Alaska Fish & Wildlife News
August 2022

Sunflower Sea Star
Aggressive Subtidal Predator Getting Attention

By Riley Woodford

The Sunflower Sea Star is the swiftest, largest, and heaviest sea star in the North Pacific, and perhaps the entire world. That’s how Rita and Charles O’Clair described the multi-limbed predators in Southeast Alaska’s Rocky Shores in 1998, two decades before an outbreak of sea star wasting disease killed millions of sea stars on the west coast.

Fast-moving (for a sea star), these bottom dwelling carnivores can move five to ten feet in a minute, “outrunning” ...   Sunflower Sea Star Article Continued


Taking Good Hunting Photos
Sharing Pictures with Fish and Game

By Riley Woodford

As Ray Davis carefully paddled the heavily loaded canoe into the lake, his buddy Keith Snarey took what would be the cover photo for the 2022-2023 Alaska Hunting Regulations.

Every year, hunters, wildlife watchers, trappers and anglers contribute photos to Fish and Game, emailing those much-appreciated jpegs with a permission statement and a description. The Division of Wildlife Conservation prints hunting photos in the hunting regulations, and others are used on our website and in educational ...   Taking Good Pictures Article Continued


Live Video Broadcast from Round Island
Walrus Aplenty

By Staff

On Round Island in Bristol Bay, walrus from across the North Pacific gather as they have for thousands of years. Viewers around the world can watch the ivory-tusked, two-ton marine mammals go about their summer routines, thanks to a live camera installation from the philanthropic media organization explore.org and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

While females and calves spend summers at the Arctic ice pack’s edge to the north, male walruses congregate, or haul out, on Round ...   Walrus Aplenty Article Continued