ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, PART 1

FROM THE REFUGE BROCHURE:

"This is the place for man turned scientist and explorer; poet and artist. Here he can experience a new reverence for life that is outside his own and yet a vital and joyous part of it." [William O. Douglas, US Supreme Court Justice, 1939-1975]

Untamed Country

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a vast and beautiful wilderness, one unique in North America. Unique because it has a full range of arctic and subarctic ecosystems. Unique also because the systems are whole and undisturbed, functioning as they have for centuries, largely free of human control and manipulation.

Inupiat Eskimos and Athabascan Indians live in this place, following their ancestors who survived here for generations.

A Northern Frontier

One of the world’s most remote natural areas, the Arctic Refuge is a frontier--perhaps America’s last--like those that helped shape America’s distinct cultural heritage. Here conditions exist like those that once surrounded and shaped us--as individuals and as a Nation.

"This wilderness is big enough and wild enough to make you feel like one of the old-time explorers . . ." [Lowell Sumner, Refuge Founder]

This post also begins with an attitude of gratitude, for the action taken years ago  (during the Eisenhower administration, oh for the Republicans of yesteryear!)  to set aside this piece of Alaska. It was set aside by Executive Order in 1952,and became a National Wildlife Refuge in 1960.  Today that Refuge is under continuing attack by the current Republican administration, in its lunatic endeavor to extract the small amount of oil present there. This endeavor was vetoed by Congress last July, but that was by no means the end of it. I said in an earlier post that I planned to journal on the backdoor efforts now underway to pass an energy bill that would allow oil drilling in the ANWR.

Because I think if more people knew what an incredible place the ANWR is, more would mobilize to stop this oil drilling, I have decided that the best way to begin is by showing a little of  the amazing place that is the Refuge. I may finally exceed our 25,000 character limit in this post, and it may turn into a two-parter. Start by going to the Site Index for the official ANWR webpage. Look at all the things you can read about, read some of them now, bookmark the links and set aside a long period of time to read more of them. Then go to the photo album called Journey through the Refuge, to see a collection of pictures that may incite you to make an immediate airline reservation to Fairbanks.

Well, maybe you don’t have the time to go read all that stuff, or look at those pictures. It is, after all, the weekend. You have those Weekend Things to do. Okay, then, just read these few little facts and figures from the Webpage itself:

• 180 bird species from four continents have been seen there.
• It is home to 36 species of land mammals.
• It protects most of the calving grounds for the Porcupine caribou herd, the second largest herd in Alaska.
• It contains all three species of North American bears (black, brown, and polar).
• Nine marine mammal species live along its coast.
• 36 fish species inhabit its rivers and lakes.
• The Nation's northernmost breeding population of golden eagles occurs there.
• It is used by two different caribou herds.
• It has no known introduced species.
• Its coast is a major migration route for several waterfowl species.

Are you a birder? Then check out this link to the birdlife for the Refuge.   Do you love, care about, care for, hope to protect wildlife? Here’s a link to the list of animals inhabiting the Refuge.

 NOW are you making your plane reservation?  I certainly wish I were.  And it is one of my lifedreams to get to these unspoiled areas of Alaska, the ANWR and Denali in particular.  However, I'm 61 years old, the financial ability to retire is pretty shaky - we're unlikely to have many big trips in our aging future.  So I may never make those plane reservations to Fairbanks.  If no other living human ever got there, I'd still want the unspoiled wilderness to be there. I'd like to die knowing the planet still had caribou and black bears roaming the mountains and tundras.

The area where drilling is proposed is the Coastal Plain Tundra, an area the National Fish and Wildlife information describes thusly:

"The terrain of the 1002 Area includes mostly foothills and low relief coastal plain, with few lakes and ponds; areas to the west have extensive wetlands, including large lakes. The distance from the mountains to the coast in the Refuge also is several times smaller than it is farther west. This relative compactness of habitats provides for a greater degree of ecological diversity than any other similar sized area of Alaska's north slope.

Those who campaigned to establish the Arctic Refuge recognized its wild qualities and the significance of these spatial relationships. Here lies an unusually diverse assemblage of large animals and smaller, less-appreciated life forms, tied to their physical environments and to each other by natural, undisturbed ecological and evolutionary processes."  (Emphasis is mine.)

Still quoting from the website, this time the area on Wildlife in the Refuge, specifically the caribou:

"This coastal plain comprises only 10 percent of the Arctic Refuge. Yet from May to July, it is the center of biological activity on the Refuge. For centuries, animals from the Porcupine caribou herd have used the coastal tundra to calve, obtain nourishment, avoid insects, and escape predators.

The calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd include the northern foothills of the Brooks Range and the arctic coastal plain from the Tamayariak River in Alaska to the Babbage River in Canada. The most often used calving area, however, is on the Refuge coastal plain between the Katakturuk and Kongakut Rivers. Commonly, one-half to three quarters or more of the calves are born within this area.

 Newborn caribou calf

The Refuge coastal plain is very important to calving success and calf survival in the Porcupine caribou herd. There are two main reasons for this. First, fewer brown bears, wolves, and golden eagles live on the coastal plain than in the adjacent foothills and mountains. As a result, the newborn calves have a better chance to survive their first week, until they become strong enough to outrun their pursuers.

The Refuge coastal plain also provides an abundance of plant species preferred by caribou. Nutrition is very important to the pregnant and nursing cows, particularly after the long winter. The timing of snow melt and plant "green up" on the coastal plain coincides with their calving period. This gives the new mothers access to the most nutritious food when it is most important for their health and the proper development of nursing calves.

The entire Porcupine caribou herd and up to a third of the Central Arctic herd use the Refuge coastal plain when calving is completed. This essential area contains forage and a variety of habitats that provide insect relief, including the coast, uplands, ice fields, rocky slopes, and gravel bars.

Their annual visit to the Refuge coastal plain brings new life and vitality to the caribou. It is an important part of their life cycle. The coastal plain provides the caribou vital nourishment and a better chance of avoiding predators and insects. This relationship is part of the unaltered system that makes the Arctic Refuge such a wondrous place."  (All emphasis is mine.)

In the next part of this post I will talk about the current sneaky, backdoor, determined effort to disrupt this area by bringing in oil-drilling and all its attendant machinery, water usage, road building, traffic, human pollution, and so on. The more I know about people, the better I like dogs, as my mother used to say.