Alaska’s Wildlife: on the Verge of Extinction (Живая природа Штата Аляска на грани исчезновения)

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Moose like bears can be brown or black but they have longer legs and larger body than bears do. Alaska is full of moose. In Anchorage, you have a good chance of spotting a moose on the Coastal Trail or in Kincaid Park early in the morning or just before sunset. Moose like to roam along roads and highways that are close to rivers and ponds. They also take walks through the city and neighborhoods.

Musk oxen look huger than bears and moose. They are large animals with humped shoulders and dark brown shaggy fur that is so long it almost drags on the ground. A light brown patch of fur is on their back. Their legs are also light brown. Musk oxen have horns that look like big curls on the sides of their head. During the winter, they use their hooves to dig through the snow for grass to eat, but they try to stay in areas where the snow has blown away.

The fur on a musk ox helps it survive the cold and windy winters on the arctic tundra. Under their brown shaggy fur is another layer of soft brownish fur that keeps them warm. Musk oxen have so much fur that if you were to shave it all off, they would only be the size of a small cow.

If we move from the forest to the beaches we will see walruses. They are big and they eat a lot. Some can weigh up to two tons. They eat hundreds of pounds of clams, mussels, snails and sea worms almost every day. Using tiny whiskers on their face, they feel around for food on the bottom of the sea. When they find a clam, they use their lips to suck the meat out of the shell.

Walruses change color when they go in and out of the water. On land, they are reddish-brown and when they swim, their skin turns pink or white.
Their skin is so tough and thick that only killer whales and polar bears can chew through it.

The polar bears are the world’s largest land carnivore. The bears can weigh more than 1,000 pounds. These “sea bears” are excellent swimmers.
They use their front feet to dog paddle and their back legs to steer. But the walrus is faster so can kill a polar bear by swimming under it and stabbing the bear with his long ivory tusks.

Other sea species that you can see in Alaska are sea otters. They’ve been nicknamed “Old Man of the Sea” comes from the silver hairs and whitish- silvery head of older otters. The underfur is brown, dark brown or black; pale brown or silver guard hairs.

Puffin’s nickname “Parrots of the Sea” because of their brightly colored beaks. But these birds aren’t always colorful. At the end of breeding season, their black feathers turn brown and their white face patches become dark, almost turning black.

So, it must be very interesting to know how species are breeding.
First of all, males should attract female’s attention. For example, male walruses sing love songs to female walruses underwater. The songs sound like church bells. They also grunt and snort, and they stink like pigs.

What is happing after that? As for puffins, both of parents incubate the single egg for 42 to 47 days. After it hatches, the chick stays in the nest for another 45 to 55 days, until it can fly.

This is the variety of Alaska’s wildlife. Many species are so beautiful but everything can’t be so good in our life. There is one
“little” problem: EXTINCTION!

WILDLIFE PROBLEMS

“Since life began on this planet, countless creatures have come and gone - rendered extinct by naturally changing physical and biological conditions.”

The State of Alaska is frightened of extinction. More than 1,000 wolves killed every year. Not a single wolf pack is protected from hunting and trapping throughout its entire variety in Alaska. Trapping within and outside of the park, cruelly impacts Denali National Park wolves, the longest studied and most widely viewed in the world. Trappers killed
Denali’s Savage River pack, and the last remaining female of the
Headquarters’ pack. Nearly 12,000 grizzly bears were killed in Alaska in the past 10 years. Alaska hunters kill about 22,000 caribou every year.

Sea otters were nearly extinct due to heavy commercial harvests until the Fur Seal Treaty of 1911 gave them full protection. An estimated 2,000 sea otters existed then, compared to as many as 160,000 by the mid-1970s.
Alaska Natives may still hunt sea otters, which they use for food and other purposes.

Moose meat is also a popular food among Alaskans. Between 6,000 and
8,000 moose are hunted every year. That’s 3.5 million pounds of meat. Some of meat from the moose that are hit and killed on highways is used to feed the hungry.

Puffin populations are abundant in Alaska, but they are declining in the Lower 48. Oil pollution and fishery conflicts are to blame for their decreasing numbers. Alaska Natives used to hunt the birds for food and clothing, making parkas out of puffin skins. Today federal and state laws protect their nesting colonies.

The State does not have accurate population figures for wolves, bears, lynx, fox and other species – yet thousands are legally killed each year.
It is legal to hunt and trap on most National Park lands in Alaska. Though wildlife viewers represent over 80% of Alaskan’s, the Alaska Board of Game
(Alaska wildlife-policy decision makers) consists entirely of hunters and trappers. Less than 3% of the Alaska Department of Fish & Game’s budget is devoted to wildlife viewing.

Wolves Legally/Reported Killed
|Regulatory Year |Number killed |
|1988-89 |858 |
|1989-90 |941 |
|1990-91 |1089 |
|1991-92 |1162 |
|1992-93 |1051 |
|1993-94 |1583 |
|1994-95 |1457 |
|1995-96 |1230 |
|1996-97 |1280 |

Every year the population of wolves decreases. According to the table many poachers kill more and more wolves from year to year. The problem of killing wolves makes the government pay attention to the critical situation in Alaska.

WILDLIFE CENTER

The problem of extinction worries Big Game Alaska Wildlife Center.
This center was created for helping animals, birds and mammals that can’t fight for surviving.

Last year Big Game Alaska Wildlife Center received moose, deer, black and grizzly bears, owls, bison musk ox and a variety of game are birds to care for. Big Game Alaska is entirely self-supported and relies on customer support to continue its mission of wildlife rehabilitation.

The original members of Big Game's bison family were abandoned calves that had to be bottle-fed. The largest, named Big Boy now weighs more than
1 ton.

Bison are gregarious and live in herds whose range includes grasslands and open woodlands. They have poor eyesight and depend on their sense of hearing and smell.

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