Sorted by date Results 276 - 300 of 611
In the past year, at least four citizens from Petersburg and Wrangell have sought and gained their U.S. citizenship to be with their families and for peace of mind. Elisa Teodori originates from Italy, but moved to Petersburg after she met her husband, Tor Benson, while working in Ecuador. Laura Davies first came to the US from Canada to work as a recreation therapist in Georgia, but eventually moved to Wrangell to take a job working with Alaska Crossings and met her husband. Gilda Barkfelt...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – Add salmon to the list of species affected by Alaska’s blistering summer temperatures, including the hottest July on record. Dead salmon have shown up in river systems throughout Alaska, and the mortalities are probably connected to warm water or low river water levels, said Sam Rabung, director of commercial fisheries for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The department has not quantified past heat-related fish deaths because they tended to be sporadic and inconsistent, Rabung said. But department scientists this...
On Monday, August 19th, Governor Dunleavy released his full list of Special Session budget vetoes. The Alaska Legislature passed two special session budget bills in July with the primary intention of restoring the Governor’s original vetoes and protecting certain funding sources, such as the Higher Education Investment Fund and the Power Cost Equalization Fund. In the original budget passed in June (HB39), we included continued funding for the Senior Benefits Program, the University of Alaska, early learning programs, and the Alaska State Counc...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – Biological oceanographer Sonia Batten experienced her lightbulb moment on the perils of too many salmon three years ago as she prepared a talk on the most important North Pacific seafood you'll never see on a plate zooplankton. Zooplanktons nourish everything from juvenile salmon to seabirds to giant whales. But as Batten examined 15 years of data collected by instruments on container ships near the Aleutian Islands, she noticed a trend: zooplankton was abundant in e...
One of the central parts of the annual Bearfest celebration are the symposiums. Experts on bears and bear-related subjects are invited to come speak in Wrangell each year. This year saw several such speakers, including Lance Craighead who spoke on federal and state regulations on bear conservation, Harry Reynolds on the endangered subspecies of Gobi Desert brown bears, and John Nary on bear observation challenges at the Mendenhall Glacier. A roundtable discussion was held on Thursday, July 25,...
A bear safety workshop was held at the gun range on Spur Road last Wednesday, July 24, as one of the first events scheduled for Wrangell's annual Bearfest. Wrangell resident Robert Johnson led the workshop. He has had a lot of experiences with bears over the years, he said, and told everyone early in the workshop that having respect for bears was an important part of staying safe around them. "You just have to be in awe of these animals and show them the utmost respect," he said. "As long as...
July 31, 1919 Those who have had large caches of liquor which they are selling at enormous profits have no just claim for mercy. They are not in the same position as those saloon men who had on hand, when they were out of business, wet goods the possession of which was originally lawful. The latter bought their goods to sell according to the law and they would have gladly sold it before the clock marked the ending of legal liquor traffic in Alaska. There is a spirit of fair play that tells us that these men should have had an opportunity to...
As Alaska lawmakers continue their struggle to keep the state afloat, commercial fisheries dodged a bullet that would have removed millions of dollars from its budget. An obscure procedural action within the capital budget called a ‘reverse sweep’ prevents dozens of program-specific pots of money from being automatically drained into the budget reserve, as Governor Dunleavy aimed to do. “The sweep is money that is not spent in a single year. In this case, it comes from certain sources, such as test fish receipts, commercial crew licenses and s...
State Wildlife Trooper Kyle Freeberg moved to Wrangell back in April. As a state trooper, Freeberg's job includes patrolling old logging roads during the hunting season, and watching the commercial and sport fishing in Wrangell's waters. Of course, being the only trooper in Wrangell means he has a lot of ground to cover, literally and figuratively. As such, he said that he wants to increase the amount of collaboration between himself and the people of Wrangell. This is not only to help him do a...
Wrangell District Ranger Clint Kolarich, under authority delegated by the Federal Subsistence Board, is closing the June 21 – July 31, 2019 Federal subsistence Sockeye Salmon fishery in the Stikine River. The closure will be effective Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 11:59 p.m. and will remain in effect through the rest of the 2019 season which ends July 31. The 2019 preseason forecast for the Stikine River is 90,000 Sockeye Salmon which is below the average 153,000 fish. The forecast includes 66,000 T...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced July 22, nonresident anglers may not retain king salmon from August 1 through September 15 in Southeast Alaska and Yakutat marine waters, except in designated sport fish terminal hatchery areas in the vicinity of Juneau and Ketchikan. Resident king salmon regulations remain unchanged. This period of nonresident king salmon nonretention will be effective 12:01 a.m. Thursday, August 1, through 11:59 p.m. Sunday, September 15, 2019. The Southeast...
Sea otters are considered by many people to be an adorable animal, an important part of the ecosystem, and also a nuisance that is threatening other marine life populations in Southeast Alaska. In Wrangell, many people have talked about the need for better population control when it comes to otters. The Wrangell Borough Assembly talked about loosening restrictions on hunting the creatures last September with Sebastian O'Kelly, a federal lobbyist. Back in May, fifth-grade student Brody Knecht...
Fisheries fare better than most people in terms of Governor Mike Dunleavy’s budget cuts. Just under one million dollars was cut from the commercial fisheries division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, leaving it with an $85 million budget, half from state general funds. “To give the governor credit, he recognized the return on investment,” said Doug Vincent-Lang, ADF&G Commissioner. “It’s a theme I had all the way through the legislature that we take a $200 million budget of which about $50 million is unrestricted general funds and...
One fisheries item that appears to have escaped Governor Mike Dunleavy’s veto pen so far is his desire to divert local fish taxes from coastal communities into state coffers. Dunleavy’s initial budget in February aimed to repeal the sharing of fisheries business and landing taxes that towns and boroughs split 50/50 with the state. Instead, all of the tax revenues would go to the state’s general fund – a loss of $28 million in FY 2020 to fishing communities. “There is a recognition that these are viewed as shared resources, and they should be...
The biggest fish story for Alaska’s salmon season so far is the early plug of pinks at the South Alaska Peninsula. By June 28, over 8 million pink salmon were taken there out of a statewide catch of just over 8.5 million. Previously, a catch of 2.5 million pinks at the South Peninsula in 2016 was the record for June and last year’s catch was just 1.7 million Managers at the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game at Sand Point said at this pace, this month’s catch could near 10 million pinks. “It’s unheard of, really,” ADF&G’s Elisabeth Fox told KDLG...
Last Thursday, June 20, members of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the Forest Service, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and local volunteers all converged on the beach of east Wrangell, near Channel Island, to dissect a dead gray whale that had washed ashore. Kate Savage, once a veterinarian in Wrangell but now working with NOAA, said that an Unusual Mortality Event is occurring all along the Pacific Coast, from Alaska to Mexico. There...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game have announced sport fishing regulations for king salmon in the areas near Petersburg, Wrangell, and Kake that are opening to the harvest of king salmon after being closed for Southeast Alaska wild king salmon conservation. In the waters adjacent to the Stikine River (District 8 and a portion of Eastern Passage near Wrangell; see attached Map No. 1): July 15 - December 31: Alaska resident: The bag and possession limit is two king salmon, 28 inches or...
Everybody, especially families with children, are invited to the eighth annual Kids' Fishing Day at Pats Lake this Saturday, June 15. Corree Delabrue, with the Forest Service, said that the fishing day was originally put together by Wrangell's scouting troops, but that the Forest Service had taken over in recent years. This year, the Wrangell Rod and Gun Club, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition are all involved. The event is designed to encourage...
Alaska fishermen are still awaiting disaster relief funds for the 2016 pink salmon run failure, which was the worst in 40 years. Congress approved $56 million that year for Alaska fishermen, processors and communities hurt by the fishery flop at three Alaska regions: Kodiak, Prince William Sound and Lower Cook Inlet. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and NOAA Fisheries finalized plans and procedures for payouts last August. Since then, the paper push has stalled on various federal agency desks. NOAA Fisheries missed a promised June 1 sign...
A brown bear has been killed by Wildlife Troopers and Forest Service personnel after a run-in with a group of Alaska Crossings campers just north of Berg Bay, across the narrows on the mainland near Wrangell. According to information provided by Public Information Officer Ken Marsh, with the Alaska State Troopers, the encounter occurred on Sunday, May 26, around 3 a.m. A brown bear wandered into the Crossings camp and began rummaging through the group's food. The group had a bear fence,...
Shrimp shines in the Panhandle - Southeast Alaska is the state’s biggest producer of America’s #1 seafood favorite: shrimp. And much of it is enjoyed right where it’s landed. Four varieties of shrimp are taken at various times throughout the year by permit holders, with recent catches topping 1.5 million pounds, worth $3 million at the docks. “We have 19 different areas around Southeast and each has its own appropriate harvest level for sustainability,” said Dave Harris, area manager for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Juneau. C...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced May 23, sport fishing regulations for Alaska hatchery-produced king salmon in areas near Petersburg and Wrangell. Wrangell Narrows/Blind Slough Terminal Harvest Area Described as that portion of Wrangell Narrows south of 56° 46' N. latitude (Martinsens's dock) and north and east of the northern tip of Woewodski Island and includes the freshwaters of Blind Slough upstream of a line between Blind Point and Anchor Point. The following regulations...
Pat Creek Watershed is located on Wrangell Island in Southeast Alaska, about 12 miles south of the community of Wrangell. It supports Coho, Pink, Chum, and Sockeye salmon, Dolly Varden char, and cutthroat trout, and is an important recreational fishing area for locals. The valley bottom, including most of the riparian area, was logged in the 1960’s and ‘70’s. This has resulted in stretches of over-widened stream nearly devoid of large woody debris that is important for fish habitat. From May 20 to July 15, large woody debris will be added...
May 29, 1919 Saturday night a cabin was searched by officers. The search was made by Ensign J.J. Hughes, Deputy U.S. Marshall H. J. Wallace and Ernest P. Walker of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. Probably the most damaging find made by the officers was a single sheet of manuscript containing several verses of doggerel under the title, “The Bolsheviks Are Coming.” In the cabin were also found two bundles of pamphlets, which are supposed to have been in possession for the purpose of distribution. The pamphlets in the other bundle were entitled “Th...
Last week, the Alaska House of Representatives passed a budget for the State of Alaska. As a member of the Finance Committee and the Chair of the Education & Early Development, Fish & Game, and Environmental Conservation Department Finance Subcommittees, I am a part of the budget process from the beginning until the end. For the past month, we have dug into each department budget, asking critical questions, and analyzing impacts of potential cuts. The budget was an intense collaborative effort;...
