Fish & Wildlife

Eagle_6335 Before you start to feel sorry for this eagle because he's in a cage, you should know that he only has one wing!  I don't think he'd still be around if he was left on his own so now he lives at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center about an hour outside of Anchorage.   Last weekend was a road-trip to Homer, this weekend it was a trip down to Seward with a stop at the Conservation Center along the way.

Part of the Conservation Center has what they call a "ghost forrest".  I always wondered why the trees in this area looked this way.
Saltwater_trees_6259 But mostly what they have (of course) are lots of animals.  Bears, moose, caribou, musk ox, elk and wood bison.  I'd heard of bison but never wood bison — they're beautiful, but unfortunately my camera didn't quite do them justice.  You can see great photos of them and get some information about them here.

After our visit with the woolly animals, we headed down the road another hour to Seward to visit the Alaska SeaLife Center.  One of the exhibits is a "touch pool" with a lot of sea anemones and starfish.
Starfish_6388 The starfish can move around surprisingly fast when they want to.
Starfish_6392 One of my favorite exhibits though is the Steller Sea Lion…
Sealion_6493 That's the 2000 pound male gliding through the water.  He's pretty amazing to watch.

~ k