Wildlife In Alaska

Our Observations of Alaska's Incredible Abundance and Our Wild Neighbors

Author

Captains Dave & Jojo
May 15, 2025

2025 Seasonal Sightings

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Well, to some of us at least. Early spring is when Alaska truly starts to come alive again. A couple of weeks ago, eulachon returned to the Chilkat and Chilkoot outside of Haines, Alaska. This critical little fish is cause for celebration among all the residents of southeast Alaska.

For more than a millennium, these fish have been processed for oil and traded by the Lingít with Athapaskan tribes and First Nations people to the north. In Lingít, eulachon are known as saak and are still an integral part of seasonal life in Haines. When these fish return, so do the sea lions, harbor seals, humpback whales, and orca!

For our fisherman friends, the season starts to get really exciting the second or third week of May. Halibut return from their migration, and the weather begins to warm up enough that fishing is fun again. Although king salmon are also popular to fish for in the springtime, they’re usually closed to everything but catch and release until early June.

This post will be updated weekly with the latest sightings. To save your inbox from unwanted clutter, we’ll send out a notification via social media that our weekly updates are live.

Check Back Weekly For Our Latest Sightings of Wildlife in Alaska!

We aim to update this blog every Saturday throughout the summer with the past week’s sightings, listed from newest to oldest.

May 11-17: Harbor Seals and Herring

Fish

Our family friends visited this week, and their youngest son snagged his first fish ever! Dave taught him how to cast for the very first time, and a few minutes later, he’d caught a herring. It was extraordinarily impressive because the luhr was about the same size as the herring (it was a juvenile) 😅 Just for fun, here are two interesting facts about herring: 1) They can live up to 16 years, and 2) They’re found on the surface all the way down to 1,300 feet deep. Learn more about herring from this article by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game.

Mammals

We’ve had a harbor seal hanging out in the harbor near our boat this week. Like the terns, they’re likely feasting on herring and other juvenile fish this time of year.

Birds

The arctic terns are continuing their courtships, but it seems as though the sandpipers have moved on to their next migratory stop. However, I heard the distinct call of a Greater Yellowlegs on Saturday morning!

May 4-10: Return of the Halibut & Black Turnstone Pipers

By Len Blumin from Mill Valley, California, United States - Black Turnstone, breeding plumage, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3597409

Birds

Many bird species migrate through Juneau at this time of year. This week and last, the Arctic terns were courting each other on the harbor’s breakwater. A flock of Black Turnstone sandpipers shared the dock with the terns, resting on their migration north.

Bonepart gulls and terns alike drove off curious juvenile eagles, if they dared to land on the breakwater. And our herring gulls made the most of the commercial fisherman cleaning their boat in port. We (or at least, Jojo) consider them wildlife in Alaska…

Fish

We’re not running trips yet, but a friend of ours found their first halibut hole of the season! We took advantage of the sunny days to do some fishing from the back of Sir Reel here in the harbor. Jojo caught a “big” sand dab and a sculpin she thinks is a cabezon. It’s hard to tell with scuplins, and we’ll defer to our local experts as to what species it actually is!

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