ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Public health officials warned Alaskans to avoid eating shellfish they harvest from the southeastern tip of the state after high concentrations of a poison than can kill humans was found.

State officials said scientists monitoring algae blooms near Ketchikan discovered some of the world’s highest-ever recorded levels of toxins that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning — a potentially fatal ailment that can paralyze vital organs.

The most poisonous shellfish discovered were baby mussels at a dock in Ketchikan with toxin levels of more than 30,000 micrograms per hundred grams of shellfish meat. This is well over the 80-microgram level considered toxic, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services has warned.

Those levels are so high that a single mussel could kill several people, scientists at the University of Alaska Southeast said in a statement on Thursday.

In other types of shellfish, members of the multi-agency Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom monitoring program found toxin levels ranging from 1,100 to 5,000 micrograms per gram of shellfish meat, the department said.

State officials have posted warnings on the region’s beaches, docks, stores and other public places, and police have issued warnings on marine radios, the department said.

Paralytic shellfish poisoning toxins are absorbed by certain shellfish from algae. Symptoms of poisoning start with tingling and numbness in the mouth, and can spread through the body.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Alaska will release on Friday copies of some of former governor Sarah Palin’s emails, a move that could shed new light on how the possible Republican presidential contender conducted business in office.

More than 24,000 pages of printed emails to and from Palin, who abruptly quit as governor of the oil-rich state nearly two years ago, will be available to those willing to pay $725 for copies and hundreds of dollars more in delivery fees.

The six cartons of documents will include emails from Palin’s official gubernatorial account as well as two private Yahoo accounts she used to conduct state business, a practice that critics said circumvented Alaska’s open-records law.

About 2,400 pages are being withheld because state attorneys have deemed them to contain privileged information. The emails that are being released will also be redacted to keep private information confidential.

Journalists and Alaska political activist Andree McLeod initially requested release of the emails under state public records laws in the fall of 2008, shortly after Republican presidential nominee John McCain chose Palin as his vice presidential running mate.

At that time, Palin was the subject of a legislative probe into accusations that she abused her power as governor to seek revenge against a state trooper who had been married to her sister.

Some critics say the emails will show that Palin exhibited a pattern of using state resources for personal gain, the settling of scores with perceived enemies and unprofessional conduct in general.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – All residents near an expanding wildfire near Fairbanks have fled, making way for firefighters to combat the blaze, officials said on Wednesday.

Residents heeded an advisory issued this week recommending that people evacuate until the 17,624-acre Hastings Fire is better controlled, a state fire information officer said.

As of late Tuesday, “everybody had left,” said Tacy Skinner, a spokeswoman for the wildfire incident command. “We didn’t find anybody.”

She said no one had been ordered to evacuate.

The fire, ignited by a Memorial Day lightning strike and located 15 miles northwest of Fairbanks, grew by 5,000 acres overnight after a significant shift in winds, Skinner said.

A total of 830 firefighters, some ferrying to the site by aircraft and some using boats on the Chatanika River, were battling the blaze on Wednesday.

The fire is expected to continue to grow, though 8 percent of the perimeter is considered contained, officials said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Three climbers in distress have been plucked from near the peak of Mount McKinley in separate helicopter rescues, the National Park Service said on Tuesday.

The climbers, two Japanese and a Serb, were each discovered on Monday night by park rangers descending from McKinley’s 20,320-foot summit, officials said.

The first climber, 37-year-old Zeljko Dulic of Serbia, was spotted staggering near the 19,300-foot level. When patrollers reached him, he collapsed, the Park Service said.

He was placed into a special “screamer suit” safety harness attached to a line dangling from a helicopter and carried off to a lower elevation, the Park Service said.

While patrollers were tending to Dulic, 22-year-old Sho Tamagawa of Japan approached them and collapsed, the Park Service said, and was carried down the mountain in a second short-haul helicopter flight.

Patrollers found the third climber, 20-year-old Masaaki Kobayasi of Japan, incapacitated and semi-conscious at the 18,700-foot level, the Park Service said. He was moved in the third short-haul flight of the night.

“It all, in the scheme of things, happened quite quickly,” said Maureen McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for Denali National Park, site of McKinley.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Authorities on Monday were investigating a series of suspicious deaths to marine mammals, one found with a bullet in it’s skull, near a small town in southeast Alaska.

Two dead Steller sea lions and three dead harbor seals have been found near Skagway, Alaska, about 90 miles north of Juneau, over the past five months, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service spokeswoman said.

“One was found floating and the others washed ashore and were found by locals walking the beach,” NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman Julie Speegle said.

Four of the animals had head trauma, and one of them, a harbor seal, had a bullet lodged in its skull, she said. Except for the seal that was shot, officials are unsure of causes of death, Speegle said.

One of the dead sea lions was a pregnant female, she said.

NOAA Fisheries has issued a plea to the public for information about the animals, asking citizens to call the agency’s law-enforcement hotline.

Steller sea lions and harbor seals are protected species under federal law.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Two climbers were killed and two others critically injured when the roped group fell at a pass high on Mount McKinley, the National Park Service said on Thursday.

The fall occurred shortly before midnight Wednesday night at Denali Pass, a wind-swept area near the mountain’s 18,000-foot level where climbers make a tricky traverse to the 20,320-foot summit.

Climbers resting at the mountain’s 17,200-foot high camp saw the four roped individuals fall, the Park Service said. Air National Guard rescuers who were on an unrelated expedition on McKinley brought the injured climbers to high camp for overnight medical care, the Park Service said.

The injured climbers were flown off the mountain Thursday morning to area hospitals, the Park Service said. Names and nationalities were being withheld pending family notification.

The accident occurred near the spot where an unroped Italian climber fell to his death last week and brings this season’s Denali National Park climbing death toll to seven. Four of the climbers died on McKinley, North America’s tallest peak, and the others died in nearby Alaska Range sites.

“It does certainly feel like we’ve had a bad year so far. One fatality is too many,” said Maureen McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for Denali National Park. “Certainly, seven total at this point in time is not how we want to start the season.”

Denali Pass, site of fatal falls in the past, is considered one of the risky parts of the standard route up McKinley, with slopes of 35 to 45 degrees, McLaughlin said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Two climbers have been killed in an avalanche on Mount Frances in Alaska’s Denali National Park, making them the first to perish on that craggy peak near Mount McKinley, the National Park Service said on Wednesday.

The climbers, Jiro Kurihara, 33, of Canmore, Alberta, Canada and Junya Shiraishi, 28, of Sapporo, Japan, were attempting to ascend a new route on the west face of the 10,450-foot mountain, the Park Service said.

They were last seen on Saturday at the Kahiltna Glacier base camp used by most Mount McKinley climbers, the Park Service said.

When they had not returned to the camp by Monday, park rangers began searching for them. Rangers flying over the avalanche debris on Tuesday spotted one body, and on Wednesday found the other, the Park Service said.

Rangers recovered the bodies of both men and hauled them from the site by helicopter.

Mount Frances, just north of the Kahiltna base camp, is a technical peak tackled by experienced mountaineers. Climbers use two routes, on the southwest ridge or northeast ridge.

Both involve moderately steep ascents over snow and ice, and the southwest route includes a steep section of rock, according to the American Alpine Institute.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – The pilot killed in a plane crash with former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens last summer should have undergone a more rigorous medical exam before getting his license back following a 2006 stroke, U.S. safety officials said in a report on Tuesday.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the pilot, Theron “Terry” Smith, may have been suffering some lingering effects from the stroke, which had led to a temporary suspension of his pilot’s license and prevented him from flying for two years.

In its final report on the crash, issued in Washington, the NTSB found no clinical evidence that Smith suffered “a medical or cognitive problem” at the controls of the plane but cited that as a possible factor.

“A medical condition leading to transient incapacitation or impairment (of the pilot) could explain the circumstances of this accident,” the agency said, adding, “it is not possible to determine whether such a scenario occurred.”

Smith, who was 62 and a former chief pilot for Alaska Airlines, perished along with Stevens and three other passengers when the DeHavilland Otter aircraft he was flying slammed into a mountain slope on August 9, 2010.

The plane was carrying Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in U.S. Senate history, and a party of eight others back from a fishing lodge near Dillingham, Alaska, when it crashed.

The probable cause of the accident was listed simply as the pilot’s “temporary unresponsiveness for reasons that could not be established from the available information.”

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – The probable cause of the airplane crash that killed former Senator Ted Stevens and four others last summer was “temporary unresponsiveness” by the pilot, federal safety investigators said in a report on Tuesday.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was possible the pilot, Theron “Terry” Smith, was suffering some lingering effects from a 2006 stroke that had forced a temporary suspension of his flying license.

“A medical condition leading to transient incapacitation or impairment (of the pilot) could explain the circumstances of this accident,” the agency said in its final report on the crash, issued in Washington.

The report added, however, “it is not possible to determine whether such a scenario occurred.”

The NTSB also faulted the Federal Aviation Administration for having reinstated Smith’s pilot’s license two years after his stroke without conducting a more thorough examination of his health.

The probable cause of the accident was listed as the pilot’s “temporary unresponsiveness for reasons that could not be established from the available information.”

Smith, who was 62 and a former chief pilot for Alaska Airlines, perished along with Stevens and three other passengers when the DeHavilland Otter aircraft he was flying slammed into a mountain slope on August 9, 2010.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Inspectors examining packages at Anchorage’s international airport discovered large quantities of heroin cached in shipments of purses, baby wipes and picture frames, an official said Monday.

A total of 6 pounds of heroin with an estimated street value of $1.2 million was found over the past month in packages shipped to a FedEx facility at the airport, said Jerry McGee, Customs and Border Protection chief in Anchorage.

The three shipments appear unrelated but were notable for their large size, McGee said.

“We get narcotics seizures on a regular basis. However, this was substantial, a fairly large quantity,” he said.

The Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is one of the world’s busiest air-cargo handlers, serving as a hub between North America, Asia and Europe.

The heroin discovered over the past month was destined for the United States, he said. Investigations into the shipments are ongoing, he said.

The first shipment was discovered on April 22, concealed in a package of ladies’ purses from Malaysia that seemed abnormally heavy, according to customs officials. Closer scrutiny revealed 423 grams of heroin sewn into the purse liners, officials said.