Inian Islands, Fox Creek
What makes an oceanic ecosystem? How far-reaching are the connections between places and animals of the Pacific? Today, we watched Steller’s sea lions thrash apart salmon in the waters around the Inian Islands. These fish have ranged through the waters of the Gulf of Alaska and now are coming home to give themselves over to the task of spawning a new generation...or not, if they’re caught first by the hungry and wily sea lions.
On the rocks, we saw sea lions with cold-brands from breeding rookeries up and down the outer coast of Southeast Alaska. Steller’s sea lions from Prince William Sound and even as far away as Russia have been seen here, having finned tremendous distances in their short (or short compared to baleen whales) lives.
And what about the sea otters? Once hunted to official extinction, they rolled and preened among the bull kelp, algal forests that they had tended through their huge appetite for marine grazers like sea urchins. Without the otters, we’d have no kelp. Without kelp, we’d have no stalked jellyfish, and what amazing creatures they are! We found one on the kelp blades surrounding the Shaw Islands, just across from our afternoon excursions at Fox Creek. When we put it under the microscope and projected it on screen in the lounge of the Sea Bird, it pulsed its tentacles like nobody’s business, waving its lovely nematocysts at the tips of its pom-pom-like tentacles.
Ashore, hikers walked among lichens, mosses, and the signs left by brown bears, which came to North America from Asia some mere twelve thousand years ago. Alaska might feel at times like a place apart, but it isn’t. The animals and plants here lead us to other, broader links both temporal and geographic. And now, having spent time here, we can begin to draw our own lines of connection, whether by species and natural history or by memory.
What makes an oceanic ecosystem? How far-reaching are the connections between places and animals of the Pacific? Today, we watched Steller’s sea lions thrash apart salmon in the waters around the Inian Islands. These fish have ranged through the waters of the Gulf of Alaska and now are coming home to give themselves over to the task of spawning a new generation...or not, if they’re caught first by the hungry and wily sea lions.
On the rocks, we saw sea lions with cold-brands from breeding rookeries up and down the outer coast of Southeast Alaska. Steller’s sea lions from Prince William Sound and even as far away as Russia have been seen here, having finned tremendous distances in their short (or short compared to baleen whales) lives.
And what about the sea otters? Once hunted to official extinction, they rolled and preened among the bull kelp, algal forests that they had tended through their huge appetite for marine grazers like sea urchins. Without the otters, we’d have no kelp. Without kelp, we’d have no stalked jellyfish, and what amazing creatures they are! We found one on the kelp blades surrounding the Shaw Islands, just across from our afternoon excursions at Fox Creek. When we put it under the microscope and projected it on screen in the lounge of the Sea Bird, it pulsed its tentacles like nobody’s business, waving its lovely nematocysts at the tips of its pom-pom-like tentacles.
Ashore, hikers walked among lichens, mosses, and the signs left by brown bears, which came to North America from Asia some mere twelve thousand years ago. Alaska might feel at times like a place apart, but it isn’t. The animals and plants here lead us to other, broader links both temporal and geographic. And now, having spent time here, we can begin to draw our own lines of connection, whether by species and natural history or by memory.
