Prince William Sound

Island-filled inlet of the Gulf of Alaska, to the east of the Kenai Peninsula and south of the Chugach Mountains in south-central Alaska. It extends 200 km/125 mi northwest from Kayak Island. Cordova and Valdez are major ports on the 130-km/80-mi wide sound. Montague and Hinchinbrook are its largest islands. The area is a fishing, mining, and oil shipment centre. In March 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground here, spilling more than 42 million litres/11 million gallons of crude oil in one of the world's greatest oil-pollution disasters. Commercial fishing, birds, sea mammals, and hundreds of miles of shoreline were devastated.

In 2001, scientists from the US Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that 12 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, of the seventeen seabird species most affected, only four (including bald eagles) showed some recovery. Nine species showed no recovery at all, and four were still being affected by the pollution. The Prince William Sound Science Centre was set up to monitor the ecology in 1989.