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The Alaska Board of Game is considering a proposal for three consecutive bear hunts (Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022) on the Alaska Peninsula, where bear populations have been declining for the past twenty years. The proposal comes after a teleconference in which hunters (including out-of-state hunters) and guides lobbied for increased bear hunts in 2021 to compensate for the …
Gray wolves once roamed most of North America. However, shortly after the arrival of European colonizers, the entire species faced widespread persecution. By the 1930’s, wolves were eradicated from most of the western U.S., largely due to aggressive predator control programs and habitat loss. In 1978, the gray wolf was classified as a federally endangered species, and starting in the …
It’s Endangered Species Day! And while the endangerment of a species is never something to celebrate, the species themselves and the legislation that protects them certainly is. Created in 1973, The Endangered Species Act (ESA) works to not only prevent the extinction of species, but also to protect the ecosystems on which they depend. Since signed into law, the ESA …
Morgan Stanley became the latest bank to pull out of Arctic drilling, when they released their revised policy at the end of April. They became the fifth major U.S. bank to announce it will no longer support drilling the arctic, following similar moves from Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, all in the space of four months. Bank …
People often ask why Alaska permits the killing of bears and wolves by state personnel and public hunters. Much of the blame can be put on the Intensive Management law (IM), which reads, “the Alaska Board of Game shall adopt regulations to provide for intensive management programs to restore the abundance or productivity of identified big game populations as necessary …
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been much in the news lately. A valuable tool to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitat, the ESA protects over 21 species in Alaska alone, from the Aleutian shield fern to the polar bear. The ESA stands as bedrock environmental law for nearly 50 years, and is credited with the rebound of …
The Willow Master Development Plan is a proposal by ConocoPhillips to build up to five drill sites (with up to 50 wells each!), a processing facility, gravel roads, pipelines, and a mine, all in Alaska’s Western Arctic. Why is this a problem? The proposed project is MASSIVE, and will have enormous impacts on wildlife, waterways, food access, and human health. …
Last year, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game lifted all harvest limits for the wolf trapping season on and around Prince of Wales Island in the Tongass National Forest. The result? 97% of the wolf population was killed in the 2019-2020 trapping season, some 165 wolves. If the quota had remained in place, only 34 wolves would have legally …
Kenai Fjords National Park.. where mountains, ice and ocean meet. This national park covers over 1,000 square miles of the Kenai Peninsula in south-central Alaska, and contains the Harding Icefield, from which over 40 glaciers flow! The park gets its name from the numerous fjords these glaciers form as they flow from icefield to sea. Though the park is over …
Did you know that Wrangell-St Elias National Park is six times bigger than Yellowstone? At 13.2 million acres, America’s largest national park is HUGE! Four major mountain ranges converge in this wilderness, and the park boasts peaks up to 18,000 feet tall. Wrangell is also home to the country’s largest glacier system (35% of the park is glacier!), and North …