Keep Arctic Wildlife Safe from Drilling Rigs
Laced with lakes and lagoons, the western Arctic is home to millions of birds that learn to fly in the land of the midnight sun, and make their way thousands of miles across Alaska and Canada, many of them reaching our backyards.
In addition to birds, the Arctic reserve is home to a dizzying display of wildlife - polar bears, wolves, caribou, brown bears and foxes. But this region has been set aside as a national petroleum reserve, and the Obama administration is now working on a plan that will determine where to drill.
Fortunately, this reserve is large enough for oil development but it must be done right. Tell the NPR-A Planning Team, before the October 1st comment deadline, to keep oil development outside key wildlife habitat areas.
Dear NPR-A Planning Team,
Please protect sensitive bird and wildlife habitat in the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska, the "Western Arctic Reserve". Teshekpuk Lake has been recognized as a special area that should be protected from oil and gas development, but there are other special areas of the Reserve that are also essential habitat for the animals that thrive in the western arctic. We urge you to give these areas the highest protections so that fish and wildlife habitat is not despoiled or fragmented by development.
[Your comment will be inserted here]
Given the dangerous history of oil drilling on Alaska's Arctic slope, we ask that you keep Teshekpuk Lake and all of the other BLM and citizen-nominated special areas permanently off-limits to oil drilling. Polar Bears, caribou and millions of songbirds, waterbirds, and waterfowl breed in the Reserve. Please make wildlife preservation a priority of your planning for the Western Arctic and the NPR-A.
