Publications

Documenting the distribution of land-cover types on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain is the foundation for impact assessment and mitigation of potential oil exploration and development. Vegetation maps facilitate wildlife studies by allowing biologists to quantify the availability of important wildlife habitats, investigate the relationships between animal locations and...

This paper reports on the anesthesia and liver biopsy techniques used in adult and nestling pigeon guillemots (Cepphus columba) to test for continued exposure to residual crude oil in the marine environment. Populations of pigeon guillemots have declined significantly in Prince William Sound, Alaska, USA, possibly because of residual effects of crude oil in the environment after the...

All existing sea otter (Enhydra lutris) populations have suffered at least 1, and in some cases 2, population bottlenecks. The 1st occurred during the 18th and 19th centuries as a result of commercial hunting that eliminated sea otters from much their native range and reduced surviving populations to small remnants. The 2nd bottleneck occurred when small numbers of otters were...

In 1998, we collected blood samples from 63 emperor geese (Chen canagica) on their breeding grounds on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YKD) in western Alaska, USA. We studied the relationship between selenium concentrations in whole blood and the activities of glutathione peroxidase and glutathione reductase in plasma. Experimental studies have shown that plasma activities of these enzymes...

No abstract available.

Lesser snow geese (Anser caerulescens caerulescens) and Canada geese (Branta canadensis) use several salt marshes in Cook Inlet, Alaska, as stopover areas for brief periods during spring migration. We investigated the effects of geese on nitrogen cycling processes in Susitna Flats, one of the marshes. We compared net nitrogen mineralization, organic nitrogen pools and production in...

Since the Twelfth Working Meeting of the IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group in 1997, a number of changes in the management of polar bears have occurred in Alaska. On October 16, 2000, the governments of the United States and the Russian Federation signed the “Agreement on the Conservation and Management of the Alaska-Chukotka Polar Bear Population.” This agreement provides substantial...

Fecal-indicator bacteria were sampled at 14 stream sites in Anchorage, Alaska, USA, as part of a study to determine the effects of urbanization on water quality. Population density in the subbasins sampled ranged from zero to 1,750 persons per square kilometer. Higher concentrations of fecal-coliform, E. coli, and enterococci bacteria were measured at the most urbanized sites. Although...

Following translocations to the outer coast of Southeast Alaska in 1965, sea otters have been expanding their range and increasing in abundance. We began conducting surveys for sea otters in Cross Sound, Icy Strait, and Glacier Bay, Alaska in 1994, following initial reports (in 1993) of their presence in Glacier Bay. Since 1995, the number of sea otters in Glacier Bay proper has...

The Porcupine caribou herd has traditionally used the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, for calving. Availability of nutritious forage has been hypothesized as one of the reasons the Porcupine caribou herd migrates hundreds of kilometers to reach the coastal plain for calving (Kuropat and Bryant 1980, Russell et al. 1993). Forage quantity and quality and the...

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are hunted throughout most of their range. In addition to hunting polar bears of the Beaufort Sea region are exposed to mineral and petroleum extraction and related human activities such as shipping road-building, and seismic testing (Stirling 1990). Little was known at the start of this project about how polar bears move about in their environment, and...

Calving caribou (Rangifer tarandus) of the Central Arctic herd, Alaska, have avoided the infrastructure associated with the complex of petroleum development areas from Prudhoe Bay to Kuparuk (Cameron et al. 1992, Nellemann and Cameron 1998, and Section 4 of this document). Calving females of the Porcupine caribou herd may similarly avoid any oil field roads and pipelines developed in...