Some bird species using the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for breeding can be seen in Minnesota. Long-tailed Duck is one of them. Some Long-tails spend the winter on Lake Superior, and at times can be seen from various North Shore vantage points.

Ten Congressional Republicans, including our own Michelle Bachman, will be in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska this weekend. This is billed as a fact-finding trip. (The ANWR is sometimes pronounced as ann-whar.) The refuge is the subject of much debate over drilling for oil. These particular Congressmen/women strongly support drilling. And that should pose no problem for wildlife if you believe what House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said at a news conference this week. “We’re going to look at this barren, Arctic desert where I’m hoping to see some wildlife. But I understand there’s none there,” he said.

No wildlife in the wildlife refuge! Imagine that!

Unfortunately, this is essentially a fly-over visit for the Congressional party. Jimmy Fox, deputy manager of ANWR, said Thursday in a telephone interview that it is his understanding that Rep. Boehner, Rep. Bachman, and their associates will not set foot on the refuge, although they will spend a couple of hours in a village within the refuge.

Wouldn’t it be nice if they put on boots and tramped around on the tundra for a day or two, actually took a look at things? More value for dollars spent, you might say.

“We have no input in what they will see or do,” he said. “They basically come to us for information.” He said refuge personnel will accompany the Congressmen on the overflight. He was uncertain of the type of aircraft to be used, but guessed it would not be the slow, low-flying type of aircraft used for wildlife-management work. He did say that various wildlife lists would be included in the briefing packets each Congressmen will receive. We can only hope that Boehner and his colleagues pay attention to work done by his fellow government employees.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service notes that ANWR is inhabited by 45 species of land and marine mammals, 36 species of fish, and 180 species of birds. Not that it’s going to matter much, right?  For more on this issue seen Kenn Kaufman’s remarks at  http://www.kknature.com/CurrentTopics.html

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Bird conservation, Birds and politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.