Green Options » Chukchi Sea

Dead Walruses Spotted on Alaska Coast: Nearly 200 Carcasses

Rhishja Larson — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:09:12 +0000

Up to 200 walrus carcasses - mostly calves - have been spotted on the shore of Chukchi Sea on Alaska’s northwest coast.

While on their way to a walrus tagging project, federal wildlife researchers discovered nearly 200 dead walruses about 140 miles southwest of Barrow, on Icy Cape.

Although the age and cause of death is not officially known, the walruses appear to be mainly new calves or yearlings, according to early reports.

Pacific Walrus Threatened by Global Warming, Oil Development: Feds Considering ESA Protections

Rhishja Larson — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 03:17:13 +0000

Finally, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is reviewing the status of the Pacific walrus to determine whether or not the marine mammal will receive Endangered Species Act protections.

The Center for Biological Diversity stated that the Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) is facing a double threat to its ice habitat: Global warming and increased oil development.

A petition seeking protection for the Pacific walrus was submitted by the Center back in February 2008. After the USFWS failed to respond to the petition, the Center filed a lawsuit - prompting the USFWS to take action.

Alaskan Oil Fields Spill Risk

Joshua S Hill — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:48:56 +0000

“We’re not antidevelopment. We’re not antigrowth. But this is just stupid.”

How many times has that been muttered over the past few years, in an attempt to bring a semblance of common sense to the world?

The answer is, obviously, far too many. But nevertheless it has once again been spoken by Margaret Williams of the World Wildlife Fund in Alaska in response to the leasing of millions of offshore acres for petroleum development in the Chukchi Sea, off Alaska.

Like a ‘Just-This-Once’ Addict

Shirley Siluk Gregory — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:04:56 +0000

Never mind the ever-accelerating signs that the Earth is being stressed to multiple tipping (or breaking) points: rising atmospheric carbon dioxide, acidifying oceans, threatened fisheries, dwindling water resources. Like an addict who’s spiraling out of control, the world’s powers-that-be seem hellbent on taking a “just-this-once” approach toward meeting short-term needs rather than achieving long-term solutions.

Arctic becoming the canary in the coal mine for climate change? But oil has briefly hit $100 per barrel and the U.S. economy is tanking. So let’s hold the first-ever oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea … just this once.

Canada’s Boreal Forest a carbon sink twice as powerful as the forests of the tropics? But rising fuel prices have suddenly made it profitable to tap the region’s vast reserves of tar sands … just this once.

Discovering that the coldest, most pristine place on Earth — Antarctica — might also harbor a wealth of oil and gas reserves? Let’s tiptoe around the continent’s edges trying to establish rights to resources below the seabed … just this once.

The list of “just-this-once” announcements from the past few months alone could go on and on, but would make for even more disheartening reading.

For the individual human addict, help sometimes comes in the form of an intervention from friends and loved ones who hope to confront the “just-this-once” behavior before it collapses into outright personal destruction. For an addicted human civilization, though, who will intervene?

Photo courtesy of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via Wikimedia Commons.