From Dr. Carl Tobin—For your consideration
Under the Endangered Species Act, Alaska’s toll of listed (all categories) organisms is as follows: short-tailed albatross, polar pear, eskimo curlew, spectacled eider, steller's eider (Alaska breeding population), northern sea otter (Southwest Alaska), leatherback sea turtle, steller sea-lion (western population and the eastern population), bowhead whale, finback Whale, humpback whale, Aleutian shield fern.
Other species, such as the bald eagle, peregrine falcon, Canada lynx, grizzly bear, and grey wolf have been or are currently listed in various states, while their Alaska populations sustain themselves.
Why are so few species and populations listed in a state so much larger than any other? Alaska has thirteen listing out of a total of 1356 nation-wide, while Alaska represents 18.5% of the United States’ area.
Indeed, many species on the list are marine and more widely spread than simply in Alaskan waters alone. At least for some of those, reductions in population size likely stem from problems and human impacts elsewhere in their ranges. Unlike no other state, Alaska possesses almost complete and natural ecosystems (the extinction of Steller’s sea cow being the exception).
As a territory only recently settled by a large-scale industrial culture, much of Alaska has not been impacted by locally generated pollution and large scale land clearing for agriculture. The often-cited clear-cutting of old-growth in the Tongass National Forest is perhaps the sole example of any direct impacts that are similar to those experienced by the other 49 states.
But all may not be well. The impacts of proposed large-scale mining projects aren’t well understood, or even predictable. As climate warms and changes, so-called “regime shifts” have been documented in the Bering Sea and ice-dependent species in the arctic are certainly at risk; note that the polar bear was listed only this year, as a result of the reduction of summer sea ice. Climate change (which has been documented to be of greater magnitude in Alaska, relative to the other states) is likely to have effects on terrestrial species. Invasive species from warmer climates may have the opportunity to have impacts similar to those they’ve made elsewhere.
As these and other challenges to northern ecosystems arise, faculty and students working in the environmental sciences at APU have consistently and successfully monitored, catalogued, and communicated the extent and magnitude of many of these. As students continue to be attracted to Alaska by its vastness, its wildness, and yes, by its complete ecosystems, the Environmental Science Department will be a venue for those students to focus those students to not simply experience Alaska and the North, but to contribute to our vital understanding of how northern systems function and how we humans may affect those systems.
Stay tuned for our “News & Views”—we’ll be adding a blog, so you can respond to coming editorials.