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| credit: National Geographic |
More: The White House has delayed its decision on the proposed pipeline to beyond the November election, raising the probability that a Repugnant president will approve the pipeline should the current occupant fail. The delay is reportedly to allow the State Department to study an alternative route for the international project that avoids crossing the environmentally sensitive Nebraska Sand Hills and Ogallala Aquifer. Nebraska politicians, lead by the state governor, have been vocal about their opposition to the current route. US Department officials acknowledged the outpouring of concern from the state and the nation about the environmental risks of a pipeline that would carry a hot slurry of toxic bitumen. The State Department's Inspector General
has announced it will investigate allegations of conflict of interest and improper political influence in preparation of the project's environmental impact statement. Two large demonstrations have taken place in sight of the White House opposing the project. At least a thousand protesters have been arrested.
{10.11.11}Readers of this space know
{"Keystone XL"} that the bitumen development in northern Alberta is ripping up the boreal forest
[photo], home to numerous species including the woodland caribou. Humans like to eat woodland caribou (a type of elk) and their dwindling numbers are causing concern among Canadian wildlife officials. Rather than blame the lost of caribou habitat to human development, Canadian officials are exterminating the historical culprit, the grey wolf. Five hundred wolves in Alberta's Smoky River region have been poisoned in a mind-bogglingly misguided attempt* to save the caribou. Ed Struzik, a Canadian who has written extensively on the Arctic and the environment, says $1 million has been spent extermination wolves with strychnine and aerial gunning in Alberta. Two caribou herds are being squeezed by the massive open pit mining operation to remove tar sands. Their plight is typical of caribou herds worldwide. Thirty-four of the forty-three major herds scientists have studied are in decline. Numbers have been reduced by 57% from historical peaks, and scientists say the declines are directly attributable to human exploitation of resources in the far north and global warming. Hunting plays only a minor role in depleting beleaguered populations. Caribou or reindeer have inhabited the far north for 1.6 million years and their evolutionary adaptation has made them well suited to cold conditions, even to the extent of endowing them with ultraviolet sight that allows them to spot predators against a blinding white backdrop of snow. But rapid global warming is
disrupting the animal's ability to survive.
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| Rangifer tarandus caribou |
Added to this existential threat is the unprecedented upheaval of the boreal forest to feed Americans' inability to see beyond their SUVs. The tar sands extend over an area the size of New York state. If the entire area is developed, as oil companies would like, the woodland caribou is certain to disappear. The Alberta Caribou Committee, dedicated to preserving the caribou, says three of the provinces 18 herds are in danger of vanishing because of loss of habitat. Wildlife officials engaged in the wolf extermination admit habitat protection is absolutely essential, yet wolves still take the brunt of man's mismanagement of natural resources. In Alberta's old growth forests, prime habitat for caribou and wolves, there are according to Struzik 34,773 wells, 66,489 kilometers of seismic lines, 11,591 kilometers of pipeline and 12,283 kilometers of roads. Vast areas have also been logged. All of this human disturbance favors other herbavore species who rely on open areas for browse and increases the number of predatory wolves. Canadian biologists have been warning for years about the effects of fracturing the boreal forest, but the warnings have gone unheeded by a government faced with the prospect of billions in oil revenue.
*Canadians are not alone in their biological delusions. The depleted salmon runs of the American northwest are primarily due to human develop of hydropower on the region's once prolific spawning rivers. Yet state wildlife officials and commercial fishing interests want to cull protected sea lions that are observed having the audacity to eat one of man's favorite sea foods below the dams he built which prevent the fish from reproducing in historic numbers. Damn removals have been too few and far between to have significant ameliorative effect.
