Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center
The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center is a sanctuary dedicated to preserving Alaska’s wildlife through conservation, education, research, and quality animal care. AWCC takes in injured and orphaned animals year-round and provides them with spacious enclosures and quality animal care. Most of the animals that arrive at the AWCC become permanent residents and will always have a home here. The Center maintains over 200 acres of spacious habitats for animals to feel at home and display their natural “wild” behavior. Visitors may see brown bears cooling off in the water, a bull moose strutting, wood bison roaming on pastures, and more.
Shutter Bison Photography Supports the AWCC Wood Restoration Project and Adopted a Wood Bison
Central Alaska
Wood Bison Restoration Project
For the last 10,000 years, the Athabascan people of Alaska relied on Wood bison for food, clothing, and shelter. Then the wood bison disappeared. North America’s largest land mammal, a victim of ecological change and overhunting, was thought to be extinct. But thanks to one of the world’s greatest conservation projects, wood bison have returned to Alaska. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game made the commitment over 20 years ago to return wood bison to their native range in Central-Alaska in partnership with the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, which currently cares for the only captive herd in the United States. Following the state’s acquisition of wood bison and years of careful management by AWCC, 130 wood bison were successfully released into the wild in the spring of 2015.
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