Alaska Progress Report

Economic impact of national park visitors in Alaska

The National Park Service released Economic Benefits to Local Communities from National Park Visitation and Payroll, 2010. Alaska received 2.3 million visitors in 2010 for a total economic impact of $208 million. The report notes the difficulty of estimating local spending in Alaska because most park visitors do their spending far from the actual park due to their remoteness.

The Anchorage Daily News has a more readable summary of the report. Various other reports and data are available at the Park Service website.

Animal rabies in Alaska, 1999 to 2011

Desperate for data, today we bring you... wait for it... animal rabies in Alaska, courtesy of the current State of Alaska Epidemiology Bulletin! Not to disparage the good work of the science-y types, we'll keep it mercifully brief.

Rabies lives mostly in fox populations in northern and western Alaska. Observed cases follow a 3 to 5 year cycle, ranging from roughly 10 to 50 cases a year. In 2011 sixteen animals were tested by the State, of which nine - all foxes from northern and western boroughs - tested positive.

The most likely pathway to people is through dogs bitten by foxes, so vaccinate your animals. And remember, our best data on zombies indicates that zombie outbreaks begin with a mutation of the rabies virus. Or maybe it's a bacteria. I don't know, I slept through science class. I stayed awake for 28 Days Later though so I know what I'm talking about. The wise will stockpile shotguns and axes. Good night and good luck.

Quantifying recreational use of Alaska's national forests

From the good folks at UAA: "Ginny Fay, assistant professor, and Steve Colt, associate professor and interim director of UAA's Institute of Social and Economic Research along with Eric M. White, research economist with the Department of Forest Engineering at Oregon State University, used data surveying and sampling procedures to quantify recreation use of national forests in Alaska."

"Estimating visitor numbers and collecting information on visitor attitudes in Alaska national forests is especially challenging because of the dispersed access to the forests by a relatively small number of visitors. Both the Tongass and Chugach National Forests are millions of acres with miles of saltwater coastline and numerous lakes that allow almost infinite boat and float plane access points. At the same time, few road access points and trailheads exist to concentrate visitors. This dispersed access makes conducting visitor intercept surveys either high cost owing to the large number of intercept sites needed to provide an adequate sample, or less reliable, owing to a smaller number of intercept sites resulting in an inadequate sample.

"This study identified a number of methods used by land managers in Alaska and other states to address this issue. It also identified other ongoing data collection processes in Alaska such as sport fish angler surveys, traveler surveys, and other systematic efforts that generate data that may be useful for USDA Forest Service efforts to improve their visitor use monitoring processes. The next steps recommended to improve visitor use monitoring are to develop a new visitor monitoring program based on this review of potential methods and then field test the new strategy to see if it can deliver a sustainable program that provides more reliable visitor use estimates at lower costs."

Glaciers in Alaska demonstrate warming trend

From our friends at the US Geological Survey: "Fifty years of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) research on glacier change shows recent dramatic shrinkage of glaciers in three climatic regions of the United States. These long periods of record provide clues to the climate shifts that may be driving glacier change.

"The USGS Benchmark Glacier Program began in 1957 as a result of research efforts during the International Geophysical Year (Meier and others, 1971). Annual data collection occurs at three glaciers that represent three climatic regions in the United States: South Cascade Glacier in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State; Wolverine Glacier on the Kenai Peninsula near Anchorage, Alaska; and Gulkana Glacier in the interior of Alaska (fig. 1).

"The USGS has been monitoring the mass balance of three glaciers in the Pacific Northwest and in Alaska for nearly 50 years. This mass balance record is now sufficient to interpret glacier responses to short- and long-term climate changes in the Pacific Northwest, the Alaska Coast, and the Alaska interior. What have we learned so far?

• All three glaciers have lost mass since USGS monitoring began more than four decades ago.
• Mass loss has accelerated during the last 15 years, coincident with the highest melt years on record."

Environmental Groups Make Alaska Recommendations to Obama

About thirty or so environmental organizations created a common call to action that was delivered to President-elect Obama's transition team. The document is called Transition to Green and according to the League of Conservation Voters it contains four major focus areas: "clean energy and global warming legislation, the federal budget and economic recovery, making the White House a leader on clean energy and the environment, and putting the right people in the right jobs."

Why should Alaskans care? First of all the report is a massive 391 pages, so it could single-handedly resurrect Southeast logging. Beyond that, the report starts right out with a section on "America's Arctic." Hmm, who lives there? The three issues in that section: a comprehensive Arctic conservation and energy plan; a precautionary approach to industrial activities in the Arctic; initiate international negotiations.

On the plus side, the report recommends a boatload of new scientific research (yeah, federal $!) to form the basis for evidence-based policy decisions in the future. More controversial are the recommendations to designate the coastal plain of ANWR as wilderness and "to freeze expansion of industrial fishing, shipping, mining and oil and gas development pending adoption of the new Arctic environmental treaty." Game on!

Denali Subsistence, Climbing Regulations Published

New regulations regarding subsistence off-road vehicle use, backcountry use and mountaineering at Denali National Park and Preserve are published in the Federal Register. The new provisions implement recent management decisions made in the 2006. Denali Backcountry Management Plan and the 2007 environmental assessment for subsistence use of off-road vehicles in the Cantwell Traditional Use Area.

The final regulations focus on two areas:. They establish group size limits in the backcountry, restrict the number of climbers on Mount McKinley from April 1 through August 1 to a maximum of 1,500, and require camping permits (where currently required through the park compendium) in accordance with the 2006 Backcountry Management Plan. They also restrict off-road vehicle use for subsistence purposes to designated routes and trails in Windy Creek, Cantwell Creek, and Bull River drainages in the Cantwell Traditional Use Area in accordance with the 2007 environmental assessment.

The change in the climbing regulations replaces a provision requiring all climbers to register 60 days in advance of any climb on Mount McKinley or Mount Foraker with a permit requirement subject to application procedures established by the Superintendent. This change will allow the park to relax the 60-day requirement for climbers who have previously climbed McKinley or Foraker. The subsistence ORV regulations provide that authorized rural residents may operate off-road vehicles, under certain conditions, only in designated areas and trails.