Koyukuk National Wildlife Refuge

The Koyukuk National Wildlife Refuge is a 14,367 km ² protected area of ​​the National Wildlife Refuge System in inland Alaska. It lies in a basin in the floodplain of the Koyukuk River and is surrounded by the Yukon, the Purcell Mountains and the foothills of the Brooks Range.

In the lowlands of the river meadows pines grow. Over the past at about 600 m treeline the vegetation type is alpine tundra. Except on the southern slopes of the mountains and along the rivers, there are discontinuous permafrost.

Part of the Refuges is the 1600 km ² large Koyukuk Wilderness, as a Wilderness Area, the strictest class of natural protected areas of the United States, designated area. With the Nogahabara Dunes is a 65 km ² large sand desert in this wilderness area. The dunes are part of a now largely inactive dune area from the Pleistocene. The dunes can reach a height of 200 m and a length of up to 300 m. The sand consists of deposits of glacial areas in the northwest, which have collected in the periglacial area of the Koyukuk.

Wildlife

The aquatic plants of the wetland, and rich deposits of invertebrates are food for large water bird populations. Up to 100,000 ducks hatch per year in the area of the Refuges. Even songbirds and raptors use the Refuge as a nesting area and habitat.

The marsh of the Koyukuk Wilderness houses with up to ten animals per square mile one of the densest Elchpopulationen Alaska. The Western Arctic, a reindeer herd of more than 450,000 animals roam in the winter months often the northern regions of the Refuges in search of buried under the snow lichen. The herd Galena Mountain with about 300 animals live year-round in the reserve. Also, wolves, lynx, black and grizzly bears have a habitat.

History

Indians from the tribe of Koyukon live for thousands of years in the area of present-day reserve. The raw materials of the area served as a commodity with the Inupiaq, an Inuit group living north-west. Even today they use the natural resources offered by the wetland.

Middle of the 19th century met the first fur trappers from Russia, built a trading post and brought European goods for barter in the region. End of the century was found gold. 1898 steamships took the prospectors on the Koyukuk to the foothills of the Brooks Range. The gold rush was soon after, north of the tributaries of the Koyukuk the boundaries of the protected area but is still operated mining.

The Refuge was established in 1980 under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of U.S. President Jimmy Carter.