Alaska Fish & Wildlife News
September 2009

Running a Top-Notch Bear Viewing Program

By Elizabeth Manning

How can land managers ensure that commercial bear-viewing operations are providing a quality experience for visitors without disturbing bears?

Rules are one way, but on Kodiak Island, a community program is tackling the problem through an innovative and proactive educational approach.

For the past two springs, the Kodiak Unified Bear Subcommittee (KUBS) of the Kodiak Fish and Game Advisory Committee has offered a college-level course detailing how to run a top-notch bear-viewing ...   Quality Bear Viewing ArticleContinued

Net-Wielding Researchers
Catch Rare Seabirds

By Beth Peluso

“Two Kittlitz's, 20 meters, escape diving.”

Acting as spotters, Nick Hatch and Sarah Schoen stand in the bow of the research vessel Curlew on an overcast July afternoon, calling out birds as we chug north from Yakutat. They've spotted Kittlitz's murrelets, one of the rarest seabirds in the world and one of the most difficult to study. Descriptions of the species are checkered with “unknown” and “probably.”

The two avian technicians are part of a team heading for Icy Bay, an isolated, ...   Netting Rare Birds ArticleContinued