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Monday
December 08, 2014
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Ketchikan Reflections
Front Page Photograph By FLOYD McCLELLAN ©2014
(Please respect the rights of photographers, never republish or copy
without permission and/or payment of required fees.)
Southeast Alaska: Analysis shows Southeast Alaska wolves aren’t subspecies - Professor Matthew Cronin has published a paper in the Journal of Heredity concluding that Southeast Alaska’s wolves are not a separate subspecies.
In September 2013, six wolves were sighted together north of Ketchikan.
File photograph by JIM LEWIS ©2013
“My study provides extensive genetic data. That, along with literature published by other scientists, does not support the assertion that these wolves are a subspecies,” University of Alaska Fairbanks' Professor Cronin said.
Cronin said, “This is noteworthy because the wolves in Southeast Alaska are being considered for listing as an endangered subspecies. The Alexander Archipelago wolf and the wolves on Prince of Wales Island are currently being considered for listing as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”
“There is considerable differentiation of wolves in Southeast Alaska from wolves in other areas,” Cronin said. “However, wolves in Southeast Alaska are not a genetically homogenous group, and there are comparable levels of genetic differentiation among areas within Southeast Alaska and between Southeast Alaska and other geographic areas.” - More...
Monday PM - December 08, 2014
Fish Factor: Prime halibut fishing spots: Southeast Alaska and the Central Gulf By LAINE WELCH - The Pacific halibut stock appears to be rising from the ashes and that bodes well for catches in some fishing regions next year. It would turn the tide of a decades-long decline that has caused halibut catches to be slashed by more than 70% in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.
Three Alaska areas showed improvement in the annual stock surveys that range from Oregon to the Bering Sea, and could have higher catch levels in 2015. That’s according to information revealed at the International Pacific Halibut Commission’s interim meeting last week in Seattle.
Two are the most prime halibut fishing spots – Southeast and the Central Gulf; the third is the Alaska Peninsula region.
The surveys showed that the fish are still growing much slower than normal, but after more than a decade of conservative management, the halibut stock is showing signs of rebounding. Surveys this year showed total weights per unit of effort (fishing gear) were 6% higher than in 2013.
“The trend estimates for this year are a bit more optimistic,” said Ian Stewart, a quantitative scientist with the IPHC. “What we are starting to see is more sensitivity to management actions than we have seen in previous years. As the stock begins to stabilize at this level, the level of catch is becoming relatively even more important to future trends.”
Stewart added that it’s unclear what is causing the individual halibut to grow so slowly.
“Probably climate change and prey, or competition with other species, perhaps density dependence and size selective fishing are all playing a role,” he said.
One change in factoring the halibut catches is a full accounting for all sizes and sources of fish removals, including for the first time guided sport charters.
The 2014 coast wide halibut catch was 27.5 million pounds; Alaska’s share was about16 million pounds. Final catch decisions for 2015 will be made at the IPHC annual meeting Jan. 26-30 in Vancouver. - More...
Monday PM - December 08, 2014
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Alaska: Governor Walker Travels to the White House - Friday, Governor Bill Walker informed President Barack Obama and his administration of Alaska’s energy-rich potential in a series of briefings at the White House.
Governor Walker in Washington D.C. Friday. The Governor informed President Barack Obama and his administration of Alaska’s energy-rich potential in a series of briefings at the White House .
Photo courtesy Office of the Governor
Governor Walker and six other newly elected governors from Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Texas met in the White House with President Obama and his Cabinet members.
Governor Walker and the governors-elect had lunch with Vice President Joe Biden, followed by briefings and discussions with Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Secretary of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy.
The governors ended the day in the Oval Office with an hour-long discussion with President Obama, who expressed interest in infrastructure projects. - More...
Monday PM - December 08, 2014
Alaska: ALASKA DRONE OWNERS ENCOURAGED TO “KNOW BEFORE YOU FLY”– Key members of the Alaska Legislature’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Task Force debuted a new public safety campaign Friday for drone operators, vendors, and purchasers.
Entitled “Alaska’s ‘Know Before You Fly’ Guidelines” the one-page safety sheet and accompanying website bring together the federal guidelines and best practices in one easy to consume place.
“The excitement, along with the affordability and ease of acquiring the technology, has led to a proliferation of drones on store shelves as well as of unmanned flights,” said Rep. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer, and the Chair of the UAS Task Force. “Many well-meaning individuals want to fly and fly safely, but they don’t realize that just because you can buy a UAS, doesn’t mean you can fly it anywhere or for any purpose.”
Hughes said that’s where the Legislature, state and federal governments, and stakeholders come together through task force meetings. “We want to help make sure prospective users know what the guidelines are – so that our skies are safe, that these seemingly harmless little drones don’t endanger others, in particular, the pilots and people onboard planes and other unmanned aircraft.” - More...
Monday PM - December 08, 2014
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Alaska Science: Alaska blackfish in a world of its own By NED ROZELL - Imagine a shallow lake north of Hughes, in the cold heart of Alaska. In frigid, sluggish water, dim blue light penetrates two feet of ice. The ice has a quarter-size hole, maintained by a stream of methane bubbles. Every few minutes, a brutish little fish swims up, sips air, and peels back to the dank.
An Alaska blackfish in an aquarium at the office of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks.
Photo by Ned Rozell.
The Alaska blackfish is an evolutionary loner that fins through lakes and tundra ponds across much of the state. It exists nowhere else, except just across Bering Strait in Siberia. Not much larger than a banana, the fish is different from others in the state because in addition to gathering oxygen through its gills, it can pull it from free air.
Though many fish have the ability to breathe air, most of them live in the tropics. The Alaska blackfish's ability to gulp the same air as you and me has allowed it to occupy stagnant northern pools that kill other fish. When ice seals off small lakes and the stocked rainbow trout goes belly up, the blackfish guts it out.
Just how tough is the blackfish? An enduring rural legend is of a blackfish being chipped from a frozen mass of its brethren and fed to a sled dog. The fish thaws and revives in the dog's stomach, where its wriggling causes the dog to vomit. There on the snow, a live fish writhes, resurrected. This story has persisted at least since Lucien Turner, writing about Alaska natural history in 1886, first documented it.
Per Scholander was skeptical about Turner's "colorful" report. Scholander was a physiologist interested in how creatures and plants survive extreme cold. Along with Laurence Irving, who later founded UAF's Institute of Arctic Biology, Scholander traveled to Barrow in 1948 to study plants and animals. In their journal writeup of that work, they devoted the final chapter to "Experiments on Freezing the Blackfish."
From Barrow lakes, the scientists captured eight blackfish and froze them into a block of ice. When they thawed the fish, none were alive.
"However," Scholander wrote, "the blackfish, like man and other animals, can survive being partially frozen." - More...
Monday PM - December 08, 2014
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Columns - Commentary
DAVE KIFFER: Some New Laws of Distraction - Recently, the Ketchikan city government weeded out some old laws that it hadn’t enforced in a coon’s age and had no intention of enforcing in a future coon’s age.
Speaking of which, I heard someone in the Pioneer Café actually use the phrase “in a coon’s age” a few days ago.
I mean, really, when was the last time you saw a raccoon in Our Fair Salmon City or its environs? I think the answer is never, as in way, way longer than a “coon’s age.”
I could understand “in a muskrat’s age” or “in a beaver’s age.” But maybe those danged varmints don’t live long danged enough. I read once that a raccoon lives about 8 years. Now that doesn’t seem very long. At least not in the sense a long, long while that “a coon’s age” is usually meant to convey.
But I digress.
Anyhow, there were all these local laws that apparently dated from the days when prehistoric dinosaur-sized raccoons roamed the marshlands of Revillagigedo Island. - More...
Monday PM - December 08, 2014
PHIL KERPEN: Questioning the Architect of Obamacare Deception - On Tuesday December 9, disgraced Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber will face the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He has a lot to answer for.
Perhaps the most significant issue is Gruber's videotaped confession that Obamacare "was written in a tortured way to make sure that the CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies."
Democrats on the committee are expected to pretend he was talking about whether the noncompliance penalty was a tax. He wasn't.
What Gruber was referring to was the decision to change the office's longstanding methodology which held that if a person is required by a government mandate to make a purchase, then the amount paid is effectively a tax and should be reflected that way in the federal budget.
After all, there is no functional difference between the government taxing you and spending the money and the government simply forcing your to spend the money directly. Mandatory health insurance is a tax no less than mandatory Social Security is. This principle accounted for a large portion of the eye-popping score of Bill Clinton's health care plan in the 1990s. - More...
Monday PM - December 08, 2014 |
POLITICAL CARTOON: Poverty Wage Jobs
By Milt Priggee, www.miltpriggee.com
Distributed to subscribers for publication by Cagle Cartoons, Inc.
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 Timber Economics By Owen Graham - Let's talk about real timber economics. For years we have been listening to various environmental groups and others talk about Tongass timber sale subsidies. The reality is there are none; no matter how many times the falsehood is repeated. If the federal government provides billions in wind production tax credits; that's a subsidy. When corn farmers and ethanol producers receive billions in tax credits and have their products supported with an ethanol gas mandate; that's also a subsidy. However, if a local lumber yard or an appliance store spends more money selling lumber or appliances than it receives, that does not mean their customers are subsidized; it just means that the lumber yard or appliance store will soon go broke. Likewise, the timber industry is not subsidized when it purchases timber from the Forest Service. The industry is not responsible for, nor can it control how much a federal agency spends. - More...
Monday PM - December 08, 2014
The Missing Christmas Deer By Ted Cabot - Let me start by saying I am writing this letter for my wife. Every year she waits patiently for the Holidays, especially Christmas, her absolute favorite. In our house, she without question is in charge of decorating the outside of our home, she does the inside as well, but her real joy is doing the outside. We live on lower Fairy Chasm Rd. so I'm sure there are many of you who know which house it is. She enjoys many, many compliments from the good people of Ketchikan every year, so you can see what motivates her to decorate the way she does. And yes, the house looks great every Christmas. She does try to do different things each year. And always does a great job. - More...
Monday PM - December 08, 2014
Nut Cracker Performance By A. M. Johnson - The performance of the Nut-Cracker this year is one for the record books. The performance of the children and young adults in learning the parts, learning their marks, and presentation in tune with the music score was absolutely outstanding. There was not a glitch, nor a miss in the timing, The set design was superb reflecting long backstage hours in preparation. To see the continued depth of adult thespians in accompanying roles in this production reflects the continued outstanding level of talent viewed in First City Player productions. - More...
Monday PM - December 08, 2014
Joy to the World By Judith Green - This past week end the Ketchikan Community Chorus, under the direction of Stephen Kinney, shared their music and talents with "The Songs of the People-around the world" as the title "Joy to the World" would suggest: Israeli, Serbian, American, French, Ukraine, Africa. - More...
Monday PM - December 08, 2014
Parking Failures By Chris Elliott - Donita O'Dell's letter prompts this response. Lighten up! If someone is having a heart attack & you park outside the lines at PeaceHealth, I don't think your photo's going to show up. If you park your little tiny Prius in the cart return lane, you deserve a little attention. If you're a jerk and you park like a jerk then you're going to respond to this "shaming" like a jerk. If you're a normal person who, for one reason or another, misparked your car, you're going to take it like a normal person and chuckle at being "outed." - More...
Monday PM - December 08, 2014
Too Much, For Too Few, For Too Long By Ray Austin - I have always felt that culture is important to our identity; for decades I have been an advocate for culture, education, and employment of Alaska Native people. As a shareholder, I hoped that Sealaska Corporation would share my goals, as well as Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI), the non-profit affiliate. Sealaska Corporation was founded as part of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, and currently serves over 20,000 shareholders across the country. The Sealaska Heritage Institute has become the face of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian culture and hosts a biennial celebration in Juneau, Alaska, which is a source of great pride for the people. I have always worked for the betterment of our people through my involvement with Celebration as stage manager; an independent candidate for the Sealaska Board; and the originator of the Sealaska shareholders Facebook website. - More...
Thursday PM - December 04, 2014
Ketchikan Driving By A.M. Johnson - In response to Rodney Dial's fine response to Ketchikan driving suggestions, I would like to contribute. Often while visiting our boat moorage behind the VFW lodge, one will find at high traffic conditions the frustration of awaiting departing cars at the exit attempting to make a left hand turn North. Over time one will have discovered that time and frustrations can be eliminated if the driver will turn RIGHT with the traffic and motor down to the KPU or Third Ave. to Alaska Car Rental. Make a U-turn and head North. You will find this move is a better use of time and traffic flow of those behind you waiting to access Tongass from the harbor parking. - More...
Thursday PM - December 04, 2014
RE: Anonymous naming-and-shaming on social media By Donita O'Dell - I want to take a minute to thank Rodney Dial for his constructive and respectful comments about driving (and parking) problems that he sees affecting our community. - More...
Thursday PM - December 04, 2014
Fergerson By A. M. Johnson - After the many days of watching and hearing all sides of the tragic situation that developed and played out in Ferguson one has to make each a personal observation and draw his/her conclusion to the results of the social conclusions that were represented in all the information released to the public. - More...
Thursday PM - December 04, 2014
Riots By Edwin Slaten - It is time for the news media to become honest and admit that they are responsible for the riots all over the country concerning the Ferguson situation. They were also responsible for the Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin deal in Florida. I saw on TV when Martin was on top of Zimmerman beating his head against the concrete sidewalk. - More...
Thursday PM - December 04, 2014
Prostate Cancer and Energy Poverty By Isaac Orr - Smoking, obesity, exposure to toxic chemicals: Which of these factors do you think plays the biggest role in determining how deadly prostate cancer will be in a given situation? The correct answer is none of them. The most life-threatening factor in prostate cancer is poverty, coupled with a lack of access to electricity. This condition, called “energy poverty” by the World Bank, is the reason all illnesses – including prostate cancer – are far more devastating to people in poor nations than in the developed world. - More...
Thursday PM - December 04, 2014
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