Aside Archives

The Gulf Watch Alaska Program annual meeting will be held November 14-17, 2017 at the Cordova Center in Cordova, Alaska. Program managers will convene with the Science Review Panel and project Principal Investigators to share information, to informally review results of field activities, and to develop initial work plans for the following year.

 

Never before this summer have I found as few creatures in the tide pools of the Kachemak Bay beaches that I’ve walked much of my life.

There are no sea stars. That’s astounding and weird. Normally, various species of many colors and sizes are everywhere at low tide.

Mussels that formed blue mats along a certain level of the intertidal rock and gravel are missing. Spots where they attached by their byssal threads in multiple layers now have just a few tiny individuals. Most of those rocks are instead bare or clothed in barnacles.

To read the full Alaska Dispatch News article visit:
https://www.adn.com/opinions/2017/07/10/emptied-tide-pools-tell-the-story-of-kachemak-bays-disrupted-ecosystem/

At times, we struggled to move in any direction without killing something.

Barnacles and tiny mussels beneath limp flags of bull kelp crunched under our feet. Dark-ringed burrowing anemones, at times blending with ripples in the wet sand, also succumbed to our plodding. When we placed our hands on seaweed-draped boulders for balance, we pressed plate limpets, black leather chitons and other tiny invertebrates tucked beneath the green fronds.

To read the full Alaska Dispatch News article visit:
https://www.adn.com/alaska-life/we-alaskans/2017/07/08/colorful-kaleidoscope-of-marine-life-in-homer-tidepools/

Thanks to a quarter-century of research and monitoring, scientists now know how different wildlife species were injured by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and how long it took for populations to recover.

This information may have important implications when responding to other oil spills, when conducting damage assessment studies after spills and when considering the environmental risks associated with extracting and shipping oil.

“Because wildlife species in the spill area vary so much in terms of what they eat, habitats that they use, and their ability to rebound after a drop in numbers, researchers saw huge differences in how long it took for populations to recover,” said Dan Esler, a Research Wildlife Biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and lead author of a recently released paper on the subject. “Some species were barely affected, others such as bald eagles, rebounded quickly, and other species took much longer to recover, such as sea otters.”

To read the full articles in the USGS news visit:
https://www.usgs.gov/news/wildlife-recovery-following-exxon-valdez-oil-spill-was-highly-variable-across-species?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=Twitter&qt-news_science_products=3#qt-news_science_products

 

There are now some long awaited answers, 28 years after the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound.

Today, the U.S. Geological Survey released its findings of a wildlife recovery study from the 10 million gallon plus oil spill, in 1989. According to the study, the impacts are highly variable, across the many species, throughout the area.

After decades of research and monitoring, USGS states in a written release that “scientists now know how different wildlife species were injured by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and how long it took for populations to recover.”

To read and watch the KTUU Channel 2 news visit:
http://www.ktuu.com/content/news/Wildlife-recovery-28-years-after-Exxon-Valdez-oil-spill-421058144.html