Published Aug 28, 2023 by Teigan Akagi

Members of the Alaska Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area were the ones to organize the invasive plant “weed smackdown” at Tikishla Park. Invasive plants are plants that are not native to the ecosystems they are found in. These plants compete with native vegetation that wildlife relies on for their habitats and food, which is why several groups in Alaska are fighting them. 

Around 62 volunteers had registered for the event and all the trees they removed would be chopped up for mulch. This event isn’t the first or last of the cooperative’s events.

Numerous non-native plants have found their way into Alaska. Plants such as orange hawkweed, thistle and knotweed are some other priority species for those trying to control the invasives. 

The Alaska Invasive Species Partnership is one group that focuses on the problem and ways to manage it. The partnership, a volunteer organization, has been around for about 20 years. 

The partnership isn’t the only group doing something about these invasive species. “A lot of the work being done, especially with invasive plants, is being done at the local level with Soil and Water Conservation Districts,” said Gino Graziano, an invasive plant specialist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Cooperative Extension Service

A top priority is the removal of the European bird cherry, also known as the chokecherry.

Published Aug 28, 2023 by Kari Halverson

Thirty students graduated Aug. 18 from the 2023 Summer Fire Academy operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Community and Technical College.

The academy combines online coursework followed by six weeks of rigorous, paramilitary-style skills training. The program delivers a total of 280 hours of instruction, with students actively engaged in training for up to 12 hours per day, five days a week.

Graduates can test for the Alaska Firefighter I certification, which is recognized by the State of Alaska and the International Fire Service Accreditation Congress and allows students to work in almost any state they choose. In addition, they receive 12 academic credits toward an Associate of Applied Science in fire science. Many graduates pursue advanced degrees in fire science or homeland security and emergency management.

Forty-three percent of the 2023 academy graduates have minority ethnic backgrounds. Forty percent of graduates are female. A third are first-generation students — the first in their families to attend college.

“This year’s graduating class is a testament to the program’s commitment to diversity and inclusivity,” said John George, fire science program director.

Published Aug 28, 2023 by Staff report

Some vinegar sold in Alaska stores may not be acidic enough for use in home canning, according to the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service.

Vinegar used in nonpressurized water-bath canning, such as pickles or chutney, should have 5% acidity. Some vinegar now in Alaska stores has only 4%. The acidity percentage is listed on the label.

The higher acidity is necessary to prevent the growth of deadly botulinum bacteria.

The level of acidity in a pickled product is as important to its safety as it is to taste and texture.

If the vinegar is too weak, soft or slippery pickles will occur. These symptoms indicate microorganisms were not destroyed.

If you have used vinegar with an acidity of less than 5%, the National Center for Home Food Preservation recommends the following:

If your canned food has been preserved for less than 24 hours using 4% vinegar, it is recommended to store the jars in the refrigerator to maintain the safety and quality of the product.

If your canned food has been preserved for more than 24 hours using 4% vinegar, it is recommended to discard the product.

Published Aug 28, 2023 by By Emily Anthes

For an olive-sided flycatcher, migration can be a marathon. Some of the soot-colored songbirds travel more than 15,000 miles a year, winging their way from South America to Alaska and then back again. It’s a dizzyingly long journey for a bird that weighs just over an ounce.

“Alaska populations of olive-sided flycatchers are just on this razor-thin margin of what’s biologically possible,” said Julie Hagelin, a wildlife research biologist at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and a senior research scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

To survive the long trip, the birds need safe places to rest and refuel. But the locations of these “little utopias” were a mystery, Dr. Hagelin said. So in 2013, she and her colleagues set out to unravel it by tracking the birds. They hoped that identifying the critical stopover sites might provide clues about why olive-sided flycatcher populations were declining and what might be needed to save them, including where experts should target their conservation efforts.

The research proved to be more difficult than they had bargained for. Olive-sided flycatchers often breed in buggy bogs. They perch at the tops of trees. And they are elusive, sparse on the landscape and difficult to catch. “After the first year of struggling with this project, it became really, really clear why nobody in their right mind would want to try and study this bird,” Dr. Hagelin said.

Over the course of the five-year study, the researchers managed to deploy 95 tags. They recovered 17 geolocator tags but just five GPS tags — and three of the GPS tags failed, providing no data at all for reasons the scientists still do not understand. “That was really devastating,” Dr. Hagelin said.

“But all was not lost,” she added. The geolocator data pointed to 13 important stopover sites, from Washington to southern Peru, plus three main wintering areas in South America, the researchers reported in 2021. Tagging technology has improved, so scientists with an appetite for flycatcher catching could now focus on collecting more detailed data on those locations. “Am I the person to do it?” Dr. Hagelin said. “Maybe if I had the funding."

Published Aug 27, 2023 by Beth Verge

University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers have reportedly discovered yet another treasure within the limits of Denali National Park and Preserve: a “dinosaur coliseum,” to include the largest single-track site ever recorded in Alaska.

“The true magnitude of the site wasn’t realized until we went there later,” said Patrick Druckenmiller, director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North. “The lighting has to be just right. If the lighting isn’t right we can’t see things.

“We got there at a time when we had some good light, and the site just lit up,” he said, “and we realized there were thousands of dinosaur tracks on this wall that’s 1.5 times the size of a football field.”

Druckenmiller, who helped author a formal paper on the project, said the site is a record of multiple species of dinosaurs, with the tracks said to be a mix of hardened impressions in mud and then casts of tracks that were created when the tracks were filled with sediment and then hardened.

The UAF team, including lead author of the paper and former UAF graduate student Dustin Stewart, also said there are fossilized plants, pollen grains and evidence of freshwater shellfish and invertebrates at the site. Together, the details are helping them put together what the entire environment in the area looked like millennia ago.

“It’s not just one level of rock with tracks on it,” Stewart told UAF, as shared in a press brief by the school. “It is a sequence through time.

Published Aug 26, 2023 by Gavin Struve

In a match that was in jeopardy until the final moments, the University of Alaska Fairbanks volleyball team held on to win a thriller over Hawaii-Hilo on Saturday, 3-2.

The Nanooks improved to 1-2, recording their first win of the Hawai’i-Alaska Challenge and the season at-large. It was Hawaii-Hilo’s first loss of the season after a Thursday in which they swept the Nanooks and beat No. 14 Alaska Anchorage, 3-1.

Published Aug 26, 2023 by Ned Rozell

Overnighting within sniffing distance of a steaming volcanic crater in a vessel weighing less than a compact car was not what any of the trio wanted, but it was a circumstance each had thought about before it occurred.

Their foresight, experience and calm allowed them to survive 48 hours on top of Mount Mageik. Theirs is a story of a rare circumstance but one that is always possible when scientists perform fieldwork in remote spots.

Published Aug 26, 2023 by Jack Barnwell

AmeriCorps CEO Michael Smith spent time in Anchorage, Scammon Bay, Bethel and wrapped up visit with a tour of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

AmeriCorp has had a footprint in Alaska for 30 years, and its predecessor organizations date back to the 1960s, he said.

“We have a Schools of National Service program and we are talking with UAF becoming a such a school,” Smith said outside Signers Hall Friday afternoon following a meeting with UAF Chancellor Dan White. “We’re really excited with what the University of Alaska Fairbanks is doing with its rural campus extensions and we are thinking about ways we can partner with the programs here.”

Published Aug 25, 2023 by Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon

Another example is the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, which is now officially named for the ridge where it is located, Troth Yeddha’ in the Lower Tanana language. Though the ridge previously held no official government name, it was traditionally a site for gathering wild potatoes; Troth Yeddha’ translates roughly to “potato ridge.” The name designation won federal approval in 2013.

A general European practice is to name places after people, Leggett noted. Point Woronzof, for example, was named for a Russian aristocrat who served as ambassador to England under Czarina Catherine the Great’s rule, according to University of Alaska Anchorage historian Steve Haycox.

In contrast, Leggett said, Indigenous place names are almost always descriptive.