Kenai Peninsula Wildlife Parks

This world-class, 115,000-square-foot facil­i­ty was built with funds from the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill and serves to remind vis­i­tors — in a high­ly inter­ac­tive way — of the impor­tance of under­stand­ing and main­tain­ing Alaska’s marine ecosys­tem. See life swim­ming right before your eyes: wit­ness a Steller sea lion glid­ing past under­wa­ter view­ing win­dows, puffins div­ing in nat­ur­al habi­tat, and har­bor seals rest­ing on rocky beach­es. Take self-guid­ed or  ...more

At the 200-acre Alas­ka Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Cen­ter, see Alaskan wildlife up close. The center’s mis­sion is to pro­vide refuge for orphaned, injured, and ill ani­mals — those that can’t sur­vive in the wild. The cen­ter, which opened to the pub­lic in 1993, edu­cates vis­i­tors about Alaska’s wildlife. Coy­otes peer out from behind the brush while a bald eagle swoops in on the salmon remains left by a griz­zly bear. Wood Bison plod through 65 acres of tidal  ...more