Walruses Feel the Heat, Too

The Chukchi Sea is home to more than polar bears, while they have been receiving the bulk of the attention most recently in this region. Walruses have been congregating in large numbers on islands and on the shores of the Chukchi Sea in Russia, and thus overcrowding them. The lack of summer sea ice has given them no place to haul out and rest.

The problem is that when frightened, the walruses stampede and many get squashed to death. The recent mortality was said to be 3,000 to 4,000 mostly young.

If ice continues to decline in summers, as expected, walruses will be putting much greater pressure on near land underwater feeding areas. Walruses are already dying from global warming; the loss of Arctic sea ice which walruses use to rest, led to overcrowding on land.

Yet another reason to petition Dirk Kempthorne to halt the oil and gas lease sale set to occur on February 6.

 

Polar Bear Decision Delayed, Oil & Gas Lease Sales Set to Go…

 

The polar bear was once the world’s mostformidable predator. It now lies on the brink of extinction due to global warming and habitat loss. The bear and its habitat stand to gain some protections under the Endangered Species Act this year, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was due to make a decision about its “threatened” status by this Wednesday. The Service has, however, delayed the listing for up to one month!

This leaves the bear and its habitat unprotected. Coincidentally, one of the largest oil and gas lease sales is set to occur on February 6, in the Chukchi Sea off of the northwest coast of Alaska – a region we will pay more and more attention to as our world warms and the sea opens up for potential large-scale exploration, I mean preservation… The Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service announced its plan to offer oil and gas exploration rights in February to 29.7 million acres in the remote Chukchi Sea off the northwest Alaskan coast. There are about 16,000 polar bears in the region. Such exploration would further stress the polar bear, and does nothing for our movement toward a clean energy future.

The timing raises suspicions that the Bush Administration is doing this in an effort to avoid scrutiny of oil and gas leases in polar bear habitat under the Endangered Species Act. Yes… and:

Both the decision to list the polar bear, and the decision to delay the oil and gas lease sale in the Chukchi Sea fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior. You can contact Dirk Kempthorne, Secretary of the Interior, and petition the DOI to halt the sale of oil and gas leases in this northern sea, if there really is no connection between the two…

Also: TheGreenMiles entry about this on DailyKos.