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Fearless On March 30, a family in Anchorage had an unusual encounter with a lynx. The cat was tracking a snowshoe hare but diverted from its prey when it saw two young girls playing nearby. When the lynx approached two-year old Eila Cipriano, her father Michael rushed to intervene. He jumped over a snow bank yelling at the lynx and slapped a snow shovel to try and scare it away. As reported in the Anchorage Daily News, "The cat stopped and started to back away, though it never really looked over at Cipriano and didn’t seem afraid of him. It didn’t blink or skitter away quickly, he said." That's a pretty crazy wildlife story even for Anchorage. We see plenty of lynx here but I don't recall hearing about encounters between lynx and people like this. What's really interesting, however, is that this is just the latest in a series of unusual lynx stories reported this year including from the Northwest Territories, Yukon Territory, and in Northern BC. These have included attacks on livestock, dogs and people (see related articles). One possible cause in Canada is food stress and a downturn in the Arctic hare population. This is not, however, a factor in Southcentral Alaska this winter where snowshoe hare populations are fine. You can read about the events in Canada, and other stories from the past week about unusual behavior and 'fearless' animals. Mike Brubaker, Editor

Anchorage, Alaska, United States
Morgan Krakow / Anchorage Daily News / March 30, 2021

A wildlife biologist believes a lynx that recently approached a young girl may have been a juvenile. The girl’s father said he’s now on higher alert after the encounter.

Read article on Anchorage Daily News



Anchorage, Alaska, United States
Lex Treinen / Alaska Public Media / April 5, 2021

Costco customers in Anchorage have recently started sharing online reports of ravens stealing groceries from their carts and the back of their pickup trucks, and biologists say the behavior could spread around town quickly.

Read article on Alaska Public Media



Truckee, California, United States
Ryan Sabalow / The Sacramento Bee / March 27, 2021

Young black bears, with no fear of people, are coming down with fatal brain inflammation in Nevada and California. Could new viruses be causing the disease? State veterinarians say that in the past 12 months alone, officials have captured three other bears with the same condition.

Read article on The Sacramento Bee



Gambell, Alaska, United States
James Mason / The Nome Nugget / April 2, 2021

Nome and the surrounding area, including St. Lawrence Island, is fighting rabies almost as hard as it is fighting COVID-19. Because of the high level of rabies infection Fish and Game requested assistance from the National Rabies Management Response Program. Their job is to manage a wildlife disease outbreak. Several technicians and a rabies biologist are in Nome reducing the number of foxes.

Read article on The Nome Nugget



Батагай, Верхоянский район, Sakha, Russia
Siberian Times / March 30, 2021

The racing predator was seen 60km south of Batagai, north-east from republic’s capital Yakutsk.

Read article on Siberian Times



Fairbanks, Alaska, United States
Julie Stricker / Fairbanks Daily News-Miner / April 4, 2021

Scattered power outages were reported this morning, and as the wind began picking up early this afternoon, more are expected. As of 9 a.m., unofficial measurements showed more than 19 inches of snow on Old Murphy Dome Road, 14 inches in Goldstream and almost a foot in Two Rivers. The official measurement on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus was 12.4 inches.

Read article on Fairbanks Daily News-Miner



Chistochina, Alaska, United States
Wilson Justin and Katie Spellman / LEO Network / March 23, 2021

Early budding willows (genus Salix) were observed on the Chistochina Trail during temperatures of 18 above Fahrenheit. The average temperature on March 23, 2021 was 10 degrees Fahrenheit, the coldest temperature on the day in the past twenty years.

Read post on the LEO Network



Khuzhir, Irkutsk, Russia
Boris Slepnyov, Valeria Sukhova / Siberian Times / March 25, 2021

Lyubov Morekhodova glides over the ice on skates made by her father not long after World War II. She has lived on the shores of Lake Baikal all her life, where winter temperatures plummet to minus 50C.

Read article on Siberian Times



The Northern Climate Observer is published by the Center for Climate and Health. We track news coverage from across the circumpolar north and provide readers with a curated roundup of climate change related events. Thank you for reading our newsletter and for paying attention to our changing world.

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