Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is still coveted by oil drillers in spite of unknown quantity of oil that may or may not lie underneath its surface. Presidential candidate George W. Bush and Alaska senator Frank Murkowski are all for it. Disagreement between two Indian tribes complicates the picture.  For the Arctic village Gwich'in, the traditional caribou calving grounds are sacred, but a lot of the land is owned by Inuit from Kaktovik who hunt bowhead whales and have ties to the oil industry.  They fear offshore drilling will cause the whales to move away and would prefer to collect royalties from drilling on the critical coastal plain.  The big hope is that Bill Clinton will declare the coastal plain (which is not protected like the rest of the refuge) a National Monument which would preclude drilling.  Letters to the White House at Washington DC 20500 urging him to do so would help.

BC salmon farmers kill sea lions including endangered Steller sea lions.  British Columbia salmon farmers can get permission from the provincial government to kill seals and sea lions raiding the net pens in which they raise salmon for slaughter.  This has resulted in the deaths of 5,000 seals and sea lions over the past decade.  Of the 5,000 animals killed for taking advantage of the confined salmon, 500 were sea lions and 300 were endangered Steller sea lions.  (Canada does not have an endangered species act.) Fish farmers are being advised by the government to improve their pens to make it harder for these ocean mammals to get at the salmon.  Like all factory farms, fish farms are a source of pollution.

Pacific leatherback turtles close to extinction.  Researchers estimate that at the present rate of decline only 50 female turtles will come ashore to deposit their eggs at Playa Grande, Costa Rica in 2010, and that's not enough to sustain the population in the wild.  In 1988-89, 1,367 females nested at Playa Grande, but only 117 in 1998-99.  On Mexican beaches the population was less than 250 in 1998-99, down from 70,000 in 1982.  Richard Reina, a marine biologist at Drexel University, called for reforms in the fishing industry.  As it is fishers are paid by the boatload, they are reluctant to take time to free entangled turtles.  In the meantime, he  urged governments to continue to protect nesting beaches and support hatcheries.  Mature leatherback turtles are five feet long and weigh an average 1000 pounds.

Federal Court stops Makah whale hunt pending review!!!
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected the environmental assessment on which the government based permission for the hunt.  The 2-1 decision will force the National Marine Fisheries Service to consider effects on resident gray whales and other environmental effects before the hunt can be resumed during the fall migration.  The Makah consider this a temporary set back which does not affect their treaty right to kill whales.

Effect of livestock grazing on pronghorn antelopes.  In a letter in The Atlantic, December 1999, Barry Reiswig of the National Elk Refuge commented on the period (1989-1994) of his management of Hart Mountain National Antelope Wildlife Refuge "when livestock grazing was removed from the refuge".  An intensive 3-year aerial study of 10,000 locations "found little antelope use of areas grazed by livestock.  We also completed a number of studies on desert trout and songbirds and found that grazing over the past century had devastated habitat for these species, which resulted in dramatic declines in their numbers".
  The elimination of grazing was "exactly what was needed to manage the refuge for its intended purpose: as a home for beasts of the land and birds of the sky".

First International Ocean Wilderness  A group of scientists and celebrities has petitioned Canada's Prime Minister Jean Chretien and US President Bill Clinton to declare the ocean off New England and the Maritime provinces an ocean wilderness in which no industrial fishing, mining, oil drilling, fish farming or other activities that remove wildlife or damage the habitat that supports them would be permitted.  The object is to understand ocean ecosystems and preserve them by putting a stop to their exploitation.

Japan admits (boasts?) killing 6 minke, 4 Bryde's and 1 sperm whale since July.  Nine countries, including the United States, have registered a formal protest and international groups, including Japan's Dolphin and whale Action Network, continue to protest.  It is now necessary that the US carry out its threat of sanctions to protect endangered species as required by the Pelly Amendment. A separate letter (or postcard) to the White House would help.  It was largely due to Japan's vote-buying from poor countries that the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was voted down at the IWC meeting in July.

Low frequency sonar has been implicated in the dath of yet another wahle off the coastof Scotland where naval vessels were condcting NATO exercises offering further proof, as if any were needed, that LFS is harmful to whales.

Hawaian Judge Alan C. Kay entered an order of July 10 denying the Hawai'i County Green Party motion to reopen the 1998 case brought against the US Navy and other defendants challenging the testing of low frequency sonar off the coast of Hawai'i.  He observed that the navy had ceased those operations of Hawai'i and that the case could be appealed if they were to resume.

Texas had the opportunity tosave shrimp and sea turtles at the same time by enacting a proposal for a "no shipping" zone for 5 miles off the coast.  The shrimp catch declined and 450 turtles washed up dead on the shore last year.  The proposal was gutted with the support of Governor George W Bush.

Restored California condor population threatened.  To begin with, there are only 169 of these birds still in existence.  When biologists decided there was a better chance of saving them by starting a captive breeding program, there were only 27.  Of the 104 young birds released in California and Arizona, 35 have died.  Five have died so far this year of lead poisoning from dining on carcasses contaminated by lead buckshot.  There is also concern that some of the birds hatched in incubators and fed via hand puppet resembling  their parents are too habituated to humans causing additional concern that the parent-raised birds will adopt their habits.  They have even approached people at campsites for food.

Summer 2000"C-Paper"         Winter 2000-01 "C-Paper"

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