The handcrafted wooden raft — recently outfitted with a brand-new camouflage canopy and livestream video camera — quietly drifts around its anchor on Connors Lake in Anchorage, Alaska. Waterbirds dabble on the shallow waters, while people play with their dogs on the shoreline and jets fly overhead from the nearby…

Mammals in flight over Alaska Moose wondering through wetlands. The giant brown bears of Kodiak Island coming down from their winter hibernation spots. Of all the large iconic mammals that have come to represent Alaska over time, what about some of the smallest mammals found in North America and the only ones that are capable…

Alaska feels the pinch for the first time — They’re described as one of the biggest threats to Alaska’s marine environment, and you’ve probably never heard of them. This year, they were found in the state for the first time. Ever. Say hello to the invasive green crab. Invasive green crabs (aka European green crabs, Carcinus maenas) are shore…

Partners rally to restore entire watershed in Southeast Alaska — A weight is being lifted from Southeast Alaska’s Good River in Gustavus, Alaska — both literally and figuratively. With beginnings in Glacier Bay National Park and an end in Icy Strait, the Good River is like many Southeast Alaska rivers — a nursery for fish, cold, and relatively short (by…

Little Tonsina bridge nation’s first Bipartisan Infrastructure Law-funded fish passage project to break ground — Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” Alaska’s rivers are no exception. One day they’re a trickle, the next a torrent. Rivers carve up landscapes and jump their banks. They are…

If you’ve ever felt the tug of a shimmery salmon at the end of your line or in your net you probably know that the act of catching is just a small piece of something much bigger. Arguably, the most iconic fishes in the western states and Alaska, salmon have…

Southeast Alaska — it’s wet here. With more than 200 inches of precipitation each year, this is one of the rainiest places in the United States behind Mount Waialeale on Hawaii’s Kauai Island and a few locations on Maui. Home to one of only seven rare coastal temperate rainforests in…

How the iconic tufted puffin sends us vital ocean signals — Have you ever peeped a tufted puffin? Chances are, you (lucky ducky) saw them during the summer breeding season: bright orange beaks, long golden feather head plumes, and a sharp white and black eye mask with red eyeliner that has earned them the name “clown of the sea.” …

Most of the tufted puffins in North American breed in Alaska during the summer… but where in the wide sea do they go during the winter? — At the end of August along the Alaskan coast, fuzzy gray pufflings fledge from their earth burrows into sleek, dark seabirds. They follow their parents to the sea to make their way in the marine world, the start of a migration away from land for the next several months.