild wherever they were, along with a link to podcasts on our Refuges to be listened to while walking and folks from throughout the country did just that

We had a dream goal of $16,000… one day! We raised $1704 with help from the PLA Amplifier Fund. Our Team was 15th in the country! Those funds will be deposited into the Friends unrestricted funds for allocation to refuges in response to requests.

Walk for the Wild is a signature event of the NWRS Rebranding Campaign, a multi-year rebranding and activation campaign to invite new generations of Americans to fall in love  with America’s national wildlife refuges and increase private support for the National  Wildlife Refuge System and expand the demographics of Friends members and volunteers. PLAN on participating in 2024! 





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Membership Meeting, January 19, 2021, 5 pm AKT


Arctic Refuge, A Symbol for a Time of Global Change   Please join us online or by phone Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 5-6pm (AKT), for our Friends monthly meeting with guest speaker, Roger Kaye of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  

Webinar Recording


Roger Kaye has done it all – worked the Slope, spent a winter on a trapline, flew his own float and ski planes, hunted, hiked, explored all over Alaska, wrote a book on the Arctic and earned a PhD at University of Alaska Fairbanks.  He has spent much of his 41-year career with the Fish & Wildlife Service experiencing, thinking about and advocating for true wilderness, particularly of the Arctic Refuge.  On this 60th Anniversary of the Refuge, Roger Kaye will share some of his vast knowledge and take us back to the seven-year struggle to establish the Arctic Refuge.   He will explore the similarities with the struggle to defend the Refuge today.  

Olaus and Marti Murie, two giants of Alaska conservation and science,
were instrumental in protection of the Arctic through the designation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Arctic Refuge establishment was among the first, unprecedented American conservation initiatives of the 1960s that came about in response to concern over the worsening environmental degradations accompanying the prosperous postwar march of progress.  The campaign to establish the Refuge became emblematic of the larger contest between competing views of the appropriate relationship between postwar American society and its rapidly changing environment. Which notion of progress should this landscape represent—that underlying the prevailing rush toward attaining an ever-higher material standard of living, or that underpinning the emerging ecology-based perspective that emphasized sustainability and called for restraint? The question of whether or not to preserve this preeminent wilderness symbolized “the real problem,” as campaign leader Olaus Murie characterized it, “of what the human species is to do with this earth.”

Now again we face a new order of environmental threat, a convergence of global energy and resource scarcity, climate change, and widespread biospheric alterations. And now the Arctic Refuge is at the center of one of the nation’s longest and most contentious environmental debates. The question of oil development verses wilderness preservation here transcends the issue of potential resource impacts within the Refuge’s boundaries and has become symbolically intertwined with these larger, global issues. Again, the Arctic Refuge stands as a national symbol of pivotal questions and decisions Americans face: How does our consumption and material standard of living affect the national and global environments, and what quality of them are we to leave to future generations?

Roger Kaye skipped his college graduation ceremony in 1974 to come to Alaska and  work at Camp Denali for famed Alaskan conservationists Cecelia Hunter and Ginny Woods.  He started grad school but dropped out to earn enough money working on the Slope to buy his first airplane.  Once he met that goal, he took off on a series of Alaska adventures until the money ran out.   Then, he started his wildlife career first with ADFG and for 41 years the Fish & Wildlife Service.  He has been a planner, refuge pilot, Native liaison and in recent years, the agency’s Alaska wilderness coordinator. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Alaska where he has taught courses on wilderness, environmental psychology, and the Anthropocene. He is the author of Last Great Wilderness: The Campaign to Establish the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and numerous journal and popular articles related to wilderness. Currently, he is working on a book considering the future of the wildness of Wilderness in the Anthropocene. Roger lives in Fairbanks and works for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.


This webinar was recorded.  Watch below:



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