Wildlife

Three wet muskoxen in Bering Land Bridge National Preserve.

NPS

Whether predator or prey, animals have adapted distinct diets to survive in habitats where they can most easily get their preferred food. As weather and landscapes change, the location of animals may also shift. If a food source disappears in one place, the animals may move to another area where they can forage or hunt successfully or they may starve and die if their original habitat can no longer support them. In some cases, animals have been able to change what they eat in order to survive.

Shifting habitat and animal die-offs is a significant effect of climate change. It not only means fewer game animals that humans depend on for food, like moose or caribou, but it affects the entire interconnected ecosystem from birds to fish to insects and back to the plants. All the elements of an ecosystem are important for its continued balance. The loss of one species means the possible loss of another species that relies on it. Once this cycle of change begins, it can be hard to slow down or stop.

Threats to Native Wildlife

Murre carcasses washed up at the high tide mark.

USGS / Tony DeGange

The loss of wildlife from possible climate change hit close to home for residents of Skagway in 2016. A large number of dead birds washed ashore on the beach, creating deep concern in the community.

There was that one year in January where I collected 40 dead common murres from the beach. And those are just the birds that came ashore. So there may have been thousands and thousands of them. It turned out they were starving to death. The little fish the murres eat weren’t eating the right things and couldn’t put enough fat on their bodies, so they were not providing enough fat to support the bird. I think this is probably related to warmer water from climate change that affected the fish’s food source. – Joanne Beierly, Skagway

Learning that the immediate cause of death for those common murres was starvation, it starts playing into the whole changes in the northern Pacific. Because of the warmer water, they think now that the fish that are the murres main food source are going down deeper than the diving birds can dive. – Elaine Furbish, Skagway

New Species

A crow in Skagway.

© Karen Brewster

Changing weather patterns can bring new species of animals to an area where they previously wouldn’t have been able to survive. Some people consider them invasive species, and they can often keep spreading as they out-compete native species.
This can be an especially big problem if the native species can’t adapt to the changing conditions. For example, in Skagway, observers noted how newly arrived “ring-necked doves"(Eurasian collared doves) have taken over backyard bird feeders and pushed out smaller native species like chickadees.

Eurasian collared doves (ring-necked dove) have invaded successfully. – Betsy Albecker, Skagway

They’ve also seen more crows in recent years, which they describe as noisy and nuisance garbage eaters. But for birders, the arrival of new species – whether as migrants or new resident populations - can be an exciting opportunity to see new birds without having to leave home.

We see a lot more crows. Less warblers. And we’ve had rusty blackbirds and redwing blackbirds start coming through. – Lynne Cameron, Skagways

A North American beaver (Castor canadensis).

NPS

One of the most significant examples of animals on the move in the Arctic is the arrival of beavers. Since the 1980s, Skagway residents have been seeing more beavers, especially along the lower part of the Chilkoot Trail where their dams have increased flooding and damaged the trail.

Nome residents also are concerned about increasing numbers of beavers in northwestern Alaska. Warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons mean more willows and other shrubs that are the beaver’s main food source and building material. More food equals more beavers, and the more beavers there are, the more serious the consequences are for the landscape and native species. Eventually, these changes affect the people in the Arctic who rely on hunting and fishing.

The beavers are creating major changes on the landscape by creating new ponds and watercourses, but their dams are also creating wintering ponds for Coho salmon and preventing other fish from moving upstream to spawn, which means a decrease in those species. – Charlie Lean, Nome

Building a beaver deterrent at Serpentine Hot Springs, Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Fall 2022.

NPS

Beaver have been moving north and their increased population has become a concern at Serpentine Hot Springs. The construction of dams changes the flow of the stream channel, which increases the threat of erosion and flooding, and threatens buildings. – Ken Adkisson, Nome

Insects

Insects are a smaller and often less visible part of the animal kingdom than moose or bears, but they’re equally vital to an ecosystem’s success. Some people only think of insects as pests, like that annoying mosquito buzzing around your head, or the aphids that kill your plants, but these creatures serve an important function.

As pollinators, insects help plants grow and spread. They decompose dead and dying trees and plants. And like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, what happens to insect populations is often an early indicator of future, and larger, environmental changes.

Insects were very much on the minds of Skagway gardeners.

Anybody who’s paying attention to the trees and shrubs are noticing the levels of pest damage are changing dramatically. The preponderance of different kinds of insects are changing very noticeably. – Elaine Furbish, Skagway

We had an invasion of black aphids on the delphiniums. We’ve always had aphids. But they’re green. I looked these ones up and they’re from Florida. – Lynne Cameron, Skagway

We have these hellacious, night crawlers. They’re big worms. I don’t know where they came from, but they are wrecking the yard. – Dorothy Brady, Skagway

They were particularly aware of caterpillars and the destruction they left in their wake.

I’ve noticed a lot more woolly-bear caterpillars. Never saw woolly bears ten years ago. At first it was, "Oh wow! You’re cute.” Two years ago, my daughter was playing with them and got a rash, so then it was, "You’re not so cute." This year it’s, "Oh my god! You’re all over my willow! You’re on my raspberries!" Yeah, so they’ve really increased here. - Emily Willis, Skagway

The Ryan family of Skagway with their harvest of wild King Bolete mushrooms.

© Jolanta Ryan

Changes in insect populations have another more immediate impact on humans. For example, when it comes to the use of wild plants:

I have noticed that the king bolete mushrooms are getting more bugs. So I’m harvesting them when they’re just a couple of days out of the ground, because they are less likely to have bugs yet. The bugs are maggots from a little fly that lays eggs, the egg hatches, and the maggot eats the inside of the mushroom. You can harvest them up to a certain extent and either soak ‘em and they’ll come out, or cook ‘em. But, once it gets to a certain point, it just becomes mush and you don’t want the mushroom. It feels like the bugs are worse. They just hit harder and faster and earlier. - Emily Willis

Animals on the Move

Migrating caribou running over snowy terrain.

NPS / Kyle Joly

The Arctic is changing faster in response to climate warming than other places on earth. So what does this mean to the ecosystems and wildlife populations found in the far north of Alaska? Over a number of years, people in Nome have noticed changes in the timing of the caribou migration, as well as more moose moving into the region. This can mean a change to subsistence hunting practices and wild foods harvested.

The change in timing of the seasons is effecting the caribou migration. Winter weather used to chase them south, but now it’s not getting as cold and stormy, so caribou stay in the north longer and do not migrate until later. – Charlie Lean, Nome

Moose started to come into the Seward Peninsula in the 1960s. Prior to that, there were none. – Charlie Lean

As the shrubs are moving north, so are the moose. – Ken Adkisson, Nome

We actually used to have quite a few muskox in Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, but now, there’s still some there, but not like what there used to be. Muskox have moved into other areas, like the Nulato Hills. Maybe the vegetation quality is better in a different place? Or are predators the reason why they’ve kind of moved out? Or is protection from predators the reason why some of these animals have moved into Nome? – Letty Hughes, Nome

Changes to Marine Life

A chum salmon jumps out of the water.

USFWS

Both Skagway and Nome are coastal communities with personal and commercial fisheries and subsistence hunting of marine mammals, but changes to marine life were only discussed in Nome. This may be due to who was interviewed and the questions they were asked, or that there is more local awareness about what is happening in their ocean waters due to the amount of scientific research occurring in the Bering Sea based out of Nome.

Just in the last ten years, we’ve seen range extensions. We’ve had whales, porpoises and fish found five hundred miles from their previous most northern documentation. The first hanasaki crab documented in U.S. waters came out of a gentleman’s crab hole at Diomede Island. It‘s a species that originates in South Korea and Japan, and now they’re thriving here. – Gay Sheffield, Nome

Last year, we didn’t get crab. We had two boats out there and we were going to the places we normally go to, and couldn’t find ’em. It wasn’t that we didn’t know how. We’ve been fishing for these crab for twenty-five, thirty years. There was no crab. I think it’s because of the blob of warm water that came up the coast. I think it affected Norton Sound more because it is shallow. These warm globs might be an advantage, though, because where they form, it’s good for food growth [that supports fish, crab and other species]. – Howard Farley, Sr., Nome

In summer, the fish are showing up a lot earlier. And before a certain date, they don’t even have permits from Fish and Game to subsistence fish. Fishing is a big portion of people’s diet. And in some places, it is becoming harder to dry. If you’re on the coast, sometimes you just get a week, two weeks, three weeks of rain. We’ve had it, and you can’t dry fish in that. It rots. I remember someone mentioning they changed the way they are making dry-fish. You used to cut horizontal slabs, and they were cutting vertical slabs like they were going to smoke ’em into strips. They were drying faster and easier. – Jacob Martin, Nome

Cod are moving up here into the Bering Sea to our colder water. This last year, my crew got a hundred cod in their pots. That's more then we usually get. We used to get one or two. But the trouble with cod is, it’s not worth anything. It’s a delicious fish, but they’re not worth anything. You just don’t get as much money for them as you do for salmon. – Howard Farley, Sr.

Two people work on the sea ice carving out a hole for their crab pot near Nome.

© Lia Nydes

Another big change that is very much climate driven is the king crab fishery. Through the 1980s, commercial crabbers couldn’t fish much east of Nome because all that fresh water coming from Norton Sound made it too fresh for the king crab to survive. Everyone fished west of Nome where higher salinity supported a better crab population. In the early 1990s, the salinity switched. There was less shorefast ice, less stratification in the water, and less fresh water being observed until spring melt, allowing the salinity to increase and the crab population to expand to the east. – Charlie Lean

Animal Disease

People in Skagway and Nome are concerned about diseases in animals and population die-off events have been observed in both places. Community members, citizen scientists, and researchers are working together to understand these changes in wildlife populations and what it means to the broader environment.

We’ve seen new diseases in wildlife and die-off events that have never happened before. Starting in 2011, an unidentified disease struck the seal population. No specific cause was discovered; it was called an “unusual mortality event.” And then hundreds of seabirds washed up dead on St. Lawrence Island. That turned out to be the first avian cholera documented in Alaska, and it was the first ever documented in seabirds. But the common cause of death for the seabirds for the last three years has been emaciation. They have no fat. They are obviously not feeding well. – Gay Sheffield, Nome

We’re worried about ocean acidification and harmful algal blooms. For example, walruses are benthic feeders, so whatever they feed on from the bottom of the ocean will eventually affect the food resource for us. We want to make sure that the environment is healthy because that’s a sign that our communities are going to be healthy, too. – Vera Metcalf, Nome

For more information about coastal seabird die-offs, see:

Seabird Die-Offs, Alaska Nature and Science
Seabird Die-Off at St. Paul Island
Starvation is Likely Cause of Alaska's Summer Sea Bird Die-Off

For more information about the spread of beavers into northwestern Alaska, see:

Increase in Beaver Dams Controls Surface Water and Thermokarst Dynamics in an Arctic Tundra Region, Baldwin Peninsula, Northwestern Alaska
As Arctic Warms Beavers Move In
Multi-dimensional Remote Sensing Analysis Documents Beaver-induced Permafrost Degredation, Seward Peninsula, Alaska
Expanding Beaver Pond Distribution in Arctic Alaska

Have you noticed any new species where you live? Is your community having conversations about impacts to wildlife as a result of climate change?

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