At remote Round Island, a part of the Walrus Islands State Game Sanctuary in Southwest Alaska, thousands of walruses crowd the beaches.
The site is one of the few where those rare human visitors can see a walrus in the wild.
But earlier this year, citing budget issues, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game proposed cutting a 39-year-old monitoring program at the island, which in turn would've cast doubt on the future of tourist visits there.
Filmmaker Jonathan VanBallenberghe visited the island, documenting the walruses and other wild animals that that inhabit it, and adding a plea to viewers to help preserve access to the sanctuary.
After this film was posted, a group of donors -- ranging from the Alaska SeaLife Center to the Annenberg Foundation -- stepped forward to fund the program for 2015.