Alaska is one of the best places in America to view and photograph wildlife. The diverse community of animals that inhabit the wildlands of the state include bears, wolves, fox, wolverine, lynx, moose, caribou, Dall sheep, mountain goats, marmots, hares, arctic squirrels, sea otter, river otter, muskrat, beaver, whales, orca, marmots, falcons, hawks, golden & bald eagles and many other bird species.
All the mammals in Alaska live there year round. The bears and squirrels survive the long artic winter by hibernating. Dall sheep, moose, and caribou remain active and on the move looking for food throughout the winter months. Wolves also remain active and like their prey, stay on the move.
The best times of year to see Alaskan wildlife is May and june to see the babies and migrating birds and August to photograph animals in the flaming tundra.
From May through October grizzlies roam throughout Alaska. Moose are also plentiful throughout most of the state. Look for them anywhere there are willows or ponds containing aquatic plants. Caribou are often seen in small & sometimes large herds. Dall sheep & mountain goats can be seen in the foothills of the Alaska Range.
The fragility of life in Alaska becomes very evident when you see how vulnerable a mouse-sized newborn grizzly cub looks or watch a hungry wolf try to steal a baby moose calf from its mother.
On one of my early trips into Alaska's backcountry, I was lucky enough to woke up one morning to find a small herd of Dall sheep grazing nearby. As I crawled out of the tent, the sheep barely acknowledged my presence, allowing me to observe them for over an hour before they moved on to greener pastures.
The greatest threat to Alaska"s wildlife comes from Alaska State hunting laws which allow trophy hunters to shoot bears from helicopters & for the trapping and slaughter of wolves .
Within the last six years both the alpha-male and alpha-female of one of Denali National park's three main wolf packs were trapped and killed within a few miles of the park. The last remaining breeding females of those packs have also been trapped and killed right outside the eastern edge of the partk. Since the buffer zone that used to protect the wolves was eliminated in 2010, wolf sightings have decreased by over 60% in Debali national park.
