Arctic Animal Adaptations with Tim Walker

Jennie sits down with Tim Walker, wildlife biologist and tour guide in Fairbanks with Northern Alaska Tour Company to talk about the amazing animals of the arctic and their many adaptations for life in this harsh climate. 

Follow Tim on Instagram

Northern Alaska Tour Company (where Tim is a guide)

Sign up for Jennie's email list (and get the free packing list)

Join the Alaska Planning Club on Patreon and ask me anything!

Jennie's digital workshops and planners (save 10% with code: podcast)

Follow Jennie on Instagram

Transcript

 📍 Welcome to the Alaska Uncovered Podcast with me, your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming, my occasional co-host and full-time husband, Jay, and I bring you accurate, helpful, and entertaining information about Alaska Travel and life in Alaska. Hey everyone. Before today's episode, I want to take a moment to thank our Patreon supporters. Patreon it is so wonderful answering your questions every week, and Jay and I are so grateful for your financial support that makes this podcast possible. If you want to join them, , I'll put the link in the show notes. It's $9 a month, and you can ask me questions anytime. , And,, then I answer them every week, and it's so fun. So if you would like that kind of support with planning your trip, or you just wanna support the podcast, join them at patreon.com/alaskauncovered. Enjoy the show My guest today is Tim Walker. Tim is a tour guide in Fairbanks, and he works for Northern Alaska Tour Company, who you heard from about a month ago when Matt was on the program, and he is also a former wildlife bio- biologist, and has spent, many field seasons, in Alaska studying amazing wildlife. And he's lived in Fairbanks for almost 40 years. So Tim, welcome to Alaska Uncovered. Thanks for being here. Lovely to be here. Yeah. So I feel like I should come clean that I met you when you were my driver ... back in February. So you all, all of you heard that,... Well, maybe all of you didn't, but I did record an episode about it when I went up to Arctic Hive, which is in Wiseman, in February, and I mentioned in that episode that Northern Alaska Tour Company does the transportation to get folks up there. And so Tim was my driver, so we got to spend a million hours together on the Dalton Highway. And I was like, "Ooh, you know about wildlife. You need to come on the podcast," and you said yes, so thank you. So Tim, can you tell everybody to start off how you got to Alaska? , I guess there are probably several themes on how a lot of us got here, and mine's a variation on one of those. You know, being an ologist, there are several diff- lots of different kinds of ologists in Alaska- Yes, there are ... that came up, were drawn to going to remote areas.. I don't know why I was attracted to the Arctic, but I always have been, probably from growing up even doing simple car camping and that kind of thing. And so eventually that led me... I was living in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area in my teenage years, and from there I went to The university college at, uh, Penn State University, and I got a, a degree in wildlife science there. So we were always looking for work because it's a really hard field to get work in, and, or unless you wanna work for free Yes which I did at some point. Yes. But if- Nearly for free. , So- Eventually you have to make some money. Eventually you have to make money. So there was an advertisement for the Student Conservation,, Student Conservation Association, for positions, volunteer positions. And I applied for one, based out... with the US Fish and Wildlife Service based out of Adak Island. That was back in 1983, and I got the position, and I was so excited to come to Alaska, and gosh, what a place to start out in the Aleutian Islands. Amazing. And at that time, the Navy base was out there. And we were based out of there. , And anyway, I won't go into a lot of the detail with what I did 'cause that could take up the whole podcast. We could probably just review all of your field work- Yeah ... and have, like, an entire podcast about that- Yeah ... not just an episode. Yeah. So anyway, that was the summer. It was, uh, between my junior and senior year. And so at, from that time, I really wanted to get back to Alaska, and after I graduated, it took a few years to come back and with a paid job, and that was in 1987 on Kanuti National Wildlife Refuge, which fixes into my tours up the Dalton Highway because the- Yeah refuge is just to the west of the highway., And I pretty much knew I was gonna stay here at that point. It was a seasonal summer job, and one thing led to another, led to more work, and then, "Hey, can you stay here all winter and help with writing reports and data, entering data and looking at, uh..." Well, fish inner ear bones was another one. And so I just continued from there, and so here I was, and here I am, so basically. Amazing. And then at some point, not super long ago, you transitioned into being a tour guide, right? Yes. Yeah, with the Northern Alaska Tour Company. Yep. I'm going into my ninth year. Okay. , You know, the wildlife work was soft money, , kept me going, and it always seemed to work out, but I really needed, to k- basically kind of have a better idea what my income was gonna be at this point. Yeah, seriously. And I... Actually, I worked at a local used bookstore for several years before that- Mm-hmm and I really enjoyed it. It was very fun, very social, but- Mm-hmm ... um, I really wanted to get back out in the wilderness to some degree. Yeah. . And why not the Dalton Highway? And I, a lot of my field work was in the interior and in the Arctic, and so the Dalton Highway bisects the, uh, the interior and the Arctic, so it was really ideal for me. Yeah. Yeah. So Tim, before we get into some of the really cool, interesting animals that live in Alaska's Arctic, I'd love to know,, what does a wildlife biologist do when you're working for Fish and Wildlife or... 'Cause you worked for several different agencies, right? Or was it always Fish and Wildlife? Well, most was Fish and Wildlife, but- Okay ... they no longer exist, but, uh, about 10 years with the Alaska Bird Observatory also. Got it. So nonprofit work. A teeny, tiny bit with ABR, who, does contract work, basically. Okay. Uh, two, two years after the oil spill I spent in Prince William Sound. Really, for those of us who li- live in, in Fairbanks, it's nice to get to some coastal areas, so- Yes ... that was, that was a lot of fun. And a little tiny bit with the park, National Park Service, uh- Okay ... within, , Yukon Charley Rivers Preserve. Yep. And listeners, Yukon Charley Rivers National Preserve is, east of Fairbanks and north a bit. Um, if you're like, "I have no idea where that is," that's where it is. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty much east of here, right on the Canadian border. Yeah. And it's little known and it's, like so many places in Alaska, it's tremendously- Yes ... beautiful. It's just- Yeah ... stunning. I did a variety of field jobs. Primarily my interest, and eventually for, gosh, I don't know, the last 15 years mostly, was, songbird inventory, monitoring studies, that kind of thing. That was my real specialty. I did some fisheries work too, three years- Mm-hmm ... on the Arctic coast, the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. You can imagine my, my field projects, I'd be gone for a month, two months, three months. You know, going to the grocery store, it's like, "Okay, we're gonna buy three months worth of food for four people." Um- Yeah. How many carts do we need? Yes. And, and, and not just that, but all the planning and logistics and, um, just a huge amount of work. Yeah. And then so once most of the... I mean, I guess when I went out to my field study sites, it was s- float plane, helicopter, riverboat- Yeah ... or combinations of all those things, which is- Tremendously exciting, especially the first time or two, and then, uh, it's just kind of part of the game. But once, with all that preparatory work, once you, ooh, you're on that plane or helicopter, it's like, okay, phew, all that's done, and its focus is on collecting data basically. So- Yeah ... a lot of times people get out recreational and it's, I love getting out recreationally, but it's something I haven't done a lot and, ... except for locally. Yeah. But it's very different in that we're focused, and it's like this is what we're doing, this is what we have the time to do. I'd like to go hike up that mountain, but it's not gonna happen. Yeah. , The bird field work, uh, was interesting. It was very strange hours, because we were out when the birds are most likely to be heard- Mm-hmm ... when they're singing. So for most of the studies, that was about 4:00 AM to about 9:30 AM. Mm-hmm. So depending on how far we would have to get to our first point, we might get up at 3:00. Yeah. And then we would hike to our first point, and then from there you would go in more tundra areas or fewer trees, hike 500 meters, and we would always do a quick vege- vegetation surveys, listen for birds, boom, go on, go on, go on, go on. Mm-hmm. And so that also involved, like, a nap on the way back because we were tired. And so- Yeah. ... you know, disturbed sleeping hours, getting back- Yes ... to camp, sleeping in our tent. And because the sun's out all day long, it gets, you feel like a baked potato in an oven by the time- Yeah ... by the time that sun really hits that tent. Seriously. So we would, so we would nap, and then we would get up and eat something, and we'd go back to sleep for a while. , You're really focused on the task at hand. You're not really thinking about the future too much, other than maybe a little bit about what you're doing the next day or whatever. Yeah. And then you're in a remote area, so problems come up all the time. Or maybe not all the time, but frequently. So you're,, problem-solving a lot. Nobody there to help you. , We would have- Yeah ... radio check-ins, which got better once we started using satellite radios. Yep. But the old radios were very challenging and... Well, like out in the Aleutian Islands, a lot of times we mostly heard Japanese and Russian fishing boats rather than- Mm-hmm uh, rather than being able to get to our office in, in, on Adak, so. Yeah. Um- Right, and your office on Adak, right, you're, that's already Adak, right? That's way- Right ... way out there. Yeah. And sometimes those radios would skip and we'd reach Fairbanks, then we would say, "Hey, can you call our office and tell them we're alive?" Tell them we're okay. Well, now- We ran out of oatmeal or whatever. Yeah, nobody has appendicitis. But so nowadays, it's just satellite communication. It's so much easier. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Um- And- But, you know, , I guess another thing I would say is, like, when you're out in the field and doing that work, and almost all my work was in remote are- very remote areas, and we would- Yeah never see anybody. Mm-hmm. And, it's disconcerting to some people. You know, no trails, like everywhere else, most places in Alaska. You're just picking your route and you're hiking, uh, or boating or whatever. There's a real feeling of freedom with that, too, you know? And that freedom also requires, confidence about being in the wilderness and, , what wildlife you might encounter, what weather you might encounter, and,, not super survival skills. We've taken everything we need, , to be in a remote area, but, you know, you gotta be on your toes all the time. So for some of us, that's was like, you know, "Oh my gosh, this is what I live for." Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So were you usually... And I know it varied depending on where you were, but were you usually, like, at a camp in tents? It sounds like at least sometimes you were. So you'd be out in one kind of central camp, or were you, like, moving every day? It definitely varied. You know- Okay ... , like the songbird studies, we'd typically get helicoptered or floatplaned out to a location, and then we would have tents with us, and we would set up- Yeah a camp for three or four days. Okay. Do our, do our counts, move. The fishery study I did on the North Slope, we were a little bit more established, and there were several camps, um- Got it ... some were ba- some were based... One was based in Kaktovik, so in the village. Yep. And then oth- others, we would have a, um, a, a WeatherPort tent, um, kind of a big vinyl tent, basically. Yep. And we would use that for a cook tent. Yep. And, and then we would be camping in, , backpacking tents away from our cooking area- Yes ... and more private privacy and that kind of thing. Yeah. So mostly camping. And then I did some shore bird work in Kuparuk Oil Field for a couple years, and we stayed at, one of the DEW line sites. We couldn't afford to stay in the DEW line site, so we camped where- Near them. We, camped, which was, better for us and what we enjoyed, 'cause you can hear the outdoor sounds at night. You can hear birds. You're just more in touch with nature, and so that was nice. Yeah. But we, we did use their bathrooms and showers, which was okay. Ooh, that's nice. Yeah. Yeah. But, but a lot of, a lot of songbird studies I did, you know, we were just out for a month or so or whatever. Yep, yep. Um, can you tell everybody what the, what the DEW line is? 'Cause I feel like some people- Oh ... might not be familiar with that. That's good. Almost nobody's gonna be these days. Yeah, the DEW line was, . it was a distant early warning system. There were three layers of, uh, warnings for potential,, missiles or jets coming in from the Soviet Union. It was built during the, the Cold War. So the DEW line was set up across the northern coast of Alaska, northern Canada, and Greenland. And of course, the, the technology has been outmoded at this point. Yeah. Most of those have been, disassembled. Cool. Okay. Thanks for explaining that. Yes. I always feel like I'm talking with someone, and then someone says something, and I'm like, "Oh, wait. People won't know what that is. Let's go back a step." Oh. You know, even doing tours, you know, North Slope. What's the North Slope, you know? Yeah. And then some standard- What is the North Slope, Tim? Yeah. Well, it's the area north of the Brooks Mountain Range. We've got the mountains, and then we have rolling hills, and then, the coastal plain is very, a very flat plain that runs out to the Arctic Ocean, very gently sloping. Yep. And then actually, the continental shelf is very shallow, too. I mean, the water off of the oil fields and Arctic refuge, all that, is very shallow- Yep ... until you get quite a long ways. Yeah. So, so in addition to ice, a problem with, bringing materials in from the north is the shallowness. Yeah. Right, 'cause you can, like, wade out there. Like, for- Yeah, you- Not that you would, but, like- It- ... if you could walk out there- You could ... you could just kind of walk- Right ... a long way. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Tim, today we're, we're really talking about Arctic animals and their really cool, interesting adaptations, so there's nobody better than you to talk about this. So where should we start? What animal should we start with? Well, I, I think before an individual animal, basically there are three strategies for animals to survive, and each of them- Hmm ... has its own interest and problems and ways of solving, um, surviving here. I guess one other thing I should mention is, one thing that a lot of people feel like Alaska is that we're abundant with wildlife, because if you watch- Mm-hmm. Yeah ... about any television show or anything on Alaska, they're going to show wildlife, and- Yeah ... we have wildlife, but we have a lot of land mass. Yeah. And we have a lot of wilderness. , And winter, people that come on winter tours- Can see this more because it's like, well, look at the weather out there. What do you think it's like to survive? Yeah, yeah. And, and it's b- in the Fairbanks area, we typically have snow from mid-October through April and into May, and, so it's really difficult for animals to survive. So the further north you go on the planet, generally speaking, the more difficult it is to support large animal populations. Yeah. So animal densities are much lower. Mm-hmm. And, uh, I think, I think- Yeah, that's a really good point, 'cause it's not like you're in a zoo and there's just gonna be lots of animals everywhere all the time. Yeah, or the Serengeti or somewhere in Africa where- , it's a warm climate and there are animals everywhere. Yeah. And they have d- they have different strategies for surviving because they're eating e- each other left and right. Right. They have options. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so tell us a little bit about those kind of three different strategies that Arctic animals have, and then we can get into some- Okay, well- specific examples. , how do you survive all winter, without, without the other two strateg- strategies. So the other two then, one is hibernation, like most of us think about. Most people are aware that bears hibernate or go into torpor. And, then the third strategy is migration, which most of the birds do. About, uh, just a couple of dozen bird species w- overwinter here in Fairbanks where I live, and it gets to be even fewer when you get up to the Coldfoot Wiseman area where you are. It's just a dozen or so, bird species. Yeah. Yeah, and I didn't... I mean, I should have known because I know there are some birds in the winter in Fairbanks, so I guess I should have known there would be in Wiseman. But there was that really cool bird that was, like, bright red. Yeah, that's the pine grosbeak. The pine grosbeak. Okay. Yeah. That was a cool bird. I don't think I'd seen it before. It was really cool. Yeah. They have a really pretty s- pretty song, too. Yeah. Okay, so either you hibernate or you migrate or you try to stay awake and in the Arctic. Yeah. Those are kind of the three ways of going. And, and basically finding food. Y- tell you, it's all- Yeah about cal- it's all about calories. So you're trying- Yeah ... to acquire enough calories to s- stay here and be up and about, or you're reducing your caloric intake by hibernating, or you're going somewhere else where there's more food. Yeah. Yeah. So which one of those should we start with? Maybe birds, 'cause we already kinda started talking about birds a little bit. Yeah, we can talk about birds first. The early part of bird migration is a really exciting time of year for those of us interested in birds, and even people that don't know anything about birds. Canada geese arrived , and not a nuisance here. They're coming here, and then they're passing through to their nesting area, and- Mm-hmm ... everybody gets excited when the geese arrive, because that's- Yeah ... a harbinger of spring. Yeah. Yeah. So- You know, it's funny, Tim, a few years ago I went to see Hamilton in Anchorage, and it was with some friends, and it was at the end of August. And when we came out of the theater, there were Canada geese flying overhead, and it's like the whole crowd was like- ... "No, no, we're not ready for this." It's very funny. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Okay, so back to birds. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's good to know, 'cause a lot of people are like, "Canada geese, they're, like, everywhere," but they're not- That's right, yeah in Alaska. Yeah. And they don't spend the winter here, they migrate, so... And then they do disperse and the first songbird, the snow bunting., They like the cold and the winter. They're down in the west... well, mostly western lower 48 states in the wintertime, and then they come up here and they nest in higher elevations in, up in the Arctic. And summertime when I do tours up to, Deadhorse, which is adjacent to the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field, close to the, about nine miles south of the Arctic coast, the snow buntings are up there. They're the first bird to arrive, and they nest up there. And it's just, you're like, "Wow, this is amazing." Yeah, that is amazing. Which birds have some of the, like, longest migrations between Alaska's Arctic and, what sort of a place would they go to? Yeah. Well, the longest distant migrant is the Arctic tern. Mm. And they can,, nest from, uh, as far as the Arctic coast, the coast of the Arctic Ocean, and they go all the way down to, the coast of Antarctica, um- That's nuts ... for, for our winter. So they're, they like to be near, not quite, but near perpetual light, basically, so. Wow. So do you know, like, how... That's basically across the whole planet. It is, yeah. It's probably- Like, how d- how long does... Like, are they spending the whole year migrating and then, like, five days hanging out? Or Uh, th- I'm not sure how many days, but it's a l- it's quite a bit of time migrating. Yeah. And before satellite telemetry, I think assumptions were that they would just have stopover points, where there's a rich resource of food, uh, to fatten up to continue their migration. So they would- Yeah ... the assumption was, okay, there have been bird, Arctic tern sightings here, here, here, so they're going this route, and then they end up there. But, you know, the idea of, like, the timing wasn't really known until satellite telemetry. And then what they found with satellite telemetry, I don't know how long their migration is, but it's not at all like a, they're, it's not all like they're going, "Okay, we gotta get to Antarctica." It's they're looking for feeding areas along the way. Yeah. I realize that all of these things could be, like, an entire podcast. Um, is there anything else we wanna talk about with migrations and birds- Well- before we move on? Yeah. Well, for migration, one of the, the most interesting ones that nests in Alaska, that's the only place in North America, is the bar-tailed godwit, which is a- Mm ... medium-sized shorebird. And again, with satellite, , transmitter technology, we've been able to track their, their fall migration. So what happens is in the fall they go down to, , southwestern coast of Alaska, and they aggregate on some, uh, shoals where they fatten up. Shorebirds have different length bills for, um, different specific,, food items that they're after. So they, they congregate there, fatten up, and what they found is they fly nonstop from Alaska to their wintering grounds in New Zealand without ever landing. It can take, like, eight to 10 days for them to get up there with constant flight. So all the shorebirds are- Wait, how? How? How? Like, how? I, I'm not asking for an answer. Yeah. I'm just, like, that is mind-blowing. Yeah. Yeah. The shorebirds are really, they've evolved to put on, , a huge amount of fat, um- Like they'll gain 50%, they'll double their body weight, and they can atrophy organs, uh, that they're not gonna use during migration. So they're just like these balls of fat basically when they take off, and they're burning fat all the way down- ... down there, and then they, um, uh, and then they, they're hungry when they get there. Um- Yeah, I bet they are. In some- So they're basically like their body kind of goes dormant, and then they just fly the fat- Like- along like a fuel tank? No, no. And then they get I wouldn't say it goes dormant, but I mean, their body's adapted to migration and flying, and they do flap their wings and they do fly. They're, higher up, in the jet stream. They actually can sleep, uh, micro-sleep. They shut off, they close one eye and they can shut off half of their brain for like a microsecond or a very short period of time. That's so cool. And they can, switch back and forth. And then some of them actually winter on the East Coast of Australia, and the record-holder was a bird that flew from Alaska to, , a hatch year bird that flew from Alaska to Tasmania, and that took just about exactly 11 days to get there. Wow. That's amazing. So anyway, , lots of interesting bird migrations. And a lot of our birds migrate to Central America, South America- Yeah ... Southeast Asia. There's a, actually there's, there is a songbird called the, the northern wheatear, which w- nests in the mountains and Arctic, and they go all the way to Sub-Saharan, East Africa for the winter. Very bizarre, interesting migration. Totally wild. Wow, that's amazing. Okay, so what about our hibernators? Who are they, and, like, what are some of their cool adaptations? Yeah. So a lot of us think of bears, and bears go into a lower level mi- uh, hibernation's basically a lowered metabolic rate. And so bears m- uh, go into a lowered metabolic rate, but they're kind of in and out of hibernation all winter. But we do have some animals that spend all winter in migr- in hibernation, which is, uh, absolutely amazing. And a lot of, I think people might think that hibernation is a very, uh, effective, easy strategy for animals, 'cause animals hibernate in the lower 48 states or lower latitudes. But, here these winters are really long. So even bears, they, and the further north you go, the longer they hibernate. So half the year or more, they're surviving on fat that they've put on all winter or all summer to survive the entire winter. Yeah. Especially those pregnant females that are gonna have one or often two cubs, and so they have to have enough fat to, be able to bring that off. So they are amazing, but, one of the amaze- really super amazing hibernators is the Arctic ground squirrel. We have three squirrels- I love the Arctic ground squirrel. Oh, they're pretty cute. They're a great animal. They're adorable. Yeah. And in September they're so huge. They're like little penguins kind of. Yeah, yeah. Well, they put on a lot of fat. Yeah. , with good reason. So there's, they're ground squirrels, so they're subterranean. Um, so they ... Some hibernators will, huddle together for mutual body heat., Some birds do that in the wintertime in cold climates also. But these, uh, Arctic ground squirrels will go into their individual hibernaculum, their individual, hibernation den. And they'll go into a very deep hibernation state, , all winter long. , I shouldn't say all winter long. M- uh, through winter. They come in and out of hibernation. I'll explain that in a minute. Okay. Their metabolism goes so low because, they're underground, but the ground is frozen. So, snow and the, well, the ground is a good insulator, so it's right about f- at freezing underground where, you know, in the, if you're in alpine tundra or out on the, North Arctic tundra, it's gonna be much colder than that with windchill. Yeah. So it's relatively warmer, but you still, to survive, I can't imagine sleeping out every day at, you know, freezing for six- No six months. No. To reduce their metabolic rate, their heart rate goes to about six time, beats per minute. And they get no oxygen flowing to their brain, which in humans would cause a stroke, and they're able to- ... manage that. And also their body temperature goes down to about minus, or can go down to about minus three degrees Celsius. So their body, they super cool themselves to produce an antifreeze basically. And so they're able to go and survive below win- below freezing temperatures without freezing, which is- Amazing ... absolutely amazing and then to sur- survive all that. They do come out of hibernation through the course of winter, and, researchers feel like, and this sounds counterintuitive because we think of hibernation as a deep sleep, but it's a different metabolic process. Researchers feel like the Arctic ground squirrels come out of hibernation in, in order to sleep. And- mammals, including us, we need to eat, of course drink water. We need, food and liquid, and we need sleep in order to survive. Mm-hmm. That is true with the art- the Arctic ground squirrels too. So they come out of hibernation, they go through cycles every so often through the course of winter, and, uh, in order to come out of hibernation, when they get hungry they start to shiver. And that shivering process warms their body up when they come out of hibernation. With the climate changing, what that means in the Arctic is springtime's coming earlier and winter comes later. And so they've found that the males, Arctic ground squirrels, are hardwired to come out of hibernation at the same time basically every year. So they come out, and and, , ground squirrels as basically going through puberty every year. So that's one way to survive the winter is to, for, , reproductive or- organs to retract. So, um- Amazing So listeners, when you're in Denali, you'll almost for sure see an Arctic ground squirrel if you take the bus tour into the park. And I have been with guests who were like, "Oh, it's a squirrel," and I'm like, "No, no, no, no. This animal is incredible." So now that you've learned from Tim, you'll be like... You'll have your mind blown by the Arctic ground squirrel too. Yeah. It is. Okay, so should we move on to our survivors? Yeah. We can do that. So these are the animals that don't hibernate, they don't migrate. They just make it work all winter in the Arctic, right? Most people are familiar with them because they're around. And- Yeah ... so the one that everybody looks for in the winter is the moose. Yeah. And moose survive the winter. Their primary food in the winter is willow twigs. Yep. And so I would imagine there's a or some graduate students who at various times have had to estimate how much, how many pounds of willows they have to eat. They also eat, uh, s- birch, paper birch saplings. So sometimes you'll see a sapling paper birch broken off, that they've pulled down and chewed off the newer growth. Yeah, they'll eat the newer growth of the willows also. And interestingly is they also, eat the bark off of quaking aspen trees, and you can see that near the entrance of Denali National Park is, um... They have teeth in their lower jaw. They have a hard palate on top. They don't have teeth in their upper jaw, and they'll- They'll scrape their lower teeth up the, the aspen tree to peel that bark off and eat it, so. And when things get desperate, they start getting more marginal, food sources, so they might eat,, less favorable willows. And there are even been moose that have starved to death even with a full stomach because, uh, they be- they... Of course, the plants, the bark, or the, the bark, the twigs are woody- Mm so they're essen- they're essentially eating... You know, if it gets too big, they're essentially eating wood, and it takes them too long to digest that. Yeah. So they're after those newer, fresher growth, um- Yep ... twigs. And then of course, with moose we have, which people are familiar with, we have wolves, and we, wolves are abundant in Alaska, and, uh- Yeah they're out looking for food all winter, and one of those prey items is the, is the moose, along with, uh, caribou, um, and anything else they can find. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Cool. Incl- including other wolves. Yeah. Well, man, wolves are intense, for sure. Um, so going back to moose just for a second, Tim, how far north can moose survive? I know there's lots of them in, like, the Fairbanks area. Can they survive on the North Slope? Do they need trees? Can they, can they get willow bushes? Or how far north do they go? Well, that's a really good question. And, um, uh, I think they can go probably all the way to the north coast. I, when I did fisheries work, I was doing some inland stream studies too on the coastal plain. Coastal plain in Arctic Wildlife Refuge is really rather narrow. And, um, one day we were going from one stream to our inflatable Zodiac, uh, raft, and, uh, we saw this big brown, uh, brown object bounding across the tundra. And of course the first thought is, "Oh, there's a bear over there." And it's like, wait a minute, that's a moose. And so I don't know how many miles from the coast, but it wasn't that far. But moose densities are low on the North Slope, here in the interior and everywhere else, or el- elsewhere in Alaska, you can go moose hunting. There's, you know, limit of one per year. Yep. But on the North Slope, there's no, hunting. There's sport hunting for them, Okay ... be- because they're low densities. Yep. And so they- they're hanging out in those, in riverine areas where there are willows, , where they can, feed on twigs. And then we've got the wolves that go wherever the things are that wolves can eat. Yeah. Other wolves and other animals. What else? Well, so another big one, I guess the counterpart to the Arctic ground squirrel, which is, uh, in the, the tundra, the treeless areas, we have the snowshoe hare. Mm. The arctic ground squirrel, their function in life for, is to be eaten by something else, provide food for animals. Similar for the, snowshoe hare, , in the interior. Just about everything eats snowshoe hares. Their ma- the main predator is the, uh, Canada lynx. That's their- Oh, yeah ... main food source is the snowshoe hare., But lots of other things. One of the most, other most common predators of, of them is the great horned owl. Mm-hmm. They're here all winter. There's the, northern goshawk, which is a hawk that spends the winters here. , Just about everything. I'm sure wolves- The poor hares ... pick them up. Yeah, yeah. They're just like- Yes ... everybody's gunning for them. Yeah. A friend of mine who studies them said the average lifespan for a snowshoe hare is, um, about a year. You know, it takes them about- Oh. It takes them about a year to sexually mature, so some of them- Right ... some of them get crafty or good luck or a little bit of both and,, survive to be able to reproduce. Yeah. But they re- but they reproduce like rabbits. Rabbits and hares- Right ... are a little bit different. Um- As the term goes, which is lucky if you're- Yeah ... getting eaten all the time. Right, yeah. And, rabbits and hares are, are a little bit different. Rabbits are what are called altricial, and hares are, precocial. Humans are a great example of altricial. You know, it takes humans at least 18 years to grow to maturity. Mm-hmm. Some more than others. And, um, so- Sometimes a little more. Yeah. Rabbits are born without fur, with their eyes closed. They have a substantial nest. And hares are born with their eyes open, with fur, and a makeshift nest, and they're off out on their own before long. And they have a longer- Amazing gestation period because of that. Right. So that's the dif- that's the difference between them. Of course, they have the big feet, too, which is where their name comes from. But their population, the hare population, goes through cycles, roughly a 10-year cycle. So we were at a low a few years ago, and their numbers are coming up. Of like three, four, five years ago, I would never see, almost never see a hare on my tours, and, , now we see them most tours. That's fascinating ... and so, and so with that, we're starting to see more Ca- Canada lynx, too. Yeah. You know, still, still infrequent, but we do see them, whereas before we wouldn't see them. Yeah. So be- I would, I would- ... but- ... love to see a lynx on tour. I've never seen a lynx in the wild. Yeah. A, a lot of people haven't. Yeah, yep. Um, right place, right time. . So essentially, the snowshoe hares are eating the bark off of shrubs in the wintertime. Mm-hmm. They're limited by food in the wintertime, like other animals. With an abundant food source, they start to have more young, they have more litters, and their numbers grow exponentially. And with that, there are more, predators, so it provides more food for the predators. Mm-hmm. So they can withstand that predation. And then the, second factor, what happens with any animal population that is overpopulated, they start to get disease. Tularemia is the disease that snowshoe hares typically get. The third factor then that comes in is, , when the, hare population continues to grow, they start to over-browse. And interestingly- Hmm ... the plants have adapted. If they've been stressed by being over-browsed, is they'll produce toxins. So they become toxic to the hares. So essentially the hares start to also run short on food. So those three factors all come to a head and, the hare population c- uh, collapses. And then when it gets to some crucial low point, is that then, the shrubs and stuff start to recover and then they grow? Right. Yeah. . So then there aren't many hares, or as many hares, and so the shrubs aren't being browsed as much, so the r- shrubs start to , recover, and that cycle, uh, continues. Wow. That's amazing. Some of these things we're talking about, it'd be kind of cool if humans could do. You know, like if we could just shut down an organ we don't need for a little bit. Oh, yeah. It would be really cool. Or, or if we could say, "Oh, I'm overwhelmed. I'll become toxic now." Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, we do that, but... We do do that. Yeah, that's a good point. But, but I'd like to go into hibernation now, would be one. Yeah. Wake me up when it's over. Right. It'd be great. I'll be, I'll be ready. I'll just be here napping. Yeah. Okay, so what e- so we've talked about moose, and wolves, and hares. What about... And lynx a little. What about caribou? Well, so caribou, they're not going to a tropical area or anything, but they do migrate. Mm-hmm. And the, and they're still in cold weather, but,, so they're a migratory animal. An example I like to use is the Porcupine caribou herd because,, when I was work- doing fisheries work on the Coast of Arctic Refuge, that's where they have their, their young, is on the coastal plain of the Arc- of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Mm-hmm. And I think right now they're the largest caribou population, I think in North America, actually. Caribou in Alaska, are really starting to herd because, uh- Mm The climate change and- Yeah ... rain in the, wintertime, which we're getting now, and so there gets to be, , layers of ice over, their food, and they can't dig through it, and there are other, other factors involved also. Yeah. But, so s- currently that Porcupine caribou herd is in, the highest numbers. So they're migrating primarily for food. Uh- Gotcha. Okay ... which is variable, through the, cycle of the year. They'll be dropping their calves, giving birth and they're looking for an abundant food source. Their wintering area is a huge area and variable. Their primary food in the winter is lichen, which they're basically converting starches to sugars, and so they actually lose weight in the wintertime. So those females bearing calves, the calves grow very slowly- Mm ... , once the snow starts to melt on the North Slope, they'll start moving northward, , in places where, plants are, available. They're the main food that they derive protein from at that time of year. In the springtime or when they're having calves is, or during calving, is cotton grass. Mm. So they'll eat the cotton grass and buds. And they'll start moving to those areas, and their historic migrations, the old females lead the migration. They know those routes, they just innately know them. And so they'll feed, and then they'll have their calves. An interesting thing is they have their calves right around in a very short time, the whole herd, and they're herded up at that point. Um, and that's called predator swamping. So major source of, mortality for caribou calves is grizzly bears. Mm-hmm. And so if birth took place over a longer period of times, like, well, the bears would, would eat several calves. Yeah. Okay, then I'm hungry again, I'll eat more, and then I'll eat more. But everything's concentrated so that it's called predator swamping. And so some of those calves are gonna survive. Yeah. You know, at some point the bears have had plenty of food, and so- Yep ... that gives the calves more time to feed on those nutrient plants. And then there are other plants that come out too that, are nutrient rich. And then, this one is not food oriented, but, it happens here in month of June, the mosquitoes typically start to get really bad. Yeah. Ooh, yeah. And having worked, having worked on the North Slope, makes most places in the interior look like the mosquitoes aren't too bad. Yes. I mean- Yes ... doing field work up there, I have memories of my coworkers sitting on the tundra and their entire back is covered with mosquitoes. And- Yeah probably little to no exaggeration, you could s- you could, , rub your hand down your arm and probably squish 100 mosquitoes. I mean, it's- Yes ... intense. And so- It's really intense. Yeah. Yeah. Ugh. So, and they're very, and they're very aggressive also. Yeah. And those, and so we're not the only ones bothered m- by mosquitoes, caribou are too, so. Yeah. And they can actually kill caribou calves, and so they want to escape those. You know, here in the interior, like in Denali, they, I'm sure they go to, like, a little higher elevation places with a little bit more wind to get- Yep ... out of the black spruce forest. Yeah. With these bi- larger caribou herds in the Arctic along the Dalton Highway, it's the central Arctic caribou herd, they'll move northward. And to get away from the mosquitoes, they'll go all the way to the coast. And they'll, . and on the coast, there tends to be a persistent wind, and the temperature's colder f- from the wind blowing off the Arctic Ocean. So that, um- minimizes the mosquito numbers. When I did fisheries work on Arctic Refuge, I can remember some of those porcupine caribou herd animals going out and standing on grounded out ice floes off the coast, away from all the vegetation where there's more- Yeah more water, just to get away from them, so. Yeah. So that's a, really intense, stressful time for them. So then when the mosquitoes start to taper off, although we humans would still think they're bad, but they're not as bad, but- Yeah ... they wanna get back to that richer nutrient food, so they start to move back inland a little bit- Mm-hmm or move inland. And then, they're thinking about winter again at some point in August and September, and so they work their way further south and then back into the Brooks Range. And th- that porcupine caribou herd overwinters in Alaska, Yukon Territory, , Northwest Territories, . So they have a hu- huge winter range. So then they'll go to where the lichen is abundant and move around in the winter Yep ... start it all over again. Yeah. So their, migration is sort of a hybrid of the migration and the survival because they're not, like you said, not really leaving the north, but they're- Yeah moving around a lot so that they can find food in different places. Right. , I guess the difference is that they're able to find their food here- Yep. Yeah ... where, where birds aren't, because- Yeah ... a lot of the birds are eating insects and, you know. So they're going to where there are more insects. And they don't stay south becau- the birds, because, uh, there's a lot more competition because it's a, warmer climate. Yeah. So there's a lot of competition. There are more predators. We have no reptiles in the interior or- Mm-hmm ... the Arctic, so there are predators for birds and bird nests, but not nearly so much , as lower latitudes. Yeah. So they come back up here because of the abundance of insects, the abundance of food, and we have a lot of area. If you look at a globe- the Northern Hemisphere and the Arctic, there's just a huge land mass basically- Yeah ... between North America and Asia. Yeah. Amazing. Okay, Tim. I feel like we've only scratched the surface of this Yeah. Well, yeah ... topic, and we've really only talked about the interior and the Arctic. Yeah. Is there anything else that, any other animals or adaptations that you think we should touch on here before wrapping up? I guess one more would be, one of the, bird species that overwinters here is the black-capped chickadee, and a lot of people are familiar with chickadees, ... because they come to bird feeders very regularly, very observable. But they hang out here all winter. They don't migrate. So they, nest in cavities. Typically, it'll be a, kind of a punky, dead or near dead birch tree. And then in the wintertime, they do,, roost in, often in tree cavities. And, some bird species will roost together to, for mutual body heat, but these chickadees will go into a roost all by themselves. And as you know, , what it's like around the winter solstice, December 20th, 21st, it's dark. Uh, it's cold. Really dark, yeah. And then it gets colder in January, February. So those chickadees don't have a lot of, uh, time in the day to feed, and , they cache their food, which, uh, w- in the wild here, uh, they'll eat, insects. And so they'll cache insects, , researchers have found that they can ca- they can, memorize several dozen cache sites. So they come out, from nighttime, and when it gets daylight, they, boom, they head out to feed, and they're going specifically to these cache sites. So they're not out searching for food. They know exactly where they're going. And they have to add roughly about 10% of their body weight every day in order to survive. So they'll feed- That's amazing Put on that, that body weight and then they'll go back into their cavity. And in order to keep warm, of course they have down and they put it, produce more downy feather tracks in the wintertime. Mm-hmm. They'll puff out their feathers to trap that air and, that cavity's just barely the size of their body, and they'll puff out their feathers and, , to produce heat, they shiver. So they'll shiver all night long To, to produce heat. Oh, poor chickadees. And then they'll wake up and do it again. Yeah. And it's charming in the wintertime if, like, , the crack of dawn, whichever time that might be, 10:00 in the morning- Right ... or 1:00 10:30 in the morning. Yeah. Uh, y- sometimes you'll see their tails all crumpled up, and that's from being in, uh, in their little cavity. Mm. And so- So they're, like, stretching a little. So everything- Yeah ... is brief. So it's like no wasting any time, and that's even more so, s- more so the further north you go, into the Arctic. Just e- incredibly brief. The shorebird work I did, we would show up and there would be no shorebirds and there'd be a blowing snow storm, and then, whoa, what do you know, there's, , some birds arriving. A- a- and they're nesting, like, right away. They're like, "We need to get moving here." Yeah, yep, yeah. Yeah. We gotta go back to South America here pretty soon or whatever. Amazing. Okay. So Tim, I know that we have not remotely talked about all the animals, um- Yeah ... up north. I mean, we kind of ran out of time to talk about the muskox, which is my favorite Alaska animal, but- Oh, yeah I feel like the muskox maybe deserves its own episode. I don't know. We might have to do a part two next year, but- ... I would love to ask you the same two things that I ask everyone who comes on the podcast. The first is, what's your favorite restaurant in Fairbanks? Well, that's a good question, you know, I don't get out that much, but I do have a f- I do have some favorites. And- Okay ... um, back in 1989, uh, the first Thai restaurant showed up in Fairbanks. Yes. Yes. Thai House. Yes. And then the second one showed up after Thai House was Lemongrass. And Lemongrass is on my end of town, and- Mm-hmm ... you know, if I like, "Oh, let's go out to eat," it's like, "Okay, let's go to Lemongrass." And so- Yes Thai food, everything's expensive in Fairbanks, but Thai food is relatively less expensive. Yeah. And it's also very good. So now that's my, I would say my favorite. But there's a, there's a good, Indian restaurant in town now too called Hari Om, and they- it's excellent- Yeah ... Indian food. Awesome. So. Fabulous. So the other one is what is your top tip for first-time Alaska visitors? And you might have covered this in some of your podcasts. I haven't listened to all of them. But top, my top tip is,, is do your best to minimize your scope of travel. Mm. Because Alaska, o- often people underestimate the size of Alaska and how long it takes to get from one place to another. Like, it's of- it's not uncommon for people to underestimate, like, how long it takes to drive between Fairbanks and Anchorage. It's like it's the better part of a day. Yeah. You know? And so- You know, um, this has come up one or two times. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay. You know- So continue ... and if you have unlimited budget, you can fly here and there. And that might be one option for a, a, a trip is to just, you know, a couple days here, a couple days there. I guided a bird tour a few years ago. We went to Nome, we went to, Homer, we went to Seward, we went to, , Denali, we went to Utqiagvik, to Barrow. Yeah. But at, at, and the same time, that was 17 days of, pretty intense travel. But so yeah, I, I think limiting the scope of, like, what you wanna cover. Now, Alaska's a state that y- you can come back to several times and s- and, and s- have a totally different experience- Yeah ... depending on what region you're in. Yeah, 📍 for sure. That's really good advice. Okay, Tim, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all about these awesome animals, and it was great to see you again. Yeah, my pleasure. Great to see you too, I've enjoyed it