Q&A: USGS Ecosystems Science Provides Information on Subsistence and Hunter-Harvested Food Resources in Alaska
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By Alaska Science Center
April 28, 2025
The USGS is the science arm of the Department of the Interior with a mission to provide timely and impartial science information to decision-makers, industry, tribal entities and others. In Alaska, subsistence and hunter-harvested foods are kitchen table issues for the public. The annual subsistence harvest per rural resident is 295 pounds of wild food. USGS science is responsive to subsistence rights established by the Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation Act of 1980.
At the Ecosystems Office of the USGS Alaska Science Center, collaborative research and monitoring informs the status of subsistence food resources and determines changes in these resources. Data from monitoring and research informs management actions, often by co-management councils which are partnerships among Alaska Native, federal, and state entities that manage species harvest collaboratively.
Return to USGS Alaska Q&A Series
Healthy wildlife populations provide critical food resources for tribal communities and the public. Many people in Alaska meet much of their food needs through hunting and subsistence activities and have a long history of harvesting wildlife for food that is central to their culture and identity. The USGS partners with state, federal, and tribal and rural communities to identify changes in the distribution and abundance of important subsistence and harvested resources in Alaska, such as salmon, caribou, walruses, polar bears, sea otters, and migratory birds. Partnering is critical to learning about community and hunter observations, addressing the needs of Alaska co-management councils and the Regional Advisory Councils of the Department of the Interior Office of Subsistence and keeping them informed of USGS research activities and findings. Since the USGS is non-regulatory, it does not participate directly in managing wildlife, but instead responds to science needs and provides data to inform agency and co-management decisions.
In this Q&A we provide examples of recent and ongoing science, related to subsistence resources, that are produced by the USGS Ecosystems Office in Alaska.
Q: How does research by the USGS Ecosystems Program help to determine status and trends of subsistence and harvestable food?
- Salmon and other fishes represent 50% of the total subsistence harvest in Alaska, but the availability of salmon has declined dramatically in western Alaska’s Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers. The USGS has leveraged its expertise in fish and Water Resources data to confirm that some rivers are now warm enough during summer to stress migrating adult salmon, which is linked to lower salmon returns. The USGS has been invited to regularly present research updates on this topic to communities, Regional Advisory Councils of the Department of Interior’s Office of Subsistence Management, the Yukon River Panel, and to Congressional members including at the 2021 Salmon Roundtable hosted by the Alaska Congressional Delegation and the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force convened in 2023 by law.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- Caribou are a critical subsistence food resource throughout Alaska, yet many herds across North America are in decline. Additionally, the opportunity for people to harvest caribou is highly dependent on their annual migration and movement patterns, which are undergoing dynamic changes. To address these concerns, the USGS has been investigating factors associated with caribou population dynamics, for example, recently finding that reduced survival and reproduction were associated with changing forage and insect conditions. In addition, the USGS is developing caribou population models that can be used by management agencies to more easily monitor trends of Alaska caribou herds and investigate the reasons for population declines. For example, the USGS found that advanced spring phenology is associated with changes in the summer distribution of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which resides along the U.S.– Canadian border. In years with earlier springs, caribou predominately used habitat in Alaska for calving, whereas in years with late springs, caribou spent more time in Canada. USGS research is being used by federal, state, tribes, industry and other entities in caribou management and conservation.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- Pacific black brant geese are an important subsistence food in Alaska in the spring and a highly prized species for hunters and wildlife viewers along the entire Pacific Coast of North America in the fall. The USGS helped to develop better surveys for determining population size of the Pacific black brant in Alaska using aerial photography as an alternative to an expensive winter survey, flown over 3,500 miles of Pacific coast. Additionally, the new surveys identified that the winter population size is roughly twice that estimated from the previous, intensive survey approach. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has since switched to using this aerial imagery survey to monitor the Pacific black brant population and inform harvest management.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- Sea otters are co-managed by the USFWS and Alaska Native entities. Recently, the Chugach Regional Resources Commission initiated the Chugach Imaq Research Collaborative with the USGS and partners from state, federal and other entities for producing science used to support co-management of marine mammals in the Chugach Region of southcentral Alaska. To set the stage for what will be a long-term effort to co-produce science and monitoring, a workshop was held in Cordova, Alaska, in September 2024 and synthesized the current state of science and monitoring in the Chugach Region and identified priority areas for improving collaboration and capacity building. A report on this meeting is available to download here.
- Since their reintroduction in the late 1960s, sea otters have been rapidly recolonizing the nearshore marine habitats of southeast Alaska. USGS has been engaged in several efforts to better understand sea otter population growth and range expansion, as well as the effects they are having on highly valued subsistence and commercial shellfish that coastal communities and Tribes rely on.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- The importance of polar bears to subsistence harvest is acknowledged in the U.S. Polar Bear Conservation Management Plan, where providing the “continued opportunity for the harvest of polar bears for subsistence purposes” is listed as a fundamental goal. To ensure the continuation of subsistence harvest opportunities, the USGS is working with tribal co-management and Department of Interior partners to blend scientific data and Indigenous Knowledge (IK) about polar bears. This information will lead to more transparent and broadly supported guidelines for sustainable harvest. Polar bear research by the USGS Alaska Science Center has collected data for more than 30 years, providing the necessary scientific information to support this approach.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- Pacific walruses have been harvested by Alaska Native communities for thousands of years and in some communities, walruses are a primary source of food. In addition to using nearly all parts of harvested walruses for food, several communities in Alaska maintain traditional carving of walrus ivory tusks that is an importance source of income. The USGS provides critical science service about Pacific walruses to support subsistence and cultural use including:
- Producing estimates of population trends and survival rates.
- Forecasting possible changes in population dynamics, as walruses face changing conditions and human disturbance.
- Assessing the sustainability of subsistence harvest patterns to inform community questions about if harvest needs can continue to be met well into the future.
- Sampling of harvested walruses to monitor for highly pathogenic avian influenza, algal toxins, and contaminants that have potential to affect the health of consumers. (Other samples and measurements are used to quantify the health of females and calves.)
- Annual monitoring of hundreds of thousands of walruses that haulout near the community of Point Lay each summer. This information helps to decrease disturbance events from aircraft and marine vessels that can lead to greater walrus mortality.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
Q: What are some examples of USGS Ecosystems science that inform Alaska Native communities of emerging issues important to subsistence foods?
- Highly pathogenic avian influenza, or “bird flu”, spread to North America in late 2021 and is a significant concern to Alaska Native communities because it threatens traditional hunting and harvesting. Alaska Native communities rely on the harvest of wild birds. The USGS has monitored the status of bird flu in Alaska for over a decade including detection of the virus in numerous wild birds and mammals during the current outbreak. The USGS continues to monitor introductions of different bird flu strains into Alaska – a pathway for introductions into the United States – and recently assisted with a training event for Tribal partners to raise awareness and response planning.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- Pathogens in wildlife can affect species health and can potentially be transmitted to humans, particularly for subsistence-harvested species. In 2019, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) met with federal, state, Tribal and other partners to create a list of priority zoonotic diseases (those that can move from wildlife to human) that needed greater collaboration to address information gaps. Since that workshop, the USGS has determined baseline levels of these diseases in wildlife and examined changes over time of pathogens in wildlife of multiple species, including polar bears, red fox, and migratory birds.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- New USGS research aims to better understand the spread of mule deer, and the pathogens they may bring, into Alaska. Many diseases and parasites that affect wildlife populations in Canada and the lower-48 United States have not been detected in Alaska yet. However, the ranges of mule deer, white-tailed deer, and elk are expanding north toward and into Alaska, likely bringing with them new pathogens that can affect Alaska's native ungulate species. Mule deer have already been documented in Interior Alaska since the mid-1980s and commonly carry winter tick and chronic wasting disease (CWD). Winter tick is a prominent concern, as mule deer are already known to carry it in the Yukon, and it has had devastating effects on moose populations elsewhere. These diseases and parasites could bring novel wildlife management challenges to Alaska, not only for recreational hunting, but for the subsistence lifestyles and food security of rural residents and Tribes.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
Assessing heat stress in migrating Yukon River Chinook Salmon
We will examine evidence of heat stress in Yukon River Chinook salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) using heat shock proteins and gene expression.
Promoting Coastal Resilience and Adaptation in Alaska: Community Outreach and Engagement
In coastal Alaska, changes in snow, ice, and extreme weather events threaten human communities, critical infrastructure, valuable natural resources, and hunting and fishing livelihoods. Identifying how changing climate conditions impact Alaska’s coastal ecosystems, and how these changes may be tied to the ability of coastal communities to adapt to changing conditions, has been identified...
The USGS is the science arm of the Department of the Interior with a mission to provide timely and impartial science information to decision-makers, industry, tribal entities and others. In Alaska, subsistence and hunter-harvested foods are kitchen table issues for the public. The annual subsistence harvest per rural resident is 295 pounds of wild food. USGS science is responsive to subsistence rights established by the Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation Act of 1980.
At the Ecosystems Office of the USGS Alaska Science Center, collaborative research and monitoring informs the status of subsistence food resources and determines changes in these resources. Data from monitoring and research informs management actions, often by co-management councils which are partnerships among Alaska Native, federal, and state entities that manage species harvest collaboratively.
Return to USGS Alaska Q&A Series
Healthy wildlife populations provide critical food resources for tribal communities and the public. Many people in Alaska meet much of their food needs through hunting and subsistence activities and have a long history of harvesting wildlife for food that is central to their culture and identity. The USGS partners with state, federal, and tribal and rural communities to identify changes in the distribution and abundance of important subsistence and harvested resources in Alaska, such as salmon, caribou, walruses, polar bears, sea otters, and migratory birds. Partnering is critical to learning about community and hunter observations, addressing the needs of Alaska co-management councils and the Regional Advisory Councils of the Department of the Interior Office of Subsistence and keeping them informed of USGS research activities and findings. Since the USGS is non-regulatory, it does not participate directly in managing wildlife, but instead responds to science needs and provides data to inform agency and co-management decisions.
In this Q&A we provide examples of recent and ongoing science, related to subsistence resources, that are produced by the USGS Ecosystems Office in Alaska.
Q: How does research by the USGS Ecosystems Program help to determine status and trends of subsistence and harvestable food?
- Salmon and other fishes represent 50% of the total subsistence harvest in Alaska, but the availability of salmon has declined dramatically in western Alaska’s Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers. The USGS has leveraged its expertise in fish and Water Resources data to confirm that some rivers are now warm enough during summer to stress migrating adult salmon, which is linked to lower salmon returns. The USGS has been invited to regularly present research updates on this topic to communities, Regional Advisory Councils of the Department of Interior’s Office of Subsistence Management, the Yukon River Panel, and to Congressional members including at the 2021 Salmon Roundtable hosted by the Alaska Congressional Delegation and the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force convened in 2023 by law.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- Caribou are a critical subsistence food resource throughout Alaska, yet many herds across North America are in decline. Additionally, the opportunity for people to harvest caribou is highly dependent on their annual migration and movement patterns, which are undergoing dynamic changes. To address these concerns, the USGS has been investigating factors associated with caribou population dynamics, for example, recently finding that reduced survival and reproduction were associated with changing forage and insect conditions. In addition, the USGS is developing caribou population models that can be used by management agencies to more easily monitor trends of Alaska caribou herds and investigate the reasons for population declines. For example, the USGS found that advanced spring phenology is associated with changes in the summer distribution of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which resides along the U.S.– Canadian border. In years with earlier springs, caribou predominately used habitat in Alaska for calving, whereas in years with late springs, caribou spent more time in Canada. USGS research is being used by federal, state, tribes, industry and other entities in caribou management and conservation.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- Pacific black brant geese are an important subsistence food in Alaska in the spring and a highly prized species for hunters and wildlife viewers along the entire Pacific Coast of North America in the fall. The USGS helped to develop better surveys for determining population size of the Pacific black brant in Alaska using aerial photography as an alternative to an expensive winter survey, flown over 3,500 miles of Pacific coast. Additionally, the new surveys identified that the winter population size is roughly twice that estimated from the previous, intensive survey approach. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has since switched to using this aerial imagery survey to monitor the Pacific black brant population and inform harvest management.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- Sea otters are co-managed by the USFWS and Alaska Native entities. Recently, the Chugach Regional Resources Commission initiated the Chugach Imaq Research Collaborative with the USGS and partners from state, federal and other entities for producing science used to support co-management of marine mammals in the Chugach Region of southcentral Alaska. To set the stage for what will be a long-term effort to co-produce science and monitoring, a workshop was held in Cordova, Alaska, in September 2024 and synthesized the current state of science and monitoring in the Chugach Region and identified priority areas for improving collaboration and capacity building. A report on this meeting is available to download here.
- Since their reintroduction in the late 1960s, sea otters have been rapidly recolonizing the nearshore marine habitats of southeast Alaska. USGS has been engaged in several efforts to better understand sea otter population growth and range expansion, as well as the effects they are having on highly valued subsistence and commercial shellfish that coastal communities and Tribes rely on.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- The importance of polar bears to subsistence harvest is acknowledged in the U.S. Polar Bear Conservation Management Plan, where providing the “continued opportunity for the harvest of polar bears for subsistence purposes” is listed as a fundamental goal. To ensure the continuation of subsistence harvest opportunities, the USGS is working with tribal co-management and Department of Interior partners to blend scientific data and Indigenous Knowledge (IK) about polar bears. This information will lead to more transparent and broadly supported guidelines for sustainable harvest. Polar bear research by the USGS Alaska Science Center has collected data for more than 30 years, providing the necessary scientific information to support this approach.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- Pacific walruses have been harvested by Alaska Native communities for thousands of years and in some communities, walruses are a primary source of food. In addition to using nearly all parts of harvested walruses for food, several communities in Alaska maintain traditional carving of walrus ivory tusks that is an importance source of income. The USGS provides critical science service about Pacific walruses to support subsistence and cultural use including:
- Producing estimates of population trends and survival rates.
- Forecasting possible changes in population dynamics, as walruses face changing conditions and human disturbance.
- Assessing the sustainability of subsistence harvest patterns to inform community questions about if harvest needs can continue to be met well into the future.
- Sampling of harvested walruses to monitor for highly pathogenic avian influenza, algal toxins, and contaminants that have potential to affect the health of consumers. (Other samples and measurements are used to quantify the health of females and calves.)
- Annual monitoring of hundreds of thousands of walruses that haulout near the community of Point Lay each summer. This information helps to decrease disturbance events from aircraft and marine vessels that can lead to greater walrus mortality.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
Q: What are some examples of USGS Ecosystems science that inform Alaska Native communities of emerging issues important to subsistence foods?
- Highly pathogenic avian influenza, or “bird flu”, spread to North America in late 2021 and is a significant concern to Alaska Native communities because it threatens traditional hunting and harvesting. Alaska Native communities rely on the harvest of wild birds. The USGS has monitored the status of bird flu in Alaska for over a decade including detection of the virus in numerous wild birds and mammals during the current outbreak. The USGS continues to monitor introductions of different bird flu strains into Alaska – a pathway for introductions into the United States – and recently assisted with a training event for Tribal partners to raise awareness and response planning.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- Pathogens in wildlife can affect species health and can potentially be transmitted to humans, particularly for subsistence-harvested species. In 2019, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) met with federal, state, Tribal and other partners to create a list of priority zoonotic diseases (those that can move from wildlife to human) that needed greater collaboration to address information gaps. Since that workshop, the USGS has determined baseline levels of these diseases in wildlife and examined changes over time of pathogens in wildlife of multiple species, including polar bears, red fox, and migratory birds.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
- New USGS research aims to better understand the spread of mule deer, and the pathogens they may bring, into Alaska. Many diseases and parasites that affect wildlife populations in Canada and the lower-48 United States have not been detected in Alaska yet. However, the ranges of mule deer, white-tailed deer, and elk are expanding north toward and into Alaska, likely bringing with them new pathogens that can affect Alaska's native ungulate species. Mule deer have already been documented in Interior Alaska since the mid-1980s and commonly carry winter tick and chronic wasting disease (CWD). Winter tick is a prominent concern, as mule deer are already known to carry it in the Yukon, and it has had devastating effects on moose populations elsewhere. These diseases and parasites could bring novel wildlife management challenges to Alaska, not only for recreational hunting, but for the subsistence lifestyles and food security of rural residents and Tribes.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
Assessing heat stress in migrating Yukon River Chinook Salmon
We will examine evidence of heat stress in Yukon River Chinook salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) using heat shock proteins and gene expression.
Promoting Coastal Resilience and Adaptation in Alaska: Community Outreach and Engagement
In coastal Alaska, changes in snow, ice, and extreme weather events threaten human communities, critical infrastructure, valuable natural resources, and hunting and fishing livelihoods. Identifying how changing climate conditions impact Alaska’s coastal ecosystems, and how these changes may be tied to the ability of coastal communities to adapt to changing conditions, has been identified...