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Publications

USGS research activities relevant to Alaska have yielded more than 9400 historical publications. This page features some of the most recent newsworthy research findings.

Filter Total Items: 2891

Introduction

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska is one of 16 refuges in Alaska and 539 refuges nationwide within the National Wildlife Refuge System administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. First established as the Arctic National Wildlife Range in 1960 by Public Land Order 2214, it initially had a three-fold purpose to preserve unique wildlife, wilderness, and recreation val

Mechanisms of impact and potential recovery of nearshore vertebrate predators following the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill

The 1989 spill of some 42 million L of crude oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska, represents not only the largest tanker spill in United States history, but the world’s largest spill in northern waters. Acute effects have been studied extensively. However, efforts to quantify the spill’s long-term chronic effects and develop defensible restoration measures have been plagued by varying levels of

Testing pop-up satellite tags as a tool for identifying critical habitat for Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) in the Gulf of Alaska

To maintain healthy commercial and sport fisheries for Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis), critical habitat must be defined by determining life history patterns on a daily and seasonal basis. Pop-up satellite archival transmitting (PSAT) tags provide a fisheries-independent method of collecting environmental preference data (depth and ambient water temperature) as well as daily geolocation
Authors
Andrew C. Seitz, Derek Wilson, Jennifer L. Nielsen

Predators

Calving caribou (Rangifer tarandus) of the Central Arctic herd, Alaska, have avoided the infrastructure associated with the complex of petroleum development areas from Prudhoe Bay to Kuparuk (Cameron et al. 1992, Nellemann and Cameron 1998, and Section 4 of this document). Calving females of the Porcupine caribou herd may similarly avoid any oil field roads and pipelines developed in areas traditi
Authors
Donald D. Young, Thomas R. McCabe, Robert E. Ambrose, Gerald W. Garner, Greg J. Weiler, Harry V. Reynolds, Mark S. Udevitz, Dan J. Reed, Brad Griffith

Forage quantity and quality

The Porcupine caribou herd has traditionally used the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, for calving. Availability of nutritious forage has been hypothesized as one of the reasons the Porcupine caribou herd migrates hundreds of kilometers to reach the coastal plain for calving (Kuropat and Bryant 1980, Russell et al. 1993).Forage quantity and quality and the chronology o
Authors
Janet C. Jorgenson, Mark S. Udevitz, Nancy A. Felix

Life and death of the Resurrection Plate

No abstract available.
Authors
Peter J. Haeussler, D. C. Bradley, R. E. Wells, Marti L. Miller

Waterbird conservation for the Americas: The North American waterbird conservation plan, version 1

The North American Waterbird Conservation Plan (the Plan) is the product of an independent partnership of individuals and institutions having interest and responsibility for conservation of waterbirds and their habitats in the Americas. This partnership - Waterbird Conservation for the Americas - was created to support a vision in which the distribution, diversity, and abundance of populations and
Authors
James A. Kushlan, Melanie J. Steinkamp, Katharine C. Parsons, Jack Capp, Martin Acosta Cruz, Malcolm Coulter, Ian Davidson, Loney Dickson, Naomi Edelson, Richard Elliot, R. Michael Erwin, Scott A. Hatch, Stephen Kress, Robert Milko, Steve Miller, Kyra L. Mills, Richard Paul, Roberto Phillips, Jorge E. Saliva, Bill Syderman, John Trapp, Jennifer Wheeler, Kenton D. Wohl

Sea otter studies in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve

Following translocations to the outer coast of Southeast Alaska in 1965, sea otters have been expanding their range and increasing in abundance. We began conducting surveys for sea otters in Cross Sound, Icy Strait, and Glacier Bay, Alaska in 1994, following initial reports (in 1993) of their presence in Glacier Bay. Since 1995, the number of sea otters in Glacier Bay proper has increased from aro
Authors
James L. Bodkin, Kimberly A. Kloecker, George G. Esslinger, Daniel H. Monson, J.D. DeGroot, J. Doherty

Polar Bears

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are hunted throughout most of their range. In addition to hunting polar bears of the Beaufort Sea region are exposed to mineral and petroleum extraction and related human activities such as shipping road-building, and seismic testing (Stirling 1990).Little was known at the start of this project about how polar bears move about in their environment, and although it was
Authors
Steven C. Amstrup

Snow geese

Part of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, is used as an autumn staging area by lesser snow geese (Chen caerulescens caerulescens) from the Western Canadian Arctic population (hereafter called the Western Arctic population). There were approximately 200,000 breeding adults in the Western Arctic population through the mid-1980s (Johnson and Herter 1989), but the popul
Authors
Jerry W. Hupp, Donna G. Robertson, Alan W. Brackney

Persistent organic pollutants in murre eggs from the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea

No abstract available.
Authors
John R. Kucklick, Stacy S. Vander Pol, P.R. Becker, Rebecca S. Pugh, Kristin S. Simac, G.W. York, D.G. Rosenau