Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center Audio Guide

AWCC is a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to pre­serv­ing Alaska’s wildlife through con­ser­va­tion, pub­lic edu­ca­tion, and qual­i­ty ani­mal care. 

Now it’s time to go over some basics. For­tu­nate­ly, we do have rules to abide by.. but hear me out!

Before we get start­ed, cari­bou and rein­deer are the same species. In Alas­ka we refer to domes­ti­cat­ed indi­vid­u­als in this group as rein­deer while a com­mon name used for their wild coun­ter­part is caribou.

An inter­est­ing fact about cari­bou: they out pop­u­late peo­ple in the state of Alas­ka 1.5 to 1.

Por­cu­pines are strict veg­e­tar­i­ans, some­times liv­ing off just a sin­gle tree for a win­ter. Giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty, they will like a vari­ety of fruits and vegetables. 

Moose are the largest mem­ber of the deer fam­i­ly, and the Alaskan Yukon Moose is the largest of the moose fam­i­ly. At birth, calves typ­i­cal­ly weigh approx­i­mate­ly 25 pounds.

Musk oxen are close­ly relat­ed to sheep and goats, and there­fore estab­lish dom­i­nance in much the same way.

In Alas­ka it’s not just bears you need to wor­ry about. Aside from the weath­er and real­i­ties of how unfor­giv­ing the cli­mate can be (did you bring rain gear?), we live among bears and oth­er large ani­mals like moose.

Black Bears are one of the more adapt­able ani­mals in the entire ani­mal king­dom, as they are cur­rent­ly found in every sin­gle Unit­ed States’ state, with the excep­tion of Hawaii.

Despite hav­ing a brown bear in the state of Alas­ka, we actu­al­ly have three sub-species; Griz­zly Brown Bears, Coastal Brown Bears, and the Kodi­ak Brown Bear.

The Wood Bison at the Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Cen­ter are cur­rent­ly the only herd in the Unit­ed States 

Elk were orig­i­nal­ly brought up in the 1920’s as a herd­able & ranch­able ani­mal. Our re-intro­duc­to­ry efforts took place in the 1950’s, and were large­ly unsuc­cess­ful on the main land of Alaska.

The Alas­ka Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Cen­ter is also home to a vari­ety of birds. 

The com­mon name for lynx in Alas­ka is Cana­di­an Lynx. Males are known as ​“toms,” while females are ref­er­enced as ​“mol­lies.”

Sit­ka black-tailed deer are a diminu­tive coastal sub­species of the mule deer that is com­mon through­out west­ern North America.

Wolves are the largest mem­ber of the canid fam­i­ly that live in Alas­ka. Adult males can weigh any­where from 85 to 120 pounds, some of the largest males reach­ing close to 150 pounds, while females aver­age 10 to 15 pounds lighter than their male counterparts.

Red fox­es are wide­spread and abun­dant in Alas­ka. There are no cur­rent pop­u­la­tion esti­mates, but red fox­es’ num­ber in the tens of thou­sands in the state. 

Coy­otes are anoth­er mem­ber of the canid fam­i­ly resid­ing at the AWCC. They are dubbed the most vocal of the canids and are some­times referred to as the ​“song dog.” Coy­otes aver­age in size from 30 to 40 pounds, males typ­i­cal­ly weigh­ing more than females.

A squir­rel’s diet con­sists of seeds, conifer cones, nuts, fruits, and fun­gi. They occa­sion­al­ly feed on inver­te­brates and small ver­te­brates, such as insects, bird eggs and baby birds.