LETTER TO THE EDITOR: New Prey Species Documented for Northern Pike

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.669.6934; http://arctic.synergiesprairies.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/article/viewFile/467/499/

lucius) to document their prey species during a fish sam-pling study in the eastern interior of Alaska in summer 2000. Sampling occurred in the Black River drainage near 66˚42.3 ' N, 144˚15.6 ' W. Most northern pike that were feeding had fish prey in their stomachs. But two northern pike captured on 11 June 2000 had recently consumed newly hatched chicks of the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), a species that to our knowledge has not been reported previously as prey of northern pike. Both bald eagle chicks were positioned head forward, and their posterior regions were partially digested. We estimated the chicks ’ ages from their development as younger than five days. The northern pike predators were 71 and 77 cm fork length. We captured the fish within one km of each other, one