Publications

The 1989 spill of some 42 million L of crude oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska, represents not only the largest tanker spill in United States history, but the world’s largest spill in northern waters. Acute effects have been studied extensively. However, efforts to quantify the spill’s long-term chronic effects and develop defensible restoration measures have been plagued by varying...

To maintain healthy commercial and sport fisheries for Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis), critical habitat must be defined by determining life history patterns on a daily and seasonal basis. Pop-up satellite archival transmitting (PSAT) tags provide a fisheries-independent method of collecting environmental preference data (depth and ambient water temperature) as well as daily...

Part of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, is used as an autumn staging area by lesser snow geese (Chen caerulescens caerulescens) from the Western Canadian Arctic population (hereafter called the Western Arctic population). There were approximately 200,000 breeding adults in the Western Arctic population through the mid-1980s (Johnson and Herter 1989), but...

No abstract available.

We present historic and contemporary information on the distribution and abundance of Buff-breasted Sandpipers (Tryngites subruficollis) in South America. Historic information was collated from the literature, area ornithologists, and museums, whereas contemporary data were derived from surveys conducted throughout the main wintering range in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil during the...

Estimates of population size (total number of individuals) or density (number of individuals per unit area) are some of the most basic requirements for wildlife research and management. This article provides a brief overview of approaches for wildlife population estimation. These include habitat-based approaches such as quadrat, line intercept, distance, and repeated count methods, as...

1. Animal populations, defined by geographical areas within a species’ distribution where population dynamics are largely regulated by births and deaths rather than by migration from surrounding areas, may be the correct unit for wildlife management. However, in heterogeneous landscapes varying habitat quality may yield subpopulations with distinct patterns in resource use and demography

We examined the potential role of food limitation in constraining the recovery of sea otters Enhydra lutris in Prince William Sound, Alaska, following the 'Exxon Valdez' oil spill. The spill resulted in the removal of a large number of sea otters in 1989, and as of 1998, the portion of the population in the heavily oiled northern Knight Island region had not fully recovered. Between 1996...

The relationship between the risk of hantaviral pulmonary syndrome (HPS), as estimated from satellite imagery, and local rodent populations was examined. HPS risk, predicted before rodent sampling, was highly associated with the abundance of Peromyscus maniculatus, the reservoir of Sin Nombre virus (SNV). P. maniculatus were common in high-risk sites, and populations in high-risk areas...

Dramatic changes in seabird and marine mammal stocks in the Gulf of Alaska have been linked to shifts in abundance and composition of forage fish stocks over the past 20 years. The relative value (e.g., size and condition of individual fish, abundance) of specific forage fish stocks to predators under temporally changing oceanographic regimes is also expected to vary. We inferred...

Foraging intensity and faecal inputs are important determinants of plant community response to herbivory. We used captive adult lesser snow geese (Anser caerulescens caerulescens), which feed on both above- and below-ground plant tissues, to manipulate foraging intensity and faecal inputs to plots in a sedge meadow in spring, 1996. We measured plant and soil characteristics throughout...

Caribou are found throughout the boreal forests of interior Alaska, a region subject to chronic and expansive wildland fires. Fruticose lichens, if available, constitute the majority of the winter diet of caribou throughout their range and are common in mature boreal forests but largely absent from early successional stages. Fire, the dominant ecological driving force, increases...