Description: The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of December 2, 1980 (Public Law 96-487) established sixteen National Wildlife Refuges within the state of Alaska, USA. The external boundaries of these Refuges were defined in the Federal Register on February 24, 1983 in Part 3, Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska, Description of Boundaries, pages 7890-7936. These external boundaries, as depicted in this data layer, encompass Federal, State of Alaska, and private lands and waters.The external Refuge boundaries shown here were digitized by, and are actively maintained by, the USFWS Alaska Region Division of Realty. As such, this data layer is the authoritative source for the boundaries of the National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska. These boundaries were digitized using the following data sources:Federal Register legal descriptions (February 24, 1983)U.S. Geological Survey 1:63,360 topographic maps (produced from aerial photos taken in the 1950s and 1960s)ESRI World Imagery (compiled from satellite imagery obtained from ~2010 to the current date)The boundaries were first digitized in the mid-1990s by cross-referencing Federal Register legal descriptions to the USGS topographic maps. Digitizing was done on-screen at a zoomed-in scale of ~1:10,000 or larger. As high-resolution satellite imagery (ESRI World Imagery) has become available, the Division of Realty has been updating the 1:63,360 topographic map-based boundaries to conform to the more current satellite imagery. This work is ongoing and is not yet complete for all sixteen Refuges.Boundary Modifications/ImprovementsMay, 2019: Adjusted the Arctic Ocean coastal boundary of Arctic NWR to match 30-meter resolution IFSAR data that was provided to FWS by BLM. The exact source date of the IFSAR data is not known, but it was acquired sometime during 2019.April, 2020: Adjusted the coastal portion of the Becharof NWR boundary to match the coastline as shown in the ESRI World Imagery.June 28, 2022: Adjusted the western section of the Tetlin NWR boundary to conform to the eastern boundary of the Tetlin Indian Reservation as shown by the Bureau of Land Management's survey of USS 2547.April 25, 2024: Adjusted a portion of the shared Izembek/Alaska Peninsula refuge boundary on the west side of Cold Bay, and northwest of the village of Cold Bay, to coincide with the boundary of Air Navigation Site 176 as constructed by using the National Geodetic Survey's 1976 adjusted NAD27 coordinates for the original COW 1923 benchmark.May 16, 2024: Adjusted the boundary of the Alaska Maritime NWR - Womens Bay Unit to conform to the Bureau of Land Management's survey of USS 2539, and to follow the approximate lime of mean high tide as shown in ESRI's World Imagery dataset.October 23, 2024: Adjusted the boundary of the Afognak Unit of Kodiak NWR to conform to the approved minor boundary adjustments for Kodiak NWR Tracts 168a and 168b.December 2, 2024: Adjusted the Yukon Delta NWR refuge boundary that surrounds Nunivak Island to follow rhumb lines connecting the 23 geographic coordinates that are specified in the Federal Register legal description.May 29, 2025: Adjusted the boundary of Yukon Flats NWR to follow the centerline of Glacier Creek, the right bank of Victoria Creek and Beaver Creek, and the centerline of Moose Creek, as depicted in the ESRI World Imagery layer, within T10N R6E-FM, T11N R5E & R6E-FM, T12N R 5E & 6E-FM Digitized the boundary segments at a scale of 1:1,000.June 2, 2025: Adjusted the portions of the Arctic NWR and Yukon Flats NWR boundaries that are coincident with the BLM survey of the Venetie Indian Reservation (USS 5220). Those boundary sections were snapped to BLM's surveyed lines feature class and now conform to USS 5220.June 3, 2025: Adjusted the portions of the Yukon Flats NWR boundary that follow the centerline of Preacher Creek and Rock Creek, as depicted in the ESRI World Imagery layer, within Townships 11 and 12 North, Range 11 East, Fairbanks Meridian.June 4, 2025: Adjusted the portions of the boundary of Yukon Flats NWR that follow the centerline of an unnamed creek, as depicted in the ESRI World Imagery layer, within Township 11 North, Ranges 13 and 14 East, Fairbanks Meridian.
Copyright Text: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Region 7 (Alaska) Division of Realty, Anchorage, Alaska, USA.