Karluk River

Conserving a World Class Salmon Fishery

The Karluk River on Kodiak Island in Alaska's Kodiak Archipelago is world renowned for providing greater salmon returns per mile than any river on earth, and for supporting the highest brown bear density on record. Winding through a tundra landscape unchanged since the Plestocine Era, the river flows twenty-one miles from Karluk Lake to the Shelikof Strait separating Kodiak Island from the majestic volcanic peaks of the Alaskan Peninsula.

Most of the Karluk drainage is privately owned and lies outside the boundaries of the protected Kodiak Natoinal Wildlife Refuge. Through one of the largest conservation partnerships in recent times, a consensus decision was made to use Exxon Valdez oil spill settlement funds to conserve over 90% of the Karluk drainage. ALC is now working to acquire a conservation easement on critical habitat along the unprotected lower stretch of the river.

The Karluk is rich in wildlife and cultural resources. In addition to prodigious wild salmon returns numbering in the millions annually, the Karluk supports native stocks of steelhead, rainbow trout, and Dolly Varden, while the lush surrounding terrain is home to hundreds of Kodiak brown bear and Sitka black-tailed deer. More than thirty registered archaeological sites along the Karluk River continue to provide evidence of one of Alaska's most populated settlement areas for the First Americans, with village sites dating back more than 7,000 years.

Learn more about the Karluk River here.