INTRO: Many people probably don't think of a career in science as particularly dangerous. But as Doug Schneider reports in this week's Arctic Science Journeys Radio, scientists working in Alaska often put their lives at risk, and sometimes they pay the ultimate price.

STORY: It was a day pretty much like any other last December when Alaska wildlife biologist Corey Adler joined veteran ranger and pilot Tom O'Hara for a day of tracking moose within the three million acres of rolling tundra and hills of the Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge, 360 miles southwest of Anchorage.

ADLER: "It was a little windy, so I didn't know if we were going to go. Then it started to clear up and the sun came out. It started to get a little nicer, nice enough to go flying. It was probably the first one that day. The last GPS was taken at noon. So just after noon something went crazy and we didn't go anywhere after that."

Adler doesn't remember any of the events that followed. He doesn't remember his small single-engine plane plunging to the ground, or the cold night he spent pinned inside. Searchers located the downed plane the next day and, using an ax, they cut Adler free of the wreckage and rushed him to the hospital. Defying the odds, Cory Adler escaped the crash with only a mild concussion and hypothermia. National Park Service ranger and pilot Tom O'Hara wasn't so lucky. He died in the crash.

That scientists put their lives at risk every time they venture into the field isn't new to Dr. George Conway. Conway is a physician and chief of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health field station in Alaska. He recently conducted a study of fatalities among scientists and licensed professional workers such as hunting and fishing guides.

CONWAY: "From 1990 through 2001, there were 72 events resulting in 87 deaths. The leading occupation for those deaths was guides. During that interval, there were 27 guides killed. The next two categories were biologists; there were ten biologists killed. And then park rangers and forestry workers; there were nine of them killed."

Also included in the study were 38 people—mostly pilots, hunters, and climbers—who died along with the scientists and guides. George Conway says scientists and guides do have one thing in common. Most of those who perished over the past dozen years did so in plane crashes.

CONWAY: "The leading cause by far was aircraft crashes, accounting for almost half."

Much of the flying biologists do involves slow, low-level flying over rugged and remote terrain. Such flying is necessary for biologists to spot the game they're studying, researchers say, but it can also be deadly.

CONWAY: "Unfortunately, because you're flying at a low velocity, and already in marginal lift conditions, if you bank or tip the wing you can lose adequate lift and stall."

Corey Adler doesn't remember what happened in the moments before his small plane crashed on that fateful day, so he can't say if the plane stalled before crashing. But he does say that tricky maneuvers are a part of wildlife research.

ADLER: "There were times when we were doing a lot of turns to find them. We had one cow and a calf that was just staying in cover in the shrubs. It was becoming a problem getting the signal to the radio. So we actually went in and pushed her out of there, which means come in low and make them move into the open, which they did. So it worked out fine."

Potentially dangerous flying may be all in a day's work for Alaska scientists, but Conway says there are things they can do to lessen the dangers.

CONWAY: "Oftentimes the G-forces generated could be survivable. That's why people engaged in these kinds of flights, we believe, should be wearing multiple-point restraints, preferably four- or five-point restraints. Certainly the people in the front seat should seriously consider wearing helmets as well."

Corey Adler says his experience hasn't turned him away from the job he loves. Now fully recuperated, Adler—who is also a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks—is scheduled to resume his aerial wildlife surveys later this month.

This is Arctic Science Journeys Radio, a production of the Alaska Sea Grant Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. I'm Doug Schneider.

Thanks to the following individual for help preparing this script:

George Conway
Alaska Field Station
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
U.S. Centers for Disease Control
4230 University Drive, Suite 310
Anchorage, Alaska 99508
Phone: 907-271-5249
Email: gconway@cdc.gov

Listen to story on Real Audio

Download RealAudio

Related Web sites

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

ASJ story: Risky Science (2000)

What do you think of ASJ? Take our survey.