Conserving Marine Life : The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge

The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge is a place solely dedicated to the conservation of marine animals, birds, creatures and the resources that are required by these creatures for their survival. Due to encroachment and development by humans, the marine life is being threatened and in order to protect this important marine life the refuge has come into existence.

The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge is spread along most of Alaska’s 47,300 km long coastline and contains around 3.4 million acres to preserve the wildlife, flora and fauna. The wild encompassing area of the wildlife refuge enables it to serve the purpose of it being created as a nature preservation unit.

The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge caters to a widespread array of creatures and animals like the endangered steller sea lion, Northern fur seal, sea otters and other kinds of seals and walruses. Additionally, the refuge also brings in a large number of seabirds – around 40 million out of the total Alaskan seabird population of 50 million, belonging to 30 different species. The refuge has been created so as to allow the marine creatures freedom to live in their marine habitat without having to worry about their existence and survival owing to calamities occurring in the ocean and the sea.

Another important aspect of Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge is that while the refuge is widespread to allow the creatures to live freely, the accessibility is tough and in some cases, even impossible for humans. This would mean that the threat of humans invading even in the refuge is minimised owing to the hard accessibility. This not only becomes important for the refuge but also forms as the most important and prominent feature about the wildlife refuge.

The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge additionally, not only becomes a camp for the marine creatures and mammals but is also responsible for taking notice about the changes in the ocean and preserving the biodiversity in the area surrounding the refuge as much as possible.

The aspect of monitoring the changes in the ocean is a very important point to be considered. In today’s times when global warming has started to rise and the ice in the coldest parts of the world have started to melt, the creatures who are used to living in such an extreme cold climate are the ones to get affected first. Therefore Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge’s venture to monitor and try to safeguard the interest of the marine creatures is one that is absolutely worth mentioning and appreciating.

Moreover, the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge also not only helps to preserve the marine biodiversity not just in Alaska alone but also provides and encourages other nations to follow its example. There have been several treaties signed with 17 nations and if everything goes well, then the world could see more of such wildlife refuges and sanctuaries to preserve the marine life.

The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge carefully monitors the way the mammals and the birds live, especially the migratory habits of the birds, and with the help of the officials in the nations to which the birds migrate, the refuge is able to forge better eco-preservation connections.

In today’s times, when recent events like the oil spill and loss of oxygen on the ocean floor due to excessive use of fertilisers and global warming, it has become very important that we become cautious and aware of our responsibility towards the environment and other creatures. Humans and other creatures are inter-dependent and therefore it is very relevant that we strive to look upon their healthy existence. Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge is a perfect example of ensuring a safe habitat for the marine creatures without any compromising and it becomes very important and crucial that we try and help the refuge to achieve its purpose as much as we can.

About Author

Raunek Kantharia is a marine engineer turned maritime writer and entrepreneur. After a brief stint at the sea, he founded Marine Insight in 2010. Apart from managing Marine Insight, he also writes for a number of maritime magazines and websites.

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