Day One

Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. Portage, Alaska.

The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center focuses on preserving and hosting many special animals. This center takes in a lot of hurt or young abandoned animals. 

This conservation center currently hosts four bears. Kuma is a male black bear that was brought into the AWCC 14 years ago because he was found in a hole of someone’s backyard. Hugo is a female grizzly bear who was found with 100s of porcupine quills embedded in her paws. She was then brought to the AWCC and has been there for 16 years. Joe Boxer and Patron are two brown bears whose mother was killed by a resident who’s yard they were in and the resident felt this bear was a harm to his dog. Upon the death of these cubs’ mother, the AWCC came and rescued them to make sure they would properly

grow up.  

A lot of the other animals that stay at the AWCC were found in the same way as these bears. The AWCC hosts many bald eagles as these birds are incredibly abundant in the state of Alaska. Elk are also a large amount of animals on this conservation center. Along with these animals are the moose, musk ox, caribou, owls, porcupine and black-tailed deer. A very important set of animals are the wood bison.

Wood bison were extirpated, or otherwise known as just never seen, after almost 100 years the wood bison found their back into the state of Alaska. From the combination of the AWCC and the Department of Fish and Game they were actually able to reintroduce the wood bison fully back into the Alaskan wild. Before they could fully go into the wild a lot of work was put into it. In 2003, only 13 young bison were brought to the AWCC from Yukon. The following summer two calves were born. As of recently the first wild conceived wood bison was born, and the future looks bright for the wood bison thanks to the AWCC. 

Baily Williams and Kristin Gilbert