Publications

Despite its great distance from productive shelf-edge habitat, the inner shelf area of the Bering Sea, from St. Lawrence Island to the Bering Strait, supports a surprisingly large number (>5 million) of seabirds during summer, mostly small plantivorous auklets (65%) and large piscivorous murres (19%) and kittiwakes (5%). This paradox of seabird biogeography is explained by the Anadyr...

Power analysis is helpful in defining goals for ecological monitoring and evaluating the performance of ongoing efforts. I examined detection standards proposed for population monitoring of seabirds using two programs (MONITOR and TRENDS) specially designed for power analysis of trend data. Neither program models within- and among-years components of variance explicitly and independently...

Subspecies of Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) exhibit wide variation in body size across their range. To monitor harvest levels in the Pacific Flyway, biologists commonly use culmen length and plumage color to differentiate among subspecies on sympatric wintering grounds. Among the four large-bodied Pacific subspecies (B. c. parvipes, B. c. occidentalis, B. c. fulva, and B. c. moffitti)...

Twenty free-ranging spectacled eiders (Somateria fischeri; 10 male, 10 female), 11 free-ranging king eiders (Somateria spectabilis; 6 male, 5 female), and 20 female common eiders (Somateria mollissima) were anesthetized with propofol, bupivacaine, and ketoprofen for the surgical implantation of satellite transmitters. Propofol was given to induce and maintain anesthesia (mean total dose...

I evaluated rates of marrow fat deposition and skeletal growth of caribou (Rangifer tarandus granti) calves through 20 days of age at Denali National Park, Alaska, USA. Both were negatively correlated with late winter snowfall, indicating the prolonged effects of maternal undernutrition following severe winters. Using regression analyses, I found that the rates of marrow fat deposition...

No abstract available.

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) give birth to and nurture their young in dens of ice and snow. During 1999-2001, we measured the structure of 22 dens on the coastal plain of northern Alaska after polar bear families had evacuated their dens in the spring. During the summers of 2001 and 2002, we revisited the sites of 42 maternal and autumn exploratory dens and recorded characteristics of...

The ecosystem response to the 1989 spill of oil from the Exxon Valdez into Prince William Sound, Alaska, shows that current practices for assessing ecological risks of oil in the oceans and, by extension, other toxic sources should be changed. Previously, it was assumed that impacts to populations derive almost exclusively from acute mortality. However, in the Alaskan coastal ecosystem...

No abstract available.

The banking of environmental specimens under cryogenic conditions for future retrospective analysis has been recognized for many years as an important part of environmental monitoring programs. Since 1987, the Alaska Marine Mammal Tissue Archival Project (AMMTAP) has been collecting tissue samples from marine mammals for archival in the National Biomonitoring Specimen Bank (NBSB) at the...

Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve is dominated by the marine waters that make up nearly one-fifth of the park’s area. Since the late 1800s, the nutrient rich waters of Glacier Bay have supported highly productive commercial fisheries. Congress closed fishing in parts of Glacier Bay National Park in 1999, creating one of North America’s largest marine reserves. Throughout the world...

Many bear-human conflicts have occurred in Alaska parks and refuges, resulting in area closures, property damage, human injury, and loss of life. Human activity in bear country has also had negative and substantial consequences for bears: disruption of their natural activity patterns, displacement from important habitats, injury, and death. It is unfortunate for both people and bears...