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BERING
SEA BIODIVERSITY ASSESSMENT
INITIATED
The
Center for Biological Diversity
has begun a year-long
study of state of biodiversity in
the Bering Sea.
The two million square kilometer
sea between
western Alaska
and eastern Siberia supports a
phenomenal array of
wildlife including the largest
multinational cluster
of seabirds in the world. Forty
three percent of
all U.S. breeding seabirds can
be found there.
It is also
home to bowhead whales, sperm
whales, humpback whales,
grey whales, orcas, Steller sea
lions, walruses,
Spectacled eiders, auklets,
salmon, sea otters
and king crab.
Learn
More About the Center's Alaska
Program
Learn More About the Center's Science
Program
PRINCE
WILLIAM SOUND ORCAS TO BE
PROTECTED
On
10-27-03, in response to a
petition filed by the
Center for Biological Diversity
and
seven other conservation
groups, the National
Marine
Fisheries Service proposed to
designate Alaska’s “AT1
population” of orcas as
“depleted” under
the Marine Mammal Protection
Act. Though significantly
less protective than the
Endangered Species Act,
the depleted listing will help
North America’s
most imperiled orca population
to recover from
a dramatic population
crash.
The AT1
orca population ranges from
Alaska’s
Prince William Sound to the Kenai
Fjords. It has declined
from at least 22 animals to just nine
over the past
13 years. Whether there is a single or
multiple causes
is uncertain, but the population was
heavily exposed
to crude oil during the 1989 Exxon
Valdez oil spill.
The Sound’s orcas rank among the
most contaminated
marine mammals ever measured. They are
also subjected
to underwater vessel noise disrupting
their hunting
patterns, and have suffered steep
declines in their
primary prey: harbor seals.
The Center will work to insure that the
Fisheries
Service finalizes the depleted
listing quickly and
that a conservation plan be designed
and implemented
immediately thereafter.
Learn
More About the Center's Alaska
Program
Learn More About the Center's Killer
Whale Campaign
LONG-TERM
TIMBER CONTRACTS CHALLENGED
The Center for Biological Diversity
and five other conservation groups,
filed suit to
reverse a U.S. Forest
Service decision to issue 10-year
timber contracts
in Alaska’s Tongass National
Forest. The contracts
allow timber companies to speculate by
buying timber
at dirt-cheap prices now and holding
onto it in hopes
that markets will improve over the
next ten years.
Long-term contracts like these
dominated forest management
on the Tongass for almost 50 years,
but ended in the
mid 1990's with the closure of the
Sitka and Ketchikan
pulp mills. The contracts resulted in
a huge maze of
logging roads and clearcuts across the
once pristine
Tongass and the loss of hundreds of
millions of U.S.
taxpayer dollars. The revival of
long-term contracts
is another example of the Bush
Administration catering
to timber interests to the detriment
of wildlife, recreation
and other forest values.
Joining the Center in the suit are
Greenpeace, the
Sitka Conservation Society, the Sierra
Club, the Southeast
Alaska Conservation Council and the
Natural Resource
Defense Council. Earthjustice is
representing the plaintiffs.
Learn
More About the Center's Alaska
Program
Learn More About the Center's Ancient
Forest Program
THREE
ALASKA TIMBER SALES CHALLENGED
To increase the logging levels, the
Bush Administration has been
releasing a flood of
new timber sales on Alaska’s
Tongass National Forest. The Center
for Biological
Diversity has appealed three of them
to protect wolves,
goshawks, grizzly bears, deer, and old
growth forests,
subsistence cultures and recreation
opportunities.
The Cholmondeley Timber Sale is
located in one of the
last major intact forest areas on the
heavily logged
Central Prince of Wales Island. The
Finger Mountain
Timber Sale, located on Chichagof
Island, will build
20 miles of new road, reconstruct 14
miles of road,
construct two log-transfer facilities
and clear-cut
pristine old-growth. The Madan Timber
Sale will punch
almost 19 miles of new logging road
into two pristine
watersheds and build two log-transfer
facilities. The
Madan area has an extensive network of
karst formations,
including limestone caves that may
pre-date the surrounding
glaciers.
Learn
More About the Center's Alaska
Program
Learn More About the Center's Ancient
Forest Program
Click
now and become a member of the Center
for Biological
Diversity, and ensure a future for
wildlife and habitat.
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