AK Volunteers Track Seal Die-Offs, Worms In Grouse, Previously Unknown Insects

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A program with hundreds of volunteers scattered around rural Alaska has been collecting reports of bizarre animals, strange afflictions and unexplained deaths, offering researchers a broad view of how climate change might be affecting Alaska's environment. Pictured is a ringed seal found suffering from a mystery ailment in Northern Alaska in 2011. North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management photo

Dead seals littering beaches, bolts of fur dangling from deer, white worms squiggling in the meat of freshly killed grouse. Incidents like these are some of the dozens of reports from the front lines of climate change in rural Alaska, where a volunteer army of observers is documenting unusual events to warn of potential health threats as new plants, bugs and animals migrate to the Far North.

Spread across the state in more than 100 villages, 230 Alaska Native volunteers are part of a 2-year-old program organized by the Center for Climate and Health at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

"The environment is changing really fast and these are people who are familiar with the world around them," said Michael Brubaker, a founder of the climate center. "Their reports are flares sent up to say this is something we're seeing that we believe is unusual or new."

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Taken together, the events can provide insight into important trends, such as the geographic range of deaths from sick seals that washed onto Alaska's beaches, part of an "unusual mortality event" that began two years ago and prompted an international investigation by researchers. Why scores of seals got sick and died in that event is still unknown.Environmental observers in Northwest Alaska provided input on the affliction through the climate center's network, posting five reports of sick-looking seals.

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http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20131104/army-volunteers-compiles-possible-evidence-climate-change-alaska