Kenai Fjords National Park Wildlife Part 1

Sea Lions, Kenai Fjords National Park

This may be the second to the last part of my featured series on Harding Icefield and Kenai Fjords National Park. As much as I love this natural park where the ice, sea and mountains meet, and where the Ice age still lingers, I am excited as well to share our other adventure trips in Alaska. However, rest assured, I will go back to share more natural features of Kenai Fjords National Park that we were able to experience. 

This post is about the wildlife in Kenai Fjords that we were lucky enough to see and experience. Though Kenai Fjords National Park is famous for its black bear and mountain goat population, but we only saw a black bear and mountain goat from very far that my camera only showed a small black dot for the black bear and a hazy cloud of white for the mountain goat, not good enough to be shared :) The only land mammal we saw very close to us was a hoary marmot, he surprised us during our Harding Icefield hike.

Hoary Marmot

Hoary marmots are the largest North American ground squirrels, their largest population is in Alaska, but they are found throughout the Northwest, in northwest Canada to Washington, Idaho and Montana. 

If however we were not so lucky enough to spot wild animals on land at Kenai Fjords, we were lucky enough to spot a lot of marine animals. The most abundant sea wildlife we saw in the fjords are the Stellar sea lions. 

Stellar sea lions are the largest members of the otariid, or "eared seal family". Another group of marine mammals we saw in Kenai Fjords are the whales. Though they are very hard to photograph, because they seem to jump and leap in surprising places and time, but with some patience and luck, we were able to capture some of them with our lens. We saw two different whales in Kenai, the humbpack and the orca. 

Breaching Humpback Whale

Orca

Humpback whales spend their time from mid-April to November feeding around Kenai Fjords National Park. Each day, a humpback eats a ton of food.

Humpback Whale

During the winter months, humpback whales migrate to and breeds in waters of Mexico and Hawaii. Their migration allows us to see them in the waters close to San Diego Coast, and where every winter, whale watching has been one of our favorite activities in San Diego. 

Breaching Humpback Whale

What makes it special seeing the whales here is because the whales are so close to the mountains. Kenai Fjords National Park is bounded by the mountains and the sea, and where more than half of it is buried in glacial ice. 

One of the cutest sea mammals we saw at Kenai Fjords are the sea otters.

Sea Otter

It is very inspiring to know that the sea otter holds the role of being a "keystone species"  for the fjord estuary ecosystems of Alaska. Keystone species link the whole ecosystem. If the sea otter population is healthy, then one can conclude that the ecosystem it lives in is healthy. Please click Kenai Fjords Estuary Ecosystem, to learn more.

Since I do not want to overwhelm you with so much pictures and information in one post, I will continue sharing the other marine wildlife and sea birds in Kenai Fjords National Park that we were lucky enough to experience in my next post. 

PS....I would like to thank Nature Center Magazine for featuring my blog for this week, I really appreciate it and no words can describe the simple joy your feature has brought to my day. 

♥♥