The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge (often shortened to Alaska Maritime or AMNWR) is a United States National Wildlife Refuge comprising 2,400 islands, headlands, rocks, islets, spires and reefs in Alaska, with a total area of 4.9 million acres (20,000 km), of which 2.64 million acres (10,700 km) is wilderness. The refuge stretches from Cape Lisburne on the Chukchi Sea to the tip of the Aleutian Islands in the west and Forrester Island in the southern Alaska Panhandle region in the east. The refuge has diverse landforms and terrains, including tundra, rainforest, cliffs, volcanoes, beaches, lakes, and streams.
Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge is well known for its abundance of seabirds. About 75 percent of Alaskan native marine birds, 15 to 30 million among 55 species, use the refuge. AMNWR also provides a nesting habitat for an estimated 40 million seabirds, representing 80 percent of all seabirds in North America. The birds congregate in "bird cities" (colonies) along the coast. Each species has a specialized nesting site (rock ledge, crevice, boulder rubble, pinnacle, or burrow). Other animals present in this refuge include caribou, sea lions, bears, coyotes, seals, Canada lynx, beavers, foxes, muskrats, wolf packs, moose, walrus, river otters, marten, whales, Dall sheep and sea otters.
The administrative headquarters and visitor center are located in Homer, Alaska. In 1968, Simeonof National Wildlife Refuge, part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, was designated as a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.
The refuge is divided into five units. Clockwise around Alaska, starting in the southeast, their component territories include:
Alaska Peninsula unit
editAleutian Islands unit
editIncludes most of the land area of the Aleutian Islands, from Unimak in the east to Attu in the west: Near Islands, Rat Islands, Delarof Islands, Andreanof Islands, Islands of Four Mountains, Fox Islands, and Krenitzin Islands
- Unimak Wilderness (Unimak Island)
- Aleutian Islands Wilderness – 1,300,000 acres (5,300 km), designated 1980
- Bogoslof Wilderness (Bogoslof Island) – 175 acres (71 ha), designated 1970
- Big Hazy Islet - Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge
- Gull Island, a small rocky outcropping on Kachemak Bay is the summer home to an estimated 10,000 seabirds
- Thick-billed murres in the refuge
- East Amatuli Island, Barren Islands, Gulf of Alaska Unit
- Castle Cape, Alaska Peninsula Unit
- Cape Thompson
- Three walrus near Cape Lisburne
edit
