Wrangell Festivals Celebrate Wildlife While Tackling Serious Issues
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SourDough News | August 11, 2015
Marine debris was collected from a local harbor and beach during the Stikine River Birding Festival.
Photo courtesy of Corree Delabrue
Children learned about safe camping in bear country during this year’s Bearfest.
Photo courtesy of Corree Delabrue
Wrangell has some world-renowned resources in its backyard, and over the years, the community has created festivals to highlight and promote the wildlife that live in these amazing places. The Stikine River Birding Festival is held in the spring to celebrate the huge flocks of migratory birds that use the Stikine Delta as an important stopover site on the Pacific Flyway. Then, mid-summer brings us Bearfest, which was inspired by the bears that congregate around one of Southeast Alaska’s largest pink salmon runs at Anan Creek.
The festivals were initially created to bring attention to these important resources, attract visitors, and provide fun activities in the community, but they have also become a way of informing the public about serious issues that affect our area’s wildlife and even our communities. In 2015, two environmental concerns were brought to the forefront.
The 18th annual birding festival highlighted the problem of marine debris with a presentation on the effects of plastic debris on seabirds, followed by a local beach clean-up. Presenter Veronica Padula, a graduate student from the University of Alaska, remained in Wrangell for a week after the festival to visit local school classrooms and share her message of reducing the usage of plastic and thinking more about the impacts of our trash.
A major part of every Bearfest is a symposium that features current bear research, organized by Lance Craighead from the Craighead Institute, a wildlife research organization. The theme of the sixth annual Bearfest was “Bears and Climate Change,” with two nights of symposiums which not only discussed local effects of climate change, but impacts to international bear populations, such as Arctic polar bears and Mongolian Gobi bears.
The Wrangell Ranger District assists with these festivals to bring more awareness to these special places and the environmental impacts that affect them. Both festivals encourage visitors and community members to get out and have fun with contests, family activities, art and photography workshops, excursions, and more.
More information on these festivals can be found at www.stikinebirding.org and www.alaskabearfest.org
By: Corree Delabrue, Tongass National Forest, Wrangell Ranger District