A
N W R
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
A Memoir
©2001 Doug Plummer
The Arctic. Just the name conjures up an exotic, far-away landscape, hard to visit, harsh and dangerous.
ANWR--Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--a political football, rich subject of propaganda for both Arco and Greenpeace. What's really up there? And what is at stake?
In my youth (1985), I spent a summer in ANWR, as part of a bird research study. Ten weeks camped a half-mile from the Arctic Ocean, the sun spinning circles 24 hours a day over our heads, I fell deep in love with this precious place. There is nowhere else like it on earth. And that is not hyperbole, or propaganda. It is one man's experience.
For most of the year the refuge is frozen tundra. But during the summer, the land wakes up and speeds through a hyperactive rush. It is like distilled essence of summer, it all happens so fast. At the end of May there is still landfast ice on all the water, snow squalls race through a dirty low sky, and and an endless parade of birds, hurried by the incessant wind, flies eastward along the shore. Flocks of brant, white fronted geese, terns, loons, falcons, shorebirds, ducks, owls—all converge on the tundra for a few brief weeks of hurried nesting.
A month later the land is full of peeping juvenile shorebirds, the flowers are in incandescent bloom, the bugs are in full attack mode, and the weather warms up to occasional t-shirt conditions. Early July the first migrants are departing already, for a slow migration back to Central America or wherever. By the end of the month the sun begins to dip below the horizon and the tundra turns red with fall color.
Ours was a bird study. We set up plots on different tundra types, and counted everything we found on them. Mostly this meant nest-hunting for camouflaged shorebird nests.
There's tremendous variety in what, from the air, looks like homogenous permafrost. Tiny variations in elevation and moisture creates distinct plant communities, which fit the requirements of different bird species.
A Buff-breasted Sandpiper , a rarely seen bird, lifts its winds and silently holds them, like some Tai-Chi master. This is its quiet courtship display.
A Red-throated Loon hides in the grass by a tundra pond, guarding its chick. The smallest loon, it nests on the tiny ponds where a Pacific or Common Loon lacks the "runway" length to land or take off.
How do you find nests in such a visually complicated environment? It's a skill that requires the concentration to watch, not where a bird flies to, but to look at where it flew from. Sometimes it's a species that flushes right from the nest and, there it is, a lovely clutch of eggs on the ground. More likely, a bird stealthy leaves its eggs and then flies off some yards away.
A Rock Ptarmigan, still in winter plumage, conspicuously displays and defends his territory. His mate, on a nest, is invisible on the vegetation. These birds sit tight and won't flush. Nest finding is a matter of looking at one's feet every now and again to see if there's a bird there.
Sandpipers are precocial nesters, meaning the young are mobile shortly after hatching. They remain in the nest for only a few hours, which means finding nestlings to band is largely a serendipitous effort.
Jaeger nests are easy. The harder the parents are attacking you, the closer you are.
Jaegers are the supreme acrobatic predators of the tundra. Once they have their sights on a bird--it could be a longspur or a sandpiper--there is no suspense on the outcome. It might take five minutes or more, but a Jaeger could outfly any bird and eventually get it. Unlike hawks, they haven't sharp talons, but instead capture prey with their beak.
Our site was not near the calving ground of the Porcupine Herd, where tens of thousands of animals aggregate after a long migration across the Brooks Range. But strays would sometimes visit us. A particular caribou behavior (which inspired me to name my cat Boo) is that they're easily spooked, but then are immensely curious to then find out what it was that spooked them.
A herd of Pleistocene-looking Musk Oxen lived across the river from us all summer. Although I was never bold enough to experience this, every Musk Ox researcher I met had a tale of being chased into deep water by an aggressive male, lured too near by their seeming impassivity.
This small tundra grizzly suffered an encounter with a trio of bear scientists. Shot with a tranquilizer dart from a helicopter, she was poked, bled, tattooed, weighed, and fitted with a radio collar.
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6/21/85
The midnight sun in 10 minute increments, due north, over the Sadlerochit River.
The bird crew (me on right), going to work on a lovely June day.
Our camp, with Arctic mirage over the still air and cold ocean. Features that were over the horizon would hang upside-down in the sky.
Ah, the most abundant wildlife of the North. Actually, our camp on the coast was spared the worst of the bugs. Inland in more protected areas get the worst of the mosquito swarms.
The ubiquitous salix, or dwarf willow, that is the "forest" of the tundra. Growing thickly in the riparian areas (where we always had the richest concentrations on our bird counts), they provide essential cover for all wildlife. Those same riparian areas (only an infinitesimal fraction of the coastal plain) are also essential sources for the gravel that no oil infrastructure can build without.
So, what about the likely impact of oil development? The above shot shows the trails on the ANWR Coastal Plain left from winter seismic exploration, which the oil companies say is the time when no damage can occur. Yet you will see these trails for decades.
The oil companies also like to say that they've made great strides in the size of pads needed and that we can drill in many direction from one pad. Well and good, but a "minimal" drilling pad may still take up 60 acres, and there still needs to be a network of pipelines to gather the product. It's a little like saying that a drift net in the ocean has only a tiny footprint. There will be a lattice of development over the tundra that, in aggregate, may not be a lot of acreage, but that will have a devastating ecological footprint.
The coastal plain is the last great Wilderness. Every species that existed at the first European settlement is still there, intact. From ocean edge to continental divide. There's no place in North America that can claim the same.
It is a dangerous moment for this land. A man who promised during his campaign to drill and exploit this place is now President. A united Republican government, put in office by the energy corporations and committed to drilling in ANWR, is now in command.
Only Congress can authorize drilling in ANWR. They tried again and again during the last administration, only to be vetoed by Clinton. Only the outrage of the public now stands between an unsympathetic government and this last great place.
www.alaskacoalition.org is one of the primary advocates for Alaska public lands. THey've been at the forefront of the ANWR battles for years.
www.arcticwildlife.org is a small Oregon group (associated with the Alaska Coalition of Oregon) with a great site full of pro-protection information and high-bandwith flash movies and slideshows. Especially useful is the "Urgent Action" section.
www.arcticreflections.org/ is another personal travelogue site by a fisheries biologist who travels regularly to ANWR on his own time. Good stories and a broad array of photographs.
Alaska Wilderness League promotes legislative action to protect Alaska Wild places.
Northern Alaska Environment Center is a longstanding Alaska activist group.
Arctic Circle has a great informative site on ANWR
The Wilderness Society has, of course, an extensive Alaska activist section
Oil Development and Caribou Science is a paper on the impact of oil development and caribou biology, with extensive bibliography
ANWR.ORG is an oil company propaganda site. Much of it is deliberate disinformation or selective use of data, but it's an interesting insight into the development mentality.
The American Geology Institute's estimate of oil resources in ANWR. A useful analysis.
The Congressional Research Service has a hugely comprehensive brief on ANWR and all the conflicts. Very dense, but you'll feel like a well-informed citizen.
The USGS petroleum assessment for ANWR.
Senator Frank Murkowski's home page.
Write your Senator! The Senate home page.
Write your Congressperson! The House home page.
W's home page. For what it's worth.
The Canadian Government thinks drilling is a bad idea. Their statement.
The Fish and Wildlife Service's offical ANWR page is dead, but this is a mirror site with all the info. Good for planning a trip.
Planning a trip? Backpacker Magazine's
helpful hints.
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