Review in British Birds
June 2010
by Dr. W.R.P. Bourne
Jim King's beautifully written autobiography is an astonishing, comprehensive account of wildlife and its conservation in Alaska, including 100 million seabirds, 70 million shorebirds and 12 million waterfowl, of which previously unrecognised numbers disperse to 45 US States, eight Canadian provinces and territories, Russia, nine Hispanic countries and Australasia. He personally counted a good many of them during some 9,000 hours in the air, often while piloting his aircraft single-handed at low levels.
Jim King learnt to fly for fun while in the US Marines and continued this passion with the Alaska Game Commission. In the course of his account he provides a splendid description and history of Alaska and its wildlife. The only way to get around this vast country easily was by light aircraft, on wheels, floats and skis; aircraft were used to, among other things, drive up to 10,000 moulting ducks a day into traps to ring them, revealing that Alaska is one of the main sources of the wildfowl shot all over North America and putting a stop to a proposal to a dam for a hydroelectric project in one of their main breeding areas.
His style captures the wildlife beautifully: Willow Ptarmigan nest all over the Yukon Delta, but in winter must migrate to the floodplains of the larger rivers where they feed on the buds of the abundant willow bushes sticking up through the snow. Ptarmigan were thick along the Kuskokwim that year. In May after a day or two of thaw cleared the tops of tundra mounds the ptarmigan migrated, all in one day. Wave after wave came by all day long. They were five to 30 feet above the ground, broke formation around our buildings, and headed on. They were a grand sight from my armchair by the window. Enterprising kids patrolled the power lines nearer town and picked up sacks of unfortunate birds that had hit the wires. Next day there was a strutting, crowing ptarmigan cock on every tundra mound across the refuge. (And people say that this a race of Red Grouse Lagopus lagopus.)
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Alaska History: A Publication of the Alaska Historical Society Vol 25, No. 1, Spring 2010
James Gore King, Attending Alaska's Birds: A Wildlife Pilot's Story. Victoria, B.C.: Trafford Publishing, 2008. 476 pp. Index, bibliography, list of acronyms, maps, black and white illustrations. $28.62 (paper).
Westerners have studied Alaska's birds for centuries. Few have done so as long as Jim King of Juneau. King came to Alaska in 1949, and the following year found seasonal work at Mount McKinley National Park. A trip into the park with ranger Pete Peters showed King the potential of a wildlife career, and decades later, he is still at it.
Attending Alaska's Birds covers King's career, from summer ranger at McKinley to a lengthy stint with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, from bird rehabilitator to consultant and promoter of environmental causes. Once he earned his pilots license, he meshed flying with biology to develop new techniques for banding and surveying waterfowl. When the potential for offshore oil and gas development loomed, some of these same techniques were used to survey the state's seabirds.
King was appointed first manager for the Clarence Rhode National Wildlife Refuge. Two years later, he was chosen supervisor of waterfowl investigations for the state. To keep his position in Alaska and not be transferred out of state, King became a one-man public relations agency: exploring, writing and circulating reports and proposing new projects and solutions to old problems. From this effort came creation of the Cape Newenham National Wildlife Refuge, aerial reconnaissance in conjunction with the U.S. Forest Service to locate bald eagle nest trees, surveys of swans that led to trumpeters being delisted as an endangered species, and seabird conservation. King wrote papers, gave speeches, sailed on Coast Guard ice breakers to study seabirds, and helped establish several environmental organizations, such as the Pacific Seabird Group.
Closer to home, King pushed for hiking trails near Juneau and encouraged creation of state and local parks and refuges. With his wife, Mary Lou, and family, King rehabilitated birds on their farm. He remained active with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after his official retirement, served as an instructor and on the board of the University of Alaska Southeast from which he received an honorary doctorate, and contributed to numerous conservation and historical organizations, including the Alaska Historical Society.
The book's greatest strength is the human element King has brought to this personal account. Front widely known scientists and directors to equally remarkable but seldom noted seasonal field biologists and assistants, many of the people who have advanced wild bird management in Alaska in the past fifty years and beyond are recognized. Though the photographs are likely the best available, with few exceptions they add little. But as a first-person account of the development of avian science and management in Alaska, and the formation of wildlife organizations well known today, the text is solid gold.
Penny Rennick
Anchorage
[Editor's Note: A second edition with additional material will be published this year by Hancock House. Surrey, British Columbia. |
