Another example of the vast right-wing consp... that is, the liberal left-wing med...

[Colibri]

I’m kind of curious about one aspect of this that has not been addressed by either The Washington Post or Snopes: The claim is made by Thomas that he posted 20,000-30,000 maps on the USGS web site over the course of three years, or over 25 maps per work-day, or one every 20 minutes of an eight-hour day. I assume these must have been reposted from other sources, but that still seems like an incredible rate. Is there any verification of this? Did the USGS in fact take them all down? And if so, what is their explanation of that?

Ok, I’ll accept that the Bush adminstration itself didn’t have anything directly to do with Thomas’ early termination. However, it also seems to me that his “firing” was based on politics rather than any substantive wrongdoing by Thomas. His bosses panicked due to the perceived political sensitivity of the issue - they were trying to cover their own butts. I doubt very much that Thomas’ “errors” would have been punished in this fashion, or noticed, if Gore had won the election. Obviously they would have been better off just allowing Thomas to finish out his final three weeks.

The notion that maps placed on the web would routinely be “peer-reviewed” strikes me as nonsense. My guess is that many of the other maps posted by Thomas would have been just as out-of-date or inaccurate as the caribou one. I have little doubt that much of the info posted on U.S. Govenrment sites has never actually been through a peer review process.

[Colibri]

Although RTA’s statements may have been made in the absence of actual knowledge on his part, they are in fact supported by a substantial body of research. manhattan’s attack is unwarranted, at least in terms of the facts of the matter.

Based on my survey of Biological Abstracts for the past 10 years, the following articles are relevant to the “discussion” (I use the word loosely):

Wolfe et al. 2000. Response of reindeer and caribou to human activities. Polar Research 19:63-73.

[The authors] present a survey of the literature that has investigated the response of reindeer/caribou to human activities. Individuals and groups of reindeer/caribou: 1) move away from point sources of disturbance; 2) increase activity and energy expenditure near disturbance; 3) delay crossing or fail to cross linear structures; 4) shift away from areas of extensive and intensive development; and 5) are killed by collisions with vehicles and by hunting along roads. Cows and calves during the calving season are the most easily disturbed group.

Cameron et al. 1992. Redistribution of calving caribou in response to oil field development on the Arctic Slope of Alaska. Arctic 45:338-342.

With construction of an oil field access road through a calving concentration area, mean caribou density (no/km2) decreased from 1.41 to 0.31 within 1 km and increased from 1.41 to 4.53 5-6 km from the road. Concurrently, relative caribou use of the adjacent area declined, apparently in response to increasing surface development. We suggest that perturbed distribution associated with roads reduced the capacity of the nearby area to sustain parturient females and that insufficient spacing of roads may have depressed overall calving activity. Use of traditional calving grounds and of certain areas within them appears to favor calf survival, principally through lower predation risk and improved foraging conditions.

Nelleman and Cameron. 1998. Cumulative impact of an evolving oil field complex on the distribution of calving caribou. Canadian Journal of Zoology 76:1425-1430.

We investigated changes in distribution and terrain use of calving barren-ground caribou with increasing density of roads in the Kuparuk Development Area, an oil-field region near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. . . .Our results show that (i) females and calves are far more sensitive to surface development than adult males or yearlings; (ii) the greatest incremental impacts are attributable to initial construction of roads and related facilities; (iii) the extent of avoidance greatly exceeds the physical “footprint” of an oil-field complex. A disproportionate reduction in the use of foraging habitats within the Kuparuk Development Area, combined with decreasing tolerance of the expanding industrial complex, may explain the recent displacement of some calving activity to areas farther inland, and in part, to lower fecundity. Possible consequences include heightened competition for forage, increased risk of predation, and lower productivity of the herd.

Whitten et al. 1991. Productivity and early calf survival in the Porcupine caribou herd. Journal of Wildlife Management 56:201-212.

The authors found 68-90% of calves were born within or adjacent to the coastal area proposed for petroleum leasing and development. Predation was the major cause of calf mortality after the first 48 hours, and mortality increased toward the higher terrain away from the coastal plain. “We conclude that if petroleum development displaces calving from the coastal plain, calf mortality likely will increase.”

Bradshaw et al. 1997. Effects of petroleum exploration on woodland caribou in northeastern Albert. Journal of Wildlife Management 61:1127-1133.

Experimental exposure to simulated petroleum exploration (i.e loud noise) caused caribou to move significantly faster (although not farther) and cross habitat boundaries significantly more than controls. The authors suggest such behavior could result in higher energy expenditure during winter.

James and Smith. 2000. Distribution of caribou and wolves in relation to linear corridors. Journal of Wildlife Management 64: 154-159.

The authors found that caribou mortality attributed to wolf predation was significantly higher near linear corridors (roads, trails, seismic lines, and pipeline corridors). They conclude that increased industrial activity could have a significant effect on caribou population dynamics by increasing predation.

Cameron et al. 1995. Abundance and movements of caribou in the oilfield complex near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Rangifer 15:3-7.

Both abundance and lateral movements of female caribou were significantly lower within the area of Prudhoe Bay oilfield complex. “Impaired access to this area constitutes a functional loss of habitat.”

Bradshaw et al. 1998. Energetic implications of disturbance caused by petroleum exploration to woodland caribou. Canadian Journal of Zoology 76:1319-1324.

On five occasions between 1988-1993, disturbance rates from oil exploration were at a level expected to result in caribou in winter losing more than 15% of their autumn mass. There were four occasions when the rate exceeded the lower limit of the level expected to cause loss of more than 20% of their autumn mass.

[manhattan]

Oh, there’s no argument at all that development affects caribou. It’s unanimous—development does. The question on the table is whether the amount of development that would likely take place on the 1002 would harm the populations.

And, as I indicated, the jury is still out. There are several things going on here:

1. Caribou are jittery creatures and especially eschew places where humans settle (whether those humans are oilmen or Gwitchen or tourist-hunters or whoever.

2. Caribou are fairly adaptable, and frequently change migration routes in response to food availability, weather, mosquito populations, settlements, predators or what have you. (Anyone who has tried to depopulate an area of deer is familiar with this phenomenon – they’re like rats in that you just can’t get rid of them.)

3. The available data on those herd populations which have had interactions with petroleum development projects suggests that the caribou have made sufficient adaptations to allow for substantial and sustained herd growth.

4. The 1002 is different, since the Porcupine herd is quite large and their sea-side post-calving area is fairly small (although their mountainside post-calving area is fairly extensive, and is not a likely target for petroleum projects). This would seem to indicate, at least on the surface, that the Porcupine herd is at higher risk than the West Arctic or Central Arctic herds were in the face of similar development initiatives.
   So, where are we? Well, developers have learned a variety of “tricks” to minimize the direct impact of roads and pipelines on migration patterns (keeping pipelines 100 M away from the roads, spacing out roads and keeping them non-parallel, etc.)

As for the production facilities themselves, slant-drilling techniques mean that there will be far fewer footprints per play than prior developments (the exact amount will have to wait for further seismic data – industry has a few test wells up there, but most of the inland seismic data is more than a decade old).

Keep in mind, too, that development activities would take place during the winter months (when it is possible to build ice roads to bring in material), whereas the caribou use the proposed development areas primarily during the summer post-calving season. So whilst they will be disturbed by structures and bare-bones maintenance activities, the bulk of actual development/production would occur while they are in the south.

For folks just getting into this issue, Here is a sensible and helpful overview of what caribou are, what drives migration, etc. Just ignore the groaner about the rumored herd of eight reindeer living at the north pole.

And here is a level-headed discussion of development effects specifically applied to caribou, along with some proposed mitigation techniques, from the North Shore projects.

This may be worthy of another thread – as I say, I think the jury is still out regarding caribou, and I have some concerns about polar bears abandoning their dens before cubs are sufficiently mature that I haven’t seen addressed to my satisfaction. (Colibri, since you access to the abstracts, could you run a search on that? I’d appreciate it). But my points in this thread – that the simple existence of caribou in a proposed development project is insufficient to oppose that project and that the threat of harm to caribou is not substantiated by the experience of prior development projects in caribou habitats – stand.
P.S. Aside to Kimstu: Whilst I have every confidence that the Canadian’s concerns about ANWR development are real and heartfelt, you should know they’ve been trying to get someone to bite on that worthless Alberta sands thing for years. I don’t even think I can count the number of people who have lost money on one hare-brained scheme or another to convert that stuff to oil at a decent cost (What was the big public company that was claiming they found a way in the late ‘80s? I forget). Maybe when oil reaches a sustained price of USD 50/bbl or if the technology catches up, someone will actually put development dollars into that and get some usable oil.

[Colibri]

*Originally posted by manhattan *
. . .I have some concerns about polar bears abandoning their dens before cubs are sufficiently mature that I haven’t seen addressed to my satisfaction. (Colibri, since you access to the abstracts, could you run a search on that? I’d appreciate it).

.

Here y’go, manny. This is from another search of Biological Abstracts for the past 10 years.

Amstrup, Steven. 1993. Human disturbances of denning polar bears in Alaska. Arctic 46:246-250

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) give birth in dens of snow and ice. The altricial neonates cannot leave the den for > 2 months post-partum and are potentially vulnerable to disturbances near dens. The coastal plain (1002) area of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) lies in a region of known polar bear denning and also may contain > 9 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Polar bears in dens could be affected in many ways by hydrocarbon development, but neither the distribution of dens nor the sensitivity of bears in dens has been known. I documented the distribution of dens on ANWR between 1981 and 1992 and observed responses of bears in dens to various anthropogenic disturbances. Of 44 dens located by radiotelemetry on the mainland coast of Alaska and Canada, 20 (45%) were on ANWR and 15 (34%) were within the 1002 area. Thus, development of ANWR will increase the potential that denning polar bears are disturbed by human activities. However, perturbations resulting from capture, marking, and radiotracking maternal bears did not affect litter sizes or stature of cubs produced. Likewise, 10 of 12 denned polar bears tolerated exposure to exceptional levels of activity. This tolerance and the fact that investment in the denning effort increases through the winter indicated that spatial and temporal restrictions on developments could prevent the potential for many disruptions of denned bears from being realized.

Amstrup and Gardner. 1994. Polar bear maternity denning in the Beaufort Sea. Journal of Wildlife Management 58: 1-10

Bears followed to > 1 den did not reuse sites and consecutive dens were 20-1,304 km apart. However, radio-collared bears were largely faithful to substrate (pack-ice, land, and land-fast ice) and the general geographic area of previous dens. Bears denning on land may be vulnerable to human activities such as hunting and industrial development. However, predictable denning chronology and lack of site fidelity indicate that many potential impacts on denning polar bears could be mitigated.

Blix and Lentfer. 1992. Noise and vibration levels in artificial polar bear dens as related to selected petroleum exploration and developmental activities. Arctic 45(1): 20-24

The noise and vibration levels resulting from seismic testing, drilling and transport were measured in artificial polar bear dens at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska (USA). It was concluded that the dry and wind-beaten arctic snow muffles both sound and vibrations extremely well and it seems unlikely that polar bears in their dens will be disturbed by the type of petroleum-related activities measured here, providing those activities do not take place within 100 m of the den.

**Linnell et all. 2000. How vulnerable are denning bears to disturbance? Wildlife Society Bulletin. 28: 400-413.

When exposed to human disturbance, most large carnivores are able to move away from the source with little energetic cost. Bears represent an exception in that during winter, most individuals spend several months in an energy-saving state of hibernation in a den. This implies that disturbance of denning bears has the potential to have a large energetic cost, although data on the subject are rather diffuse. We reviewed the literature on densite selection, denning physiology, and responses to disturbance for the brown bear (Ursus arctos), black bear (U. americanus), and polar bear (U. maritimus). Generally, bears select dens one to 2 km from human activity (roads, habitation, industrial activity) and seemed to tolerate most activities that occurred more than one km from the den. Activity closer than one km and especially within 200 m caused variable responses. Some bears tolerate disturbance even inside the den, but bears will abandon dens in response to activity within this zone, especially early in the denning period. . . .There is often some distance between an individual bear’s consecutive dens. This indicates that loss of a single denning area following human disturbance will not always lead to deleterious effects, if alternative denning areas are available within the home range.

However, the most severe effects of increased petroleum development on polar bears is likely to be indirect, through climate change:

Stirling and Derocher. 1993. Possible impacts of climatic warming on polar bears. Arctic 46: 240-245

If climatic warming occurs, the first impacts on polar bears (Ursus maritimus) will be felt at the southern limits of their distribution, such as in James and Hudson bays, where the whole population is already forced to fast for approximately four months when the sea ice melts during the summer. Prolonging the ice-free period will increase nutritional stress on this population until they are no longer able to store enough fat to survive the ice-free period. Early signs of impact will include declining body condition, lowered reproductive rates, reduced survival of cubs, and an increase in polar bear-human interactions. Although most of these changes are currently detectable in the polar bears of western Hudson Bay, it cannot yet be determined if climatic change is involved. In the High Arctic, a decrease in ice cover may stimulate an initial increase in biological productivity. Eventually however, it is likely that seal populations will decline wherever the quality and availability of breeding habitat are reduced. Rain during the late winter may cause polar bear maternity dens to collapse, causing the death of occupants. . . . Should the Arctic Ocean become seasonally ice free for a long enough period, it is likely polar bears would become extirpated from at least the southern part of their range. If climatic warming occurs, the polar bear is an ideal species through which to monitor the cumulative effects in arctic marine ecosystems because of its position at the top of the arctic marine food chain.

Stirling et al. 1999. Long-term trends in the population ecology of polar bears in western Hudson Bay in relation to climatic change. Arctic52: 294-306.

From 1981 through 1998, the condition of adult male and female polar bears has declined significantly in western Hudson Bay, as have natality and the proportion of yearling cubs caught during the open water period that were independent at the time of capture. Over this same period, the breakup of the sea ice on western Hudson Bay has been occurring earlier. There was a significant positive relationship between the time of breakup and the condition of adult females (i.e., the earlier the breakup, the poorer the condition of the bears). The trend toward earlier breakup was also correlated with rising spring air temperatures over the study area from 1950 to 1990. We suggest that the proximate cause of the decline in physical and reproductive parameters of polar bears in western Hudson Bay over the last 19 years has been a trend toward earlier breakup, which has caused the bears to come ashore in progressively poorer condition. The ultimate factor responsible for the earlier breakup in western Hudson Bay appears to be a long-term warming trend in April-June atmospheric temperatures.

[manhattan]

Thanks, C! I guess it’s off to the 42nd St. branch next Tuesday. From the looks of the abstracts, the little bastids are more adaptable than I thought. It will be interesting to read some of the articles.