Near Nome, Alaska, in the vast arctic landscape of Game Management Area 22, a SuperCub airplane traces the sky. In one of the two seats is Sara Henslee, a UAF Masters student in Wildlife Biology & Conservation. Below her, she sees caribou, ambling bears and of course, her research subject—the wild moose living in the Northwestern part of our state.

Mack Hughes defended his thesis on March 5th, titled “Direct and cascading effects of sea star wasting on rocky intertidal communities.”

In 2013 and 2014, sea star wasting caused a mass mortality event on the coasts from Alaska to Mexico. This phenomenon decimated many populations, affecting twenty species of sea stars.