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At night, birds use the stars to find their way (pretty cool, right?). But bright lights from buildings, towers, and houses can confuse them. That's why national parks are so important - they're like bird hotels! They give birds safe places to rest and eat, especially after flying across the ocean.

Read a summary and get the link to a published article on caribou migration. Joly, K., M. D. Cameron, and R. G. White. In press. Behavioral adaptation to seasonal resource scarcity by Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) and its role in partial migration. Journal of Mammalogy.

Julia Edwards spent summer 2023 working as a Volunteer Management Intern at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. As part of the Fish and Feathers Internship Program, Julia led environmental education programs and service-learning projects. Read about Julia's experiences in the Cuyahoga Valley.

Meet Sofia Gilroy, Natural Resource Management Intern at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. As part of the Latino Heritage Internship Program, she has gotten hands-on experience with research projects related to birds. Read more about Sofia’s park story and some of the projects she worked on in summer 2023.

Alaska Park Science (2015) - Within just six weeks of fledging, some of Denali’s juvenile eagles fly over 4,000 miles to spend the winter in central Mexico. Here they are in the company of other migratory golden eagles from interior and northern Alaska and northwest Canada, flying back to Alaska in the spring. Changing climate, and changing habitat over those thousands of miles, presents significant challenges to eagles' survivability.

The monarch butterfly is a majestic insect. Mimicry, migration, and metamorphosis all help to make it the true king of butterflies. But it's numbers have been dropping dramatically in recent years. Learn more about this amazing species and how you can help to save it.

Caribou really do have the longest terrestrial migration in the world, as documented in this study published in Scientific Reports. But there is more to the migration story. Learn more about animal movements across the globe and get the link to read the full article: Joly, K. .... and others. 2019. Longest terrestrial migrations and movements around the world. Scientific Reports 10.1038/s41598-019-51884-5

The far north provides both challenges and benefits to the people and animals that live here. Migration is one way people and animals can find new resources in order to survive and thrive. This is the introductory article in the Alaska Park Science issue on migration.

This article presents new information from Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve on the Alaska Peninsula, that sheds light on the likely ancient environment that allowed the migration of one group of dinosaurs, the hadrosaurs (duck-billed dinosaurs), across Beringia during the Cretaceous. Alaska Park Science 17(1), 2018.

At the peak of the last ice age, 20,000 years ago, when most of northern North America was covered by massive glaciers, much of Alaska was ice-free and home to a diverse assortment of large mammals. Learn more about how the ice age megafauna migrated across the land bridge and what species successfully survived. Alaska Park Science 17(1), 2018.