MAiMMALS AND BIRDS OF ALASKA 5 



at this time while the resource is still almost intact and hefore powerful 

 confiicting interests ai'ise. 



GAME ANIMALS 



Alaska's wildlifo falls into three mam classes! the big game, the 

 fur animals, and the birds. Best known of the big game are the 

 bears, which are foimd in such exceptional profusion as to suggest 

 that Nature fairly outdid herself in the numbers and varieties created. 

 Included in these are the coastal brown bears, represented by several 

 subspecies; the closely allied grizzlies of the interior mountain ranges; 





hi* 



Figure 3. — Alaska brown bear 



Admiralty Island salmon 

 Jos. Yolo.) 



>treani. (Photo by 



the black bears, including the brown and glacier bear color phases; 

 and lastly, the polar bears, snow-white visitors to the Arctic and 

 Bering Sea coasts from the polar ice packs. Among other big-game 

 animals are the moose, caribou, deer, mountain sheep, mountain 

 goat, and as introduced species, the elk, buffalo, musk ox, and semi- 

 domesticated reindeer. 



LARGE BROWN AND GRIZZY BEARS 



Holding first place in the public interest is the Alaska brown bear 

 (fig. 3), largest carnivore on earth. Monarch of all its surveys in its 



42.3674°— 42 2 



