Alaska

Fossil tracks push range of large bird northward

Published

1 year ago

November 4, 2024

Fossil tracks push range of large bird northward

Scientists from Fairbanks, New Mexico and Japan have discovered the first reported fossilized tracks of a large four-toed bird that inhabited central Alaska 90 million to 120 million years ago.

A description of the two tracks was published in August in a special edition of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin and presented Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Minneapolis.

The bird tracks were found in 2023 in mid-Cretaceous rock near the communities of Nulato and Kaltag. The location significantly extends northward the known geographic range of this type of track.

The work was led by paleontologist Anthony Fiorillo, executive director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.

The August paper’s co-authors include University of Alaska Fairbanks geology professor Paul McCarthy with the UAF College of Natural Science and Mathematics and UAF Geophysical Institute, and associate professor of paleontology Yoshitsugu Kobayashi of Hokkaido University.

“Rather than a geographic oddity, we submit that the tracks described here offer further insight into the importance of the ancient Arctic in terms of bird biodiversity,” the authors write.

The newly discovered fossil tracks, found among several fossil tracks of smaller birds, are of a large four-toed bird and show three toes pointing forward and one pointing toward the rear. The toes are unwebbed.

“We found a fair number of fossil bird footprints,” Fiorillo said. “We found smaller bird footprints that would belong to something comparable to a modern-day shorebird such as a willet or an avocet.

“Then we found the footprints that are much larger,” he said. “They were more crane size or slightly bigger, more like whooping crane size.”

Fiorillo places the tracks in the Archaeornithipus ichnogenus, a classification of the most primitive birds. Archaeornithipus was first coined in 1996 to describe fossil tracks found in Soria, Spain.

An ichnogenus is a classification used to group trace fossils such as footprints, burrows or feeding marks that share similar characteristics. Trace fossils represent the behavior of organisms but do not necessarily indicate the species that made them.

Fossil tracks of other comparably sized birds of that era have been found in Denali National Park and in the Chignik Formation in Aniakchak National Monument in Southwest Alaska. Those tracks, however, are all of large three-toed birds whose toes pointed forward.

“That might seem trivial — three toes versus four toes,” Fiorillo said. “But what that reverse toe does with modern birds is it allows them to perch instead of being on the ground all the time when they are not flying.

“So we’re now looking at two very large types of birds doing two very different things,” he said.

The finding of the Alaska tracks adds to understanding of the complexity of the biodiversity at the time, Fiorillo said.

The three researchers in August 2023 investigated mid-Cretaceous sedimentary rock outcroppings along the Yukon River in west-central Alaska to better understand the dinosaurs that were present and their environments close to the time of the formation of the Bering land bridge. The work is part of a larger undertaking to understand that era.

The researchers found the Archaeornithipus tracks in what had been a floodplain adjacent to a river during the mid-Cretaceous, McCarthy said.

The finds occurred next to an exposed channel under a bluff along the Yukon. The area contained numerous trace fossils of smaller birds and other dinosaurs, all previously known to have inhabited the region.

“It was where you would have had a lot of fine-grained material that was probably firm mud that would have taken a bird footprint in it without turning into soup,” McCarthy said.

That material was then buried and hardened over time. Those rocks, over millions of years, were eventually thrust to the surface.

McCarthy said there’s much more to explore. There hasn’t been major geologic fieldwork in the area for more than 40 years, he said.

“It’s still a frontier basin,” he said. “It’s been mapped, and we have a general idea of what’s out there, especially right along the river, but there’s a whole lot of detail about ancient sedimentation and environments that nobody knows because nobody’s been looking.”

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Alaska

Over $150K worth of drugs seized from man in Juneau, police say

Published

11 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Over 0K worth of drugs seized from man in Juneau, police say

JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – An Alaska drug task force seized roughly $162,000 worth of controlled substances during an operation in Juneau Thursday, according to the Juneau Police Department.

Around 3 p.m. Thursday, investigators with the Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs (SEACAD) approached 50-year-old Juneau resident Jermiah Pond in the Nugget Mall parking lot while he was sitting in his car, according to JPD.

A probation search of the car revealed a container holding about 7.3 gross grams of a substance that tested presumptively positive for methamphetamine, as well as about 1.21 gross grams of a substance that tested presumptively positive for fentanyl.

As part of the investigation, investigators executed a search warrant at Pond’s residence, during which they found about 46.63 gross grams of ketamine, 293.56 gross grams of fentanyl, 25.84 gross grams of methamphetamine and 25.5 gross grams of MDMA.

In all, it amounted to just less than a pound of drugs worth $162,500.

Investigators also seized $102,640 in cash and multiple recreational vehicles believed to be associated with the investigation.

Pond was lodged on charges of second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, two counts of third-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, five counts of fourth-degree misconduct involving a substance and an outstanding felony probation warrant.

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Alaska

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

Published

24 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

SAND POINT, Alaska (KTUU) – A teenage boy who was last seen Monday when the canoe he was in tipped over has been found by a dive team in a lake near Sand Point, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Alaska’s News Source confirmed with the person, who is close to the search efforts, that the dive team found 15-year-old Kaipo Kaminanga deceased Thursday in Red Cove Lake, located a short drive from the town of Sand Point on the Aleutian Island chain.

Kaminanga was last seen canoeing with three other friends on Monday when the boat tipped over.

A search and rescue operation ensued shortly after.

Alaska Dive Search Rescue and Recovery Team posted on Facebook Thursday night that they were able to “locate and recover” Kaminanga at around 5 p.m. Thursday.

“We are glad we could bring closure to his family, friends and community,” the post said.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated when more details become available.

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Alaska

Opinion: Homework for Alaska: Sales tax or income tax?

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Opinion: Homework for Alaska: Sales tax or income tax?

iStock / Getty Images

This is a tax tutorial for gubernatorial candidates, for legislators who will report to work next year and for the Alaska public.

Think of it as homework, with more than eight months to complete the assignment that is not due until the November election. The homework is intended to inform, not settle the debate over a state sales tax or state income tax — or neither, which is the preferred option for many Alaskans.

But for those Alaskans willing to consider a tax as a personal responsibility to help fund schools, roads, public safety, child care, state troopers, prisons, foster care and everything else necessary for healthy and productive lives, someday they will need to decide on a state income tax or a state sales tax after they accept the checkbook reality that oil and Permanent Fund earnings are not enough.

This homework assignment is intended to get people thinking with facts, not emotions. Electing the right candidates will be the first test.

Alaskans have until the next election because nothing will change this year. It will take a new political alignment led by a reality-based governor to organize support in the Legislature and among the public.

But next year, maybe, with the right elected leadership, Alaskans can debate a state sales tax or personal income tax. Plus, of course, corporate taxes and oil production taxes, but those are for another school day.

One of the biggest arguments in favor of a state sales tax is that visitors would pay it. Yes, they would, but not as much as many Alaskans think.

Air travel is exempt from sales taxes. So are cruise ship tickets. That’s federal law, which means much of what tourists spend on their Alaska vacation is beyond the reach of a state sales tax.

Cutting further into potential revenues, state and federal law exempts flightseeing tours from sales tax, which is a particularly costly exemption when you think about how much visitors spend on airplane and helicopter tours.

That leaves sales tax supporters collecting from tourists on T-shirts, gifts for grandchildren, artwork, postcards, hotels, Airbnb, car rentals and restaurant meals. Still a substantial take for taxes, but far short of total tourism spending.

An argument against a state sales tax is that more than 100 cities and boroughs already depend on local sales taxes to pay for schools and other public services. Try to imagine what a state tax piled on top of a local tax would do to kill shopping in Homer, already at 7.85%, or Kodiak, Wrangell and Cordova, all at 7%, and all the other municipalities.

Supporters of an income tax say it would share the responsibility burden with nonresidents who earn income in Alaska and then return home to spend their money.

Almost one in four workers in Alaska in 2024 were nonresidents, as reported by the state Department of Labor in January. That doesn’t include federal employees, active-duty military or self-employed people.

Nonresidents earned roughly $3.8 billion, or about 17% of every dollar covered in the report.

However, many of those nonresident workers are lower-wage and seasonal, employed in the seafood processing and tourism industries, unlikely to pay much in income taxes. But a tax could be structured so that they pay something, which is fair.

Meanwhile, higher-wage workers in oil and gas, mining, construction and airlines (freight and passenger service) would pay taxes on their income earned in Alaska, which also is fair.

It comes down to what would direct more of the tax burden to nonresidents: a tax on income or on visitor spending. Wages or wasabi-crusted salmon dinners.

Larry Persily is a longtime Alaska journalist, with breaks for federal, state and municipal public policy work in Alaska and Washington, D.C. He lives in Anchorage and is publisher of the Wrangell Sentinel weekly newspaper.

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