ABSTRACT

Alaska is seven times the size of Idaho; and what's more important, 99 percent of it is undeveloped. It has 33 million acres of designated wilderness, and that comes to 80 percent of all the wilderness. Conservationists may be deluded by another statistic: for every person in Alaska there is a per capita 850 acres of land. Alaskans have lots of wilderness, 56 of the 80 million acres of the National Wilderness Preservation System. Alaska parks, refuges and forests, preserving the heart of Alaskan wilderness, are very seductive. The growth in Alaska for at least ten years has greatly exceeded that of parks in the "lower 48." Alaska has the largest, greatest salmon population in its 200,000 miles of river drainage. Alaskans have excellent cooperation with professional wildlife people working for both the state and the Fish and Wildlife Service. The foremost challenge of Alaska in the 21st century revolves around the caribou.