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Photo provided by USFWS Kenai National Wildlife Refuge staff groom Marsh Lake Trail for snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.

Sports

Refuge Notebook: When life gives you lemons, make a trail

The cross-country ski trails adjacent to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters and Visitor Center at the top…

Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion The author gets warm with a mask at Alaska’s Matanuska Glacier on Sunday, March 7, 20201.

Sports

Out of the Office: Warming up to masks

A March 3 lead paragraph in a news story in The New York Times asked, “When can I…

Photos courtesy of Mandy Lindeberg, NOAA, and Brenda Konar, University of Alaska Fairbanks Blood stars (top left) and leather stars (top right) were less impacted by the disease and are more likely to be seen today. Sunflower sea stars (bottom left), mottled sea stars (lower center, this one showing symptoms of disease) and ochre sea stars (lower right) used to be common, but were most affected by the disease and have become more rare.

Sports

Refuge Notebook: The fall of sea stars

Sea stars are a keystone species. As a top predator, they can restructure intertidal communities. For example, by…

Kenya Pace looks for beluga whales on March 3, 2021, along the Kenai River near Kenai, Alaska. (Photo by Teresa Becher)

News

Beluga whale monitoring efforts looking for winter sightings in Kenai, Kasilof rivers and in lower Cook Inlet

About 10 beluga whales sighted south of Ninilchik

A young beaver enjoys a willow branch snack on a pond in the Skilak Wildlife Recreation Area. (Photo by Colin Canterbury, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge)

Sports

Refuge Notebook: Leave it to beavers

I was skiing along a lake in the canoe system on a clear, cold winter day, enjoying the…

Teaser photo

Sports

Out of the Office: Glacial musings

After living in Alaska for a certain amount of time, one can start to feel like a regular,…

Photo by Colin Canterbury/USFWS A great gray owl perches in an aspen tree on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

Sports

Refuge notebook: Winter is the season for finding great gray owls

Winter can be a fantastic time to observe owls. Owls can be very secretive, sitting quietly in trees…

Salt marshes are important food sources for brown bears. As we see an earlier start to the growing season or increased plant growth, bears will likely benefit from them even more. (Photo by Michael Hannam/NPS)

Sports

Refuge Notebook: Could bears benefit from changing coastal marshes?

Flying over the Cook Inlet coast, you can look down and see expansive salt marshes where mountain rivers…

A day on Kachemak Bay. (Ashlyn O’Hara/Peninsula Clarion)

Sports

Out of the Office: Water taxi talking

Reporters spend a lot of time talking to people: people they don’t know, people they do know, people…

Phil Basargin 5-year-old Maxim Basargin around the ice Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021 during the Skate the Lake event on Beluga Lake in Homer, Alaska. The free skating event was hosted for the community by the Homer Hockey Association. (Photo by Megan Pacer/Homer News)

Sports

Homerites take to the lake in skate event

Homer Hockey Association hosted Skate the Lake for the community

A red-breasted nuthatch looks over its shoulder between bites of suet in a hanging-cage style feeder. (Photo by Todd Eskelin/USFWS)

Sports

Refuge Notebook: Social distancing is not just for humans

Salmonella is a type of bacteria that hits our news feeds often. Infections in human foods cause illness…

Photo by Colin Canterbury/USFWS A rare photograph of a shrew during winter. This shrew was observed above the snow where it had been sneaking out of the subnivean zone for short periods of time, possibly to exploit seeds or suet that had fallen on top of the snow beneath a bird feeder in Soldotna.

Sports

Refuge notebook: The hidden subnivean

Alaska summers are fast paced with people, wildlife and plants all in apparent frenzy trying to capitalize on…

Predaceous flatworms hide under leaves by day in a spring near Soldotna Airport on Dec. 21, 2017. At night they hunt for other invertebrates. (Photo by Matt Bowser/USFWS)

Sports

Refuge Notebook: Life in Kenai Peninsula freshwater springs

I like winter. I really do. The cold and the dark don’t wear on me too much as…