Kodiak Island Projects

Helping to Expand a World-Class Wildlife Refuge

The largest island in the Kodiak Archipelago, Kodiak Island is famous for its majestic bears, outstanding fisheries, and sheer beauty and wildness. Outstanding coastal resources on the west coast of the island, consisting of lagoons, wetlands, streams, and lakes, provide superb habitat for many wildlife species, including salmon, marine mammals, and bears.

Nearly two million acres of habitat on the southwestern two-thirds of the island were conserved in 1941 with the creation of the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. After passage of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, land along 70% of the rivers in the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge (KNWR) were conveyed to Alaska native corporations for private ownership. The KNWR is now interested in acquiring private parcels adjacent to the refuge from willing sellers. ALC is working to protect three of these parcels and conveying them to KNWR: Sturgeon Lagoon (163 acres), Grant Lagoon (255 acres), and Bumble Bay (80 acres). Nearby, ALC is also working to acquire a conservation easement on 1,086 acres along the lower portion of the Karluk River, a world-renowned salmon stream that also boasts the highest brown bear density on record.

Protection of these parcels will complement and extend 330,000 acres of former in-holdings already protected in the nearly two million-acre Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. It will also conserve critical nesting, feeding, and breeding habitat for species injured in the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in 1989, aiding in the recovery of one of the world’s most extraordinary ecological sites.