America's Arctic: What's at Stake
From the caribou calving grounds and polar bear dens of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the wetlands that support 20 different species of waterfowl, the North Slope of Alaska is a place of grand landscapes and rich wildlife populations. At 42.5 million acres the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and adjacent areas administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) form one of the largest expanses of federal public land in the United States offering unparalleled opportunities for hunting, hiking, fishing, wildlife watching, boating and other outdoor sports.
The region is also believed to hold oil reserves under its tundra and plans have been made to expand the oil and gas drilling that already sprawls across more than 1,000 square miles of this last frontier. While politicians continue efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, the federal government has finalized plans to open 100% of the 8.8 million acres of public lands to the northwest of the Refuge, the Western Arctic, to industrial scale oil exploration. To the east, the "Alpine Development" that was once touted as a "small footprint" and a "model for environmentally sensitive oil development" is slated for expansion into an additional 890,000 acres of public land.
The question is not if there can be oil drilling in America's Arctic, but where in the Arctic drilling should be allowed and where it should prohibited in order to balance America's energy needs and the need for conservation. If such a balance is not struck and the important fish and wildlife habitat found in the region is negatively impacted, it will have reverberations not only in the remote stretches of Alaska but across the nation and across generations. The necessary balance can be achieved by dedicating the areas most important for fish, wildlife and high quality outdoor recreational experiences to conservation instead of development.
Special Places that Deserve to be Conserved
Teshekpuk Lake
The network of coastal lagoons, deep-water lakes, wet sedge grass meadows and river deltas of Teshekpuk Lake in the Western Arctic are an area of unparalleled wildlife habitat that support one in four of the world's population of Pacific black brant. Approximately 37,000 black brant, 30% of the entire population, utilized the Teshekpuk Lake area for molting in 2001. Other waterfowl that rely on the area include the lesser snow geese, white-fronted geese and long-tailed duck that find critical nesting and molting habitat in the Lake's environs.
Spectacled and Steller's eiders, both listed as "threatened species" under the federal Endangered Species Act, use the area for nesting. Big game species found in the area include the 45,000 member Teshepuk Lake Caribou Herd that provides subsistence hunting opportunities to the remote communities of Nuiqsut, Barrow, Atqasuk and Wainwright and is open to sport hunting, offering sportsmen a wilderness experience found few places in the world.
Peard Bay
West of Teshekpuk Lake is an extensive wetland complex around Peard Bay, a known denning area for polar bears that also provides the nesting, molting and staging habitat for tens of millions of migratory waterfowl including spectacled eider, greater white fronted goose and oldsquaw. Spotted seals are also known to utilize this area of the Western Arctic.
Colville River Watershed
The largest river in the Western Arctic, the Colville River supports over 20 species of fish including arctic char, dolly varden, pink salmon and chum salmon. Grizzly bears and other big game such as moose, which concentrate here in the winter due to the abundance of forage, are common in the area. The cliffs and bluffs of the Colville provide optimal nesting habitat for raptors, including Gyrfalcons, rough-legged hawks, golden eagles and one of the healthiest populations of peregrine falcons in the world.
Utukok Uplands
Covering over 4 million acres, the Utukok Uplands is the main calving area for the 450,000 member Western Arctic Caribou Herd. Caribou congregate in the hills by the tens of thousands in the spring and take advantage of the good forage found in the Uplands in the late summer, making the area an important migration route to the caribou's wintering grounds further south. The concentration of caribou attracts both sport and subsistence hunters who harvest an average 15,000 to 20,000 animals each year as well as grizzly bears and wolves that also prey on the herd.
Kasegaluk Lagoon
Located along the Chukchi Sea, Kasegaluk Lagoon is one of the largest coastal lagoon-barrier island systems in the world. The largest concentration of spotted seals and beluga whales along the Chukchi Sea are found in this region of the Western Arctic with as many as 3,500 belugas gathering in the lagoon to feed and bear their young. Kasegaluk Lagoon is also utilized by migratory waterfowl and is particularly important to Pacific black brant for molting and fall staging. Both grizzly and polar bears utilize the area to feed on marine mammals.
Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the biological heart of this great wilderness, containing the greatest diversity of wildlife of any conservation area in the circumpolar region. Occupying a mere 5% of Alaska's North Slope, the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge is the only stretch of arctic coastline currently off-limits to oil drilling.
Musk Oxen, once rare due to unregulated hunting, have been reintroduced with the help of funds raised by American sportsmen and rely on the coastal plain year-round. Grizzly bears range the open tundra and Dall sheep thrive in the foothills. More than 130 species of birds, including mallards, northern pintail and black brant, rely on the coastal plain for breeding, nesting and migratory stopovers.
The coastal plain is also the calving ground of the 130,000-member Porcupine River caribou herd. Each spring, the caribou migrate over 400 miles to the coastal plain where its unique features maximize calf and herd survival, providing nutritious food and refuge from predators and oppressive mosquitoes. For 20,000 years this awesome migration has sustained the native Gwich'in people who rely on the caribou for food, clothing and medicine.
Balancing America's Energy Needs with Conservation
Experience and scientific research has shown that oil drilling, untempered by a concern for conservation, has a strong potential to negatively impact the fish, wildlife and wilderness on which America's outdoor heritage depends. Scientific research indicates that existing energy developments in Arctic Alaska have reduced shorebird nesting by 18% in some areas. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the birth rate for caribou on Alaska's North Slope was 83% in undisturbed areas and only 64% in areas around oil fields.
Research around the Prudhoe Bay oil fields suggest a greater than average mortality of juvenile grizzly bears, already at a low density in the area. While oil and gas drilling can be carried out responsibly in some places there are others where because of their importance to America's outdoor heritage it will never be appropriate, such as the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
While the actual "footprint" of any oil drilling may be small its impact on fish and wildlife populations can be expansive as the infrastructure associated with development alters movements and access to preferred habitats critical to the health of wildlife populations. Any efforts to develop the energy resources of the America's Arctic must be carefully planned to ensure that its important fish, wildlife, recreational and subsistence resources are protected and maintained for use by future generations. Permanently establishing the special places identified above as Wilderness or other conservation areas that guarantee the effective conservation of big game, fish and waterfowl habitat in perpetuity would be a step in that direction.
For More Information:
Sierra Club Alaska Field Office
201 Barrow Street, Suite 101
Anchorage, AK 99501
(907) 276-4048
nw-ak.field@sierraclub.org
Up to Top
HOME |
Email Signup |
About Us |
Contact Us |
Terms of Use |
© 2008 Sierra Club
|
