Alaska Adventure - Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center

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Still exhausted from yesterday's hike and with more rain in the forecast Ginny and I decide to head to the Wildlife Conservation Center where she guarantees me we will see bear. Without having to exert ourselves much!

On the way we stop at Beluga Point to snap some photos and almost get blown down by hurricane force winds. I'm not kidding. The wind was blowing at at least 40mph!

We arrive at the center which has a variety of animals. They are a non profit organization that takes in injured and orphaned animals and cares for them. If they cannot be release back into the wild, they are housed permanently at the Center.

First stop are the moose. Very big. Standing right next to the fence you can appreciate how big these animals are!

Next we visit musk ox. Which are surprisingly short. I read about how the males during rutting season run at each other from 50 yards and knock their heads together. I think football players must have some common ancestor with these creatures.

Next stop is the bear boardwalk. Finally I will get to see my bear! Black bear is spotted! Cute! Looks like a big dog. Kind of! A little further up we see the big brown bear. It is MASSIVE. Unbelievably huge. I command the bear to sit and stay. I can't believe I really wanted to see one of these giants in the wild! What was I thinking? The bear ignoring my command gets up and walks really close to us. I could reach out and pet him if there wasn't a fence between us. He decides to join another brown bear buddy in the swimming hole. Ginny and I watch the bears for awhile and move on to the next enclosure.

Wood bison. This is actually one of the more interesting herds of animals. Larger than lower 48 plain bison, they are being raised at the Conservation Center to be reintroduced in the yukon after going extinct in Alaska over 100 years ago. They are planning to reintroduce them in 2015!

We finish up by admiring the beards of elk, a bald Eagle, great horned owl and lynx!

I highly recommend a visit to the Center. Very educational and they have a great mission!

Wildlife: caribou, moose, black bear, brown bear, wood bison, elk musk ox, eagle, owl, lynx

Scenery: the wildlife is the scenery!

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