Beavers like this one were once captured in Cordova and released in Kodiak, to establish a population there. (Courtesy Photo | Frank Zmuda)

Beavers like this one were once captured in Cordova and released in Kodiak, to establish a population there. (Courtesy Photo | Frank Zmuda)

Raccoons, wild pigs and other bad ideas

Tales of imported wildlife.

After reading my column about biologists who once stocked a Southeast Alaska island with wolves, a reader mailed me a book. In it, the author detailed peoples’ attempts to import raccoons, wild pigs and other creatures to Alaska.

In addition to well-known events like the recent introduction of wood bison to the Innoko River country, Tom Paul wrote about smaller creatures people have over the years let loose onto beaches and into the woods of Alaska.

Raccoons are not native to Alaska, but people have brought them here a few times, Paul wrote in “Game Transplants in Alaska,” an updated version of an Alaska Department of Fish and Game report first written by Oliver Burris and Donald McKnight in the early 1970s.

[Alaska’s changes are many, and so fast]

In 1941, a man captured eight raccoons in Indiana. He let them go on Singa Island, off the west coast of Prince of Wales Island. The animals, probably surviving on crabs, mussels and other shellfish, lived for many years on Singa and nearby El Capitan islands. Raccoons may still persist there, but other introductions of raccoons, like those released on Japonski Island near Sitka in 1950, did not seem to stick.

Why would someone bring raccoons to Alaska? For their fur, which could be harvested and sold. That was also the idea behind a marten transplant sponsored by the territory of Alaska in 1934. Crews of Alaska Natives captured 17 martens near Ketchikan and Petersburg, releasing 10 of them on Prince of Wales and seven of them on Baranof Island, neither of which had martens. The cat-like animals must have found the habitat to their liking, because martens continue to thrive in both places.

Another successful marten relocation happened in September 1952, when biologists executing a federal project live-trapped marten near Lake Minchumina and transported them south to Afognak Island north of Kodiak. Biologists captured 20 animals from an area north of Denali Park with a reputation for high-quality furs. The descendants of those Interior animals are now scampering over Afognak Island.

To provide food for those martens, people imported red squirrels. A few months before the marten transfer from Minchumina to Afognak Island, hired trappers caught 47 red squirrels around Anchorage and released them on the island.

“This transplant resulted in excellent squirrel populations but it is questionable whether it affected the ultimate success of the marten introduction,” Paul wrote, pointing out that several biologists later showed that martens don’t eat a lot of red squirrels.

Beavers are pretty good at colonizing new areas all by themselves, but Alaskans have helped them along. The first time was when members of the Alaska Game Commission in 1925 offered $50 for each live beaver delivered to an office in Cordova, for transport to Kodiak Island, which then had no beavers. Trappers delivered 34 live beavers to the office, but 10 escaped or died before biologists could release them on Kodiak. The remaining 24 seemed to have liked Kodiak, which now has a healthy population, as well as nearby Raspberry and Afognak islands, where people transported them in later efforts.

In summer and fall of 1925, Cordova trappers also live-captured 100 muskrats for passage to Kodiak. Paul didn’t include any details on how 30 of the muskrats were somehow lost in transit, but the 70 released in lakes of the Kodiak archipelago are the genetic matches of the muskrats that live there now.

Over the years, people have also tried to introduce non-native species to Alaska. A man named Reed Oswalt in 1984 wanted to establish a population of European wild hogs on Marmot Island near Kodiak. Reed released eight hogs he had transported up from California on a 40-acre parcel of land he owned on Marmot Island.

The hogs escaped their confines and spread out over the island. Staffers from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game visited and found severe damage to the vegetation. They ordered Reed to remove the hogs from state land. He was either unwilling or unable to do so, but the pigs disappeared anyway. In 1998 a hunter killed the last one on the island.

A sea otter swims in Glacier Bay, perhaps a descendent of otters moved from Amchitka Island in the 1960s. (Courtesy Photo | Riley Woodford)

A sea otter swims in Glacier Bay, perhaps a descendent of otters moved from Amchitka Island in the 1960s. (Courtesy Photo | Riley Woodford)

Biologists have captured and moved sea otters many times, once to save the animals from being nuked. Amchitka Island in the central Aleutians was the site of three underground nuclear blasts in 1965, 1969 and 1971. Alaska biologists convinced officials with the Atomic Energy Commission that moving sea otters from around the island beforehand would be a good idea.

Biologist Jerry Deppa was head of the Amchitka project for a time. He and his team members captured otters in gill nets and later transferring them to bathtub-like kennels. C-130 aircraft landed at Amchitka, which has a long airstrip built in World War II, and carried out sea otters 60 at a time to Annette Island, Sitka and Gustavus. Workers there then loaded the otter kennels into waiting Grumman Goose aircraft to release sites in Southeast Alaska.

“Despite the considerable cleanup that planes required after otter flights, Alaska Airlines, Webber Air in Ketchikan, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service all made their Grumman Goose aircraft available at short notice throughout the summer for the transplants,” Paul wrote.

Those relocated Amchitka otters, along with otters moved to Southeast in other efforts, helped the animals recover from the fur-trade days of the 1800s, after which there were no otters there. More than 25,000 otters now live in Southeast Alaska.


• Since the late 1970s, the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute has provided this column free in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer for the Geophysical Institute.


More in News

(Juneau Empire file photo)
Aurora forecast for the week of March 25

These forecasts are courtesy of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute… Continue reading

The aging Tustumena ferry, long designated for replacement, arrives in Homer after spending the day in Seldovia in this 2010 photo. (Homer News file photo)
Feds OK most of state’s revised transportation plan, but ferry and other projects again rejected

Governor’s use of ferry revenue instead of state funds to match federal grants a sticking point.

The Shopper’s Lot is among two of downtown Juneau’s three per-hour parking lots where the cash payments boxes are missing due to vandalism this winter. But as of Wednesday people can use the free ParkSmarter app to make payments by phone. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Pay-by-phone parking for downtown Juneau debuts with few reported complaints

App for hourly lots part of series of technology upgrades coming to city’s parking facilities.

A towering Lutz spruce, center, in the Chugach National Forest is about to be hoisted by a crane Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2015, for transport to the West Lawn of Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to be the 2015 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service)
Tongass National Forest selected to provide 2024 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree

Eight to 10 candidate trees will be evaluated, with winner taking “whistlestop tour” to D.C.

Annauk Olin, holding her daugher Tulġuna T’aas Olin, and Rochelle Adams pose on March 20, 2024, after giving a presentation on language at the Alaska Just Transition Summit in Juneau. The two, who work together at the Alaska Public Interest Research Group’s Language Access program, hope to compile an Indigenous environmental glossary. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Project seeks to gather Alaska environmental knowledge embedded in Indigenous languages

In the language of the Gwich’in people of northeastern Alaska, the word… Continue reading

The room where the House Community and Regional Affairs Committee holds its meeting sits empty on Tuesday. A presentation about an increase in the number of inmate deaths in state custody was abruptly canceled here. (Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)
Republican lawmakers shut down legislative hearing about deaths in Alaska prisons

Former commissioner: “All this will do, is it will continue to inflame passions of advocacy groups.”

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire file photo)
Police calls for Monday, March 25, 2024

This report contains public information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

Employees at the Kensington Mine removing tailings from Johnson Creek on Feb. 17 following a Jan. 31 spill of about 105,000 gallons of slurry from the mine, although a report by the mine’s owners states about half slurry reached the creek 430 meters away. (Photo from report by Coeur Alaska)
Emergency fisheries assessments sought after 105,000-gallon tailings spill at Kensington Mine

Company says Jan. 31 spill poses no risk to Berners Bay habitat, but NOAA seeks federal evaluation.

Dozens of people throw colors in the air and at each other during a Holi festival gathering Monday night outside Spice Juneau Indian Cuisine. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Holi festival in Juneau revives colorful childhood memories for some, creates them for others

Dozens toss caution and colored cornstarch to the wind in traditional Hindu celebration of spring

Most Read