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 Send a message to the BLM to protect Teshekpuk Lake!
The wild reaches of the Alaskan Arctic is known throughout the world as a sportsman's paradise. Caribou, grizzly bears, and waterfowl all find their home here. However, the rapid expansion of uncontrolled oil development threatens to permanently alter this landscape and devastate the wildlife and recreational opportunities that thrive there.
One area at risk is the Teshekpuk Lake region of the Western Arctic. The network of coastal lagoons, deep-water lakes, wet sedge grass meadows, and river deltas of the Teshekpuk Lake area create unparalleled wildlife habitat, especially for waterfowl.
The Teshekpuk region is also home to a 26,000-member caribou herd, and provides habitat for up to 60,000 molting geese each summer. Thirty percent of the world's Pacific brant population, as well as lesser snow geese, white-fronted geese and long tailed ducks find critical nesting and molting habitat in the Lake's environs.
The area is so important to wildlife that it was protected in 1998 when oil development moved farther and farther west of the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. That all changed in June 23, 2003, when the Bush administration announced plans to open the remaining Teshekpuk Lake region to full scale oil development, removing any protections afforded the area just two years earlier. Over 8.5 million acres surrounding Teshekpuk Lake have already been leased and partially developed for oil and gas production.
In June 2004 the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) opened public hearings on its plan to open up the remaining areas around Teshekpuk Lake to full-scale development. Of the three proposals released by the BLM, one would open 100 percent of the remaining area, one would open 96 percent of the remaining area and one plan would maintain current policy.
Only one hearing in Washington, D.C., was scheduled outside of Alaska to receive input on these plans, making it harder for waterfowl hunters and other sportsmen to have their voices heard. Millions of American Sportsmen had less of an opportunity to speak on behalf of conserving Teshkepuk Lake's valuable wetlands and waters, even though the Lakes is part of the single largest unit of public lands in the United States.
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