The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who seek them
Reserves
McNeil River State Game Sanctuary – Alaska
Sep 11th
Just west of Augustine Island, the McNeil River drains into the mudflats of Kamishak Bay. About a mile upstream from its mouth, boulders and fast water form a frothing falls that poses a challenge to migrating salmon. The fish leap and fight against the current and cataracts, making several attempts to navigate the falls – and dodge the waiting bears.
Hundreds of salmon sometimes clog the pools below the falls. With no comparable fishing sites in the area, the McNeil River falls attract the world’s greatest concentration of brown bears. Nowhere else you can expect to see a similar gathering. Using threats and roaring, bare-fanged assaults, thousands-pound males defend prime fishing spots from other bears. Smaller bears position themselves on exposed rocks in midstream. Juvenile bears and females with tiny spring cubs patrol back and forth. More >
Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge – Alaska
Sep 11th
Famed for its wildlife, the nearly two-million-acre roadless Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge encompasses the south-western two-thirds of Kodiak Island, all of Uganik Island, and parts of Afognak. The refuge has 800 miles of coastline, 11 large lakes, and 7 major watersheds.
Biologists have estimated that 2,500 to 3,000 Alaska brown bears live in the refuge. This is the world’s highest known density of these giant creatures, some of which weigh in at more than 1,500 pounds. More >
Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge
Sep 11th
Ocean waves crash against lonely pinnacles of rock. Tiny bare islands, sheer cliffs, misty headlands, reefs, islets, and volcanic spires dot Alaska’s coastline from its southern rainforest boundary to the ice-choked northern waters of the Chukchi Sea.
More than 2,400 of these wild outposts make up the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. Most of them lie in the northern Gulf of Alaska, out the Aleutian chain, and up into the Bering Sea. To the human eye they seem inhospitable, but their crevices, cliffs, and surf-washed ledges teem with wildlife. In spring, up to 30-millon seabirds return to nest. They swarm about the islands and stack themselves in gregarious neighbourhoods all the way up the cliffs. More >
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – Alaska
Sep 10th
Roadless and undeveloped, America’s largest national wildlife refuge stretches from the subarctic forest of Interior Alaska to the frozen shore of the Beaufort Sea. The refuge encompasses a 200-mile-long east-to-west segment of the Brooks Range, which reaches its broadest sprawl – more than 110 miles north to south – within the sanctuary.
Arctic NWR’s greatest claim to fame is not crags but creatures: the refuge boasts the greatest animal variety of any protected area in the circumpolar north. Six distinct habitats – marine, coastal lagoons, Arctic lowland tundra, alpine, taiga, and boreal forests – support 180 species of birds, nine marine mammals, and 37 land mammals, including all three North American bears: grizzly, black, and polar. The latter sometimes wander in off the ice to den on land. More >
Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve
Sep 2nd
Founding father Benjamin Franklin was thoroughly disgusted at the animal the young American republic chose as its national symbol. The bald eagle, he declared, was “a bird of bad moral character.” Franklin’s judgment seems more than a trifle harsh. With its regal white head, enormous wingspan, and eyes that can detect a quarter of a mile away, the bald eagle is a magnificent creature – one that earns its moniker ‘the king of birds.’
After fending off the challenge posed by Franklin’s preferred alternative – the turkey – this creature of allegedly suspect morality confronted a much more serious threat: in the early part of the 20th century, the United States declared its own national symbol of freedom a virtual outlaw. Believing that the birds preyed on salmon – and therefore competed with fishermen – the federal government offered a bounty of 50 cents for every one killed. Between 1917 and 1952, more than 100,000 Alaska balk eagles suffered precisely that fate. More >
