Alaska Sealife Center

The Alaska Sealife Center is full of wonderful Alaskan animals. They offer many different programs dedicated to the wildlife.

Our Science Mission

The overall goal of our Science Program is to develop an understanding of the role of marine mammals, birds and fish in the arctic and subarctic marine ecosystems, and to generate scientific knowledge relevant to resource management and policy. Our projects focus on Alaska marine life and environments, but reach globally with international collaborations. The Center’s unique geographic location, marine cold water research facilities, live animal collections, and specialized staff allows us to use a combination of experimental and field research to:

• Investigate physiological and ecological processes affecting marine animal population  dynamics.
•  Conduct controlled experiments to understand factors affecting reproductive success and  fitness in marine species.
•  Monitor marine animal responses to environmental variability and stressors.
•  Evaluate human impacts on our marine environment and animal populations.
•  Develop tools to support recovery and restoration of marine resources.

 Thus, an overarching science theme of our science relates to understanding of upper trophic level responses to environmental variability. Under this concept, we use marine mammals, seabirds, and fish as windows into the ecosystem they inhabit. As the arctic and subarctic are undergoing rapid environmental changes, understanding responses of these species to change is becoming urgently more important. A more holistic understanding of upper trophic species role in the arctic and subarctic marine ecosystems is essential, and our science team is developing research programs and partnerships towards integrated marine ecosystem studies to address these emerging broad scale topics.