Publications

Existing knowledge on high-seas and coastal gillnet fisheries known to kill seabirds in the North Pacific is summarized. Recent estimates suggest that high-seas gillnet fisheries may have taken more than 500,000 seabirds in 1990. The majority of birds taken in those fisheries were Sooty Puffinus griseus or Short-tailed P. tenuirostris shearwaters. A recent analysis of impacts of those...

Abundance, distribution, and habitat selection of breeding and moulting Pacific Black Brant were studied on Wrangel Island in 1989-91. Two nests and

Ornithology in Alaska formally began with the observations of Georg Wilhelm Steller during Vitus Bering's voyage of discovery in 1741. Steller's journal makes brief mention of various seabird species he encountered during his travels in the Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands (Frost and Engel 1988). For more than 100 years following Steller, the Russian-American Company was active in...

We summarize current knowledge about the distribution of Pacific Black Brant and recent dynamics of colonies, particularly on the Yukon-Kuskokwim (Y-K) Delta, Alaska. About 20,000 nests are required to produce the number of young in the autumn flight using estimates of clutch size, hatching success and gosling survival based on colonies on the Y-K Delta. More than 80% of the nests in the

We report three cases where female Brown Bears (Ursus arctos middendorffi) with new (1 winter season. The adoptions occurred in a sampling of 104 litters produced by 89 different females on Kodiak Island, Alaska during 1982-1990. A maximum of six cubs were reared from litters that probably would have produced 3-4 subadults if the adoptions had not taken place.

The Island Mountain deposit, an anomalous massive sulfide in the Central belt of the Franciscan subduction complex, northern California Coast Ranges, formed during hydrothermal activity in a sediment-dominated paleo-sea-floor environment. Although the base of the massive sulfide is juxtaposed against a 500-m-wide melange band, its gradational upper contact within a coherent sequence of...

Most seabirds breed in colonies on offshore islands, but throughout most of their range from California to Alaska Marbled Murrelets (Brachyramphus marmoratus) fly inland to nest on trees in old-growth coniferous forests. Some fraction of the murrelet population nests on the ground in Alaska. The relative distribution and abundance of murrelets in forested and treeless areas of Alaska is...

We analyze intraspecific mitochondrial DNA variation in chinook salmon from drainages in the Yukon River, the Kenai River, and Oregon and California rivers; and chum salmon from the Yukon River and vancouver Island, and Washington rivers. For each species, three different portions of the mtDNA molecule were amplified seperately using the polymerase chain reaction and then digested with...

No abstract available.

Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and geese often occur together, especially at sites used by geese for migrational staging and wintering. Although numerous studies have been directed at these taxa, there are only anecdotal accounts (Parris et al. 1980, Bennett and Klaas 1986, Bartley 1988) of Bald Eagles killing healthy geese at any time of the year (but see Raveling and Zezulak...

A positive relationship exists between fledgling body mass and juvenile survival for some altricial (Krementz et al. 1989, Magrath 1991, Linden et al. 1992) and precocial (Owen and Black 1989, Longcore et al. 1991, Francis et al. 1992) species. Because the energetic demands of migration are high, physiologic condition may be a proximate determinate of juvenile survival in geese. Owen and...

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) can be adversely affected by hunting and other human perturbations because of low population densities and low reproduction rates. The sustainable take of adult females may be as low as 1.5% of the population. Females and accompanying young are most vulnerable to hunting, and hunters have not consistently reported the sex composition of the harvest...