"It's a little bit scary, because the more you learn, the more you realize how variable this is. But also, it doesn’t take much to switch that from no toxicity at all to a really high toxicity event," Steve Kibler, a scientist with NOAA who studies harmful algal blooms around Kodiak, said.

Kodiak Island’s main landfill is estimated to run out of space in the next two decades. The borough is in the process of updating its regional solid waste management plan and that includes preparing for what happens next.

Codi Allen with the Kodiak Island Borough said they’ve been making repairs where the bears have gotten through, added electric wires and cleared brush around the fence line to deter bears. Nothing has worked so far.

Aleutian tern populations statewide crashed by over 90 percent between 1975 and 2015. Now, many are finding better rearing conditions near the island's road system.

Alaska Republican Congressman Nick Begich III proposed a U.S. House subcommittee rollback parts of the landmark legislation to “modernize” it. Conservation groups warn that it’s a gutting that endangers already struggling whale populations around the state.

President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill that passed earlier this month included reducing Medicaid spending in Alaska by up to half a billion dollars. Kodiak health care providers are still grappling with how they’ll be affected.

Lexa Meyer and her husband Alf Pryor are the only ones actively operating a kelp hatchery on the island. These facilities nurture kelp seeds to juvenile plants before they are transplanted into the ocean and ready for large-scale cultivation.

Tribal and federal staff collected baleen from the young gray whale that washed up on Surfer's Beach late last month in part to study it. The rest of the corpse is still on the beach near the parking lot.

NOAA Fisheries has been dealing with substantial staffing cuts leading up to the surveys. The Alaska Fisheries Science Center lost roughly 50 employees since February according to reporting from KUCB Radio.

Scientists suspect it was killed by an orca, much like another whale that washed up in the same area about a month ago.