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Wildlife & Nature

Close encounters with Alaska weasels

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Weasels, also called ermines, live one or two years. Their fur turns white in winter and brown in summer. Photo by Eric M. Beeman. In the last century, when my wife was but a wee tyke, she spied a small hole in the bank overlooking a drainage ditch. An inquisitive lass, her rampant curiosity led her to insert her arm to see what treasures lay entombed inside. A muffled chittering and a quick brush with silky fur necessitated a hasty retreat, but not before a set of sharp white teeth buried themselves into the soft flesh of her thumb. My future bride shrieked and flailed her arm to no avail, as the marauder was firmly attached. A final bash loosened its grip and our young adventurer sped off to the solace of her grandparents, curious no more. Most introductions to Alaska’s smallest furbearer are less traumatic, although perhaps as brief.…

A bull moose rubs his antlers on weather instruments in Anchorage.
Wildlife & Nature

Anchorage residents live with urban wildlife

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A bull moose rubs his antlers on weather instruments in Anchorage. Photo courtesy Dan Peterson, NOAA/NWS/WSFO Anchorage It’s uncommon to see wolverines in Anchorage, but one rogue wolverine ventured into the city where it could prey on chickens and chase stray cats. Biologist Dave Battle got a call one day that the wolverine had killed someone’s rabbits and stashed them under a low deck. Every time the homeowner approached the deck, the wolverine growled. To solve the dilemma, Battle first used a garden tool to pull the rabbits out from under the deck. Then, he and a fellow biologist turned on the hose and jetted water at the animal. The wolverine sprinted out from under the deck and never returned. “Not every day that you spray a wolverine out from under a deck with a garden hose,” Battle says. Battle, who has worked as the management biologist for the Anchorage…

Photos & Videos

The Wildest Hunt – Protect the Tongass!

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Humans have unprecedented power to change our environment. That also gives us a staggering responsibility to be good stewards of the environment. Here’s one take on what hangs in the balance. It focuses on the Tongass National Forest and features one of Alaska magazine’s regular editors and writers, Bjorn Dihle (also a bear viewing guide and book author), as well as wilderness instructor Forest Wagner. Take action! Let your voice be heard and leave a comment for USDA Forest Service Secretary Sonny Perdue regarding the Roadless Rule by completing the form at https://salmonstate.org/tongass-take-action/

Wildlife & Nature

Open Mouth, Insert Fish

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After more trips around Alaska than I can count, I had yet to see bubble-feeding whales until this summer. I filled in for a photo instructor aboard the National Geographic Quest on a Lindblad/NatGeo cruise of the InsidePassage, with my eye on this ultimate bucket-list reward. Most humpback whales feed independently or with their calves, except when they do the coordinated dance of bubble-netting. As a group, multiple humpbacks descend below the surface of the water, sounding off and cueing one another, creating a circle of bubbles that “trap” herring inside the confusion. Then, all the whales rise at once, mouths gaping like the Hungry Hippo game our son once played, their hair-like baleen straining out water to keep nutrient-rich fish. Staring into the mouth of a whale topped my adventures at sea this July and made the 16-hour days pass like the gulp of a giant humpback

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