Articles written by Dan Joling
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 32
Alaska needs broad review of aviation safety, officials say
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Alaska needs a comprehensive review effort to improve aviation safety because its fatal and non-fatal accident rates are far higher than the national average, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday. The N...
Bull-noser: Camera records moose trapping Alaska man in shed
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska man carrying garbage to his shed had to take cover inside when a curious bull moose decided to join him. A Ring home security camera captured Curtis Phelps trapped inside the shed while the moose, with just one a...
Coast Guard, Navy boats collide in Alaska; 9 injured
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A U.S. Coast Guard vessel collided with a U.S. Navy boat, injuring nine people, including one critically, off Alaska's Kodiak Island. The accident occurred Wednesday evening in Women's Bay near Kodiak's Coast Guard base, s...
Alaska's northern fur seals find refuge on tip of volcano
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Alaska’s northern fur seal population for three decades has been classified as depleted, but the marine mammals are showing up in growing numbers at an unlikely location _ a tiny island that forms the tip of an active und...
Scientists warn of too many pink salmon in North Pacific
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Biological oceanographer Sonia Batten experienced her lightbulb moment on the perils of too many salmon three years ago as she prepared a talk on the most important North Pacific seafood you'll never see on a plate — zoo...
Scientists record singing by rare right whale for first time
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — It's not America's Top 40, but it's a cutting edge song. Federal marine biologists for the first time have recorded singing by one of the rarest whales on the planet, the North Pacific right whale. National Oceanic and A...
Pace of Bering Sea changes startles scientists
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The Yupik Eskimo village of Kotlik on Alaska's northwest coast relies on a cold, hard blanket of sea ice to protect homes from vicious winter Bering Sea storms. Frigid north winds blow down from the Arctic Ocean, freeze s...
Alaska moose-hunter can 'rev up' his hovercraft, court rules
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The National Park Service improperly banned an Alaska moose hunter from using a hovercraft on a river through a national preserve, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a unanimous decision. The court limited the N...
US lawmaker opposes drilling permit work during shutdown
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The oil and gas industry should not be spared the pain of the partial government shutdown, according to the chairman of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. Rep. Raul Grijalva (gri-HAWL-vah) on Tuesday sent a letter to...
Thousands of Pacific walruses again herd up on Alaska coast
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Thousands of Pacific walruses have again gathered on the northwest shore of Alaska as the Chukchi Sea approaches its annual sea ice minimum. Residents of the Inupiaq village of Point Lay on Aug. 22 reported hearing w...
Alaska seabird deaths continue trend tied to warming ocean
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Federal wildlife officials are documenting a die-off of Alaska seabirds stretching from north of the Bering Strait to the Gulf of Alaska that may be connected to a trend of warming ocean water. Carcasses examined so far h...
Theft of mammoth proportions: Agency seeks stolen tusk
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A federal agency wants its wooly mammoth tusk back. The Bureau of Land Management in Alaska on Tuesday asked the public's help in recovering an approximately 10,000-year-old tusk stolen from the Campbell Creek Science C...
Beaufort Sea lease sale solicitation draws objections
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — President Donald Trump's pledge to make the United States "energy dominant" is extending to Arctic Ocean waters despite a pending lawsuit and lack of approval for a required five-year drilling plan. The Bureau of Ocean E...
Navy starts under-ice submarine exercise off Alaska's coast
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Navy has begun five weeks of submarine training and testing off Alaska's north coast that will include breaching the massive underwater vessels through Arctic sea ice. The exercises, which also include the c...
Agency rethinks how climbers dispose of poop on Alaska peak
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Climbers on North America's tallest mountain may have to start packing out more of their poop after a researcher determined a glacier in which much of it has been dumped over the past decade probably is not decomposing the h...
What does a bear do in the Alaska woods? Disperse seeds
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Does a bear leave scat in the woods? The answer is obvious but the effects on an ecosystem may not be. A study by Oregon State University researchers concludes that brown and black bears, and not birds, as commonly t...
Airline workers charged with swiping 343 computers from mail
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A federal grand jury has indicted six former employees of an Alaska commuter airline on charges of stealing mail over two years, including 343 computers headed to schools in rural villages. The six ramp agents were e...
Alaska may open up again for oil leasing, but risks linger
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — President Donald Trump's plan to open America's oceans to petroleum drilling drew condemnation from West Coast and Florida governors but was welcomed in the state where most lease sales could be held. Alaska Gov. Bill W...
Congress debates oil drilling in largest US wildlife refuge
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Sometime next April, pregnant cows in the Porcupine Caribou Herd in Canada will take the lead in an annual migration of nearly 200,000 animals north to Alaska. From winter grounds in Canada's Yukon Territory, the caribou t...
Company seeks to build island off Alaska for Arctic drilling
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — America within a few years could be extracting oil from federal waters in the Arctic Ocean, but it won't be from a remote drilling platform. Federal regulators are taking comments on a draft environmental statement for the L...
Researchers want to know why beluga whales haven't recovered
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — New research aims to find out why highly endangered beluga whales in Alaska's Cook Inlet have failed to recover despite protective measures. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has awarded more than $1.3 m...
APNewsBreak: Stampede suspected in dozens of walrus deaths
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Thousands of Pacific walrus are coming to Alaska's northwest shore again in the absence of summer sea ice and not all are surviving. A survey Monday of a mile of coastline near the Inupiaq Eskimo village of Point Lay found 6...
Scientists on research vessel spot rare whale in Bering Sea
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Federal researchers in the Bering Sea have made contact with one of the rarest whales on Earth. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists photographed two animals in the eastern stock of North Pacific r...
US approves Alaska offshore drilling from gravel island
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Petroleum exploration has largely ceased in federal waters off Alaska but an Italian multinational oil and gas company has received permission to move ahead with modest drilling plans on leases sold in 2005. The federal B...
Rx for orphan walrus calf: touch, massage, cuddle, repeat
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Everybody needs a shoulder to lean on now and then. A walrus calf at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, Alaska, is getting one 24 hours per day. Trained staff members, working in pairs, are touching, massaging and c...