Wildlife

"Green Groups See Legal Flaws In Trump's Plan For Arctic Refuge Drilling"

"The Trump administration’s effort to open up drilling across more than a million acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) faces significant legal hurdles, according to experts who are likely to assist in challenging the newly announced plan.

The Interior Department on Monday finalized plans to move ahead with a longstanding item on the GOP’s wishlist: allowing drilling in the Alaskan wilderness. The move could have dire consequences for polar bears, caribou, birds and other species that live in the coastal area in the northern part of ANWR.

Source: The Hill, 08/19/2020

"First U.S. Cases Of Coronavirus In Mink Found At Utah Fur Farms"

"Mink at two Utah fur farms have tested positive for the virus that causes covid-19 in humans, the Department of Agriculture said Monday, announcing the first U.S. cases in a species that has been widely culled in Europe following outbreaks there."

Source: Washington Post, 08/18/2020

Trump Finalizes Drilling Plan For Iconic Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

"The Trump administration finalized plans Monday to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, a move that will auction off oil and gas rights in the heart of one of the nation’s most iconic wild places. Achieving a goal Republicans have sought for 40 years, it marks a capstone for an administration that has ignored calls to reduce fossil fuel consumption in the face of climate change."

Source: Washington Post, 08/18/2020

Walruses Again Gather Much Earlier Than Usual At Alaska Beach Sites

"Pacific walruses have begun massing onshore in Alaska on a Chukchi Sea beach, one of the earliest of the now-annual congregations at that site yet recorded, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.

Walruses were spotted on July 29 a beach near the Inupiat village of Point Lay and numbered about 5,000 as of Aug. 5, said Andrea Medeiros, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Source: ArcticToday, 08/14/2020

"World’s Largest Reindeer Herd Targeted By Poachers For Antler Velvet"

"Illegal hunting for meat, fur, and newly grown antlers—along with the warming climate—are depleting wild reindeer on Russia’s Taymyr Peninsula."

"The scene was pure carnage. Dozens of reindeer carcasses were sprawled on the sandy shore of the Khatanga River or floating in the current toward the Arctic Ocean, as if the animals had drowned in mid-stream. The story of what actually befell these reindeer on the Taymyr Peninsula, in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region, however, was far more grisly.

Source: National Geographic, 08/12/2020

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