It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
"Bears are not companions of men, but children of God, and His charity is broad enough for both... We seek to establish a narrow line between ourselves and the feathery zeros we dare to call angels, but ask a partition barrier of infinite width to show the rest of creation its proper place. Yet bears are made of the same dust as we, and breathe the same winds and drink of the same waters. A bears days are warmed by the same sun, his dwellings are overdomed by the same blue sky, and his life turns and ebbs with heart-pulsings like ours and was poured from the same fountain....." John Muir
Last week's local section of The Washington Post celebrated -- yes, celebrated -- the killing of a black bear by an 8-year-old girl. The compassionate among us mourned not just the cruel and completely unnecessary killing of one of nature's most fabulous creatures, but the love of violence and destruction instilled in this child by her family. That certain Americans sadly find valor in killing is beyond doubt. But in many ways, it's also beyond belief. That they would take pleasure in a wantonly destructive act and train this into an 8-year-old female heart is beyond forgiveness. We've heard it all before. Hunters love nature. Hunters work to preserve wildlife. Hunters are great stewards of the environment. Hunters eat what they kill. What was the justification here? That enough bears exist in Maryland to kill them off without destroying the species, as mankind once almost did. Only cowards could find solace, justification and pride in that. There's no sport in taking down a large, lumbering animal with a .243 caliber rifle, the kind used by the young girl portrayed in worshipful prose by the Post. That's the same caliber weapon NATO uses in its assault weapons. There's more technology than sport in today's high-powered, scoped weapons. (The Post did not report whether the rifle she used was scoped or not.)
Polar bears sometimes bludgeon walruses to death with stones or ice
It’s long been said that a piece of ice is the perfect murder weapon In this illustration, which appears in an 1865 book by adventurer Charles Francis Hall, a polar bear uses a rock as a tool to kill a walrus. Some have thought that Inuit reports of this behavior were just stories, but new research suggests not. CHARLES FRANCIS HALL, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Walruses, weighing as much as 1,300 kilograms with huge tusks and nearly impenetrable skulls, are almost impossible for a hungry polar bear to kill. But new research suggests that some polar bears have invented a work-around — bashing walruses on the head with a block of stone or ice.
For more than 200 years, Inuit in Greenland and the eastern Canadian Arctic have told stories of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) using such tools to aid in killing walruses. Yet explorers, naturalists and writers often dismissed such accounts, relegating them to myth along with tales about shape-shifting bears.
The persistence of these reports, including one report from an Inuk hunter in the late 1990s, coupled with photos of a male polar bear named GoGo at a Japanese zoo using tools to obtain suspended meat compelled Ian Stirling and colleagues to investigate further.
“It’s been my general observation that if an experienced Inuit hunter tells you that he’s seen something, it’s worth listening to and very likely to be correct,” says Stirling, one of the world’s leading polar bear biologists
The researchers reviewed historical, secondhand observations of tool use in polar bears reported by Inuit hunters to explorers and naturalists as well as recent observations by Inuit hunters and non-Inuit researchers and documented observations of GoGo and brown bears — polar bears’ closest relatives — using tools in captivity to access food. This review suggests that tool use in wild polar bears, though infrequent, does occur in the case of hunting walruses because of their large size, the researchers report in the June Arctic.
“Really, the only species you would want to bonk on the head with a piece of ice would be a walrus,” says Andrew Derocher, director of the Polar Bear Science Lab at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, who wasn’t involved with the new study. He suspects that it might just be a few polar bears that do this behavior. For example, if a mother bear figured out how to use ice or stone in this way, “it’s something her offspring would pick up on,” but not necessarily a skill polar bears across the Arctic would acquire, he says.
Among animals, using tools to solve problems has long been regarded as a marker of a higher level of what humans consider intelligence. Notoriously smart chimpanzees, for example, craft spears to hunt smaller mammals (SN: 2/28/07). Dolphins carry marine sponges in their mouths to stir sand and uncover prey (SN: 6/8/05). And elephants have been known to drop logs or large rocks onto electric fences to cut off the power supply.
Studies on the cognitive abilities of polar bears are lacking. “We don’t know anything experimental or objective at all,” Stirling says. “However, we have a great deal of observational information that tends to suggest polar bears are really smart.”
Members of the bear family, Ursidae, are typically assumed to have strong cognitive skills as a result oftheir large brains and evidenced by their sophisticated hunting strategies. Studies on captive American black bears have even revealed some mental capabilities that appear to exceed those of primates.
This sculpture in the Itsanitaq Museum in Churchill, Canada shows a polar bear lifting a block of ice above the head of a sleeping walrus.
GLORIA DICKIE
Gabriel Nirlungayuk, an Inuk hunter of Rankin Inlet in Nunavut, Canada, says he has heard such stories of polar bears using tools to hunt walruses. “I’ve seen polar bears since I was probably 7 years old. I’ve been around them, I’ve hunted alongside them, and I have seen their behaviors. The smartest hunters are usually the female bears.” Sometimes, he says, polar bears will trick young seals to come closer by pretending to be asleep in open water. Other times he’s observed that a polar bear can sniff out a seal’s breathing hole in ice, even if it’s obscured by snow.
“I have worked with the Inuit on traditional knowledge for a very long time and one of my favorite subjects is polar bears, because science often suggests one thing and the Inuit say another thing,” he notes.
There are around 26,000 wild polar bears living in 19 subpopulations across the Arctic and sub-Arctic. The bears primarily eat seals, hunting the marine mammals by staking out above their breathing holes. Because of climate change, Arctic sea ice is fast disappearing, and scientists predict that many polar bear populations will be extinct by the century’s end. Desperate polar bears may increasingly attack walruses, but “there are limitations to how many walruses an adult bear can take down,” says coauthor Kristin Laidre, an Arctic ecologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. It takes a lot of energy.
Following publication of the new study, Stirling received a video from U.S. Geological Survey scientist Anthony Pagano, based in Anchorage, Alaska, who had previously attached a GoPro camera to a wild polar bear for a separate project. That footage, Stirling says, shows a female polar bear sliding a large block of ice around before throwing it into the water at a seal.
Monday, June 19, 2023
HEY MISTER LEAVE THOSE BEARS ALONE
Why grizzly bears will start to be trapped in parts of Yellowstone
Hillary Andrews Sun, June 18, 2023
BOZEMAN, Mont. – Scientists will start capturing grizzly bears Monday to study in the greater Yellowstone National Park area. The baiting and trapping operations will continue through August 31 in parts of the Custer Gallatin National Forest as well as private lands.
"Research and monitoring of the grizzly bear population is vital to ongoing recovery and management of grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem," said the U.S. Forest Service in a statement.
Grizzlies, once found throughout western North America, were reduced to surviving in only 2% of their historic range by the 1960s, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1973, the Department of the Interior formed the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team and Committee.
The green represents the historic range of the Grizzlies and the yellow represents the species current range.
Its findings prompted the lower 48 to list the animal as threatened under the Endangered Species Act due to population and range reduction due to human impact in 1975.
"In the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Grizzly bear numbers had declined to perhaps fewer than 250," stated the USGS in a preservation video.
After almost 50 years of research, the bears are making a comeback. The USGS said it could be the largest collection of scientific evidence on any bear species in the world
A female grizzly bear exits Pelican Creek October 8, 2012 in the Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. "Today, the study team estimates that the population has rebounded to a minimum of 700," the USGS continued. "And these bears are now delisted from the Endangered Species Act, though much of the credit goes to the grizzly bear and its resilience over decades of management and landscape changes. Rigorous science that informs effective management decisions is also part of the equation."
Biologists will bait foot snares and culvert traps with natural food like road-kill elk and deer, the Forest Service said. Culvert traps are cages or enclosures with one open end that closes when the bait is pulled.
The committee recommends radio-collaring at least 25 adult females annually. They also collar male bears.
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING, UNITED STATES - 2017/06/02: A Mother Grizzly and her cub walk through a meadow in Yellowstone National Park. (Photo by Will Powers/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
"Data collected from radio-marked bears provide information necessary for tracking key population parameters," stated the USGS on its site. "By observing radio-collared bears, we document age of first reproduction, average litter size, cub and yearling survival, how often a female produces a litter, and causes of mortality. These data allow us to estimate survival among different sex and age classes of bears."
Grizzlies can weigh up to 600 pounds and eat over 200 food items, including plants, animals and fungi. A bear can live up to 30 years, but they reproduce slowly, said the USGS.
"Since the mid-1980s, science has shown that Yellowstone grizzly bears have increased in number and expanded their range, ensuring the future viability of grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem will require continued public engagement, along with the reliable scientific information that assists wildlife managers in conserving the Yellowstone grizzly bear," explained the USGS.
Officials placed bright yellow signs in baited areas.
The study team conducts similar capture operations in other national parks.
Bear with me here as I pun around some great news for Ursus Major. A sancturary for bears and the ancient forest has been declared in B.C.; Great Bear Rainforest.
In the 21st century, most mentions of polar bears conjure images of stranded bears, on exposed beaches or drifting ice sheets as glaciers melt away into the ocean. The harsh conditions of the rapidly-changing Arctic don’t make it easy for animals to raise the next generation of youngsters, and raising a polar bear cub is a lot of work.
However, polar bears do not meet any of these prerequisites for the evolution of alloparenting. They are solitary, live at low densities far from other groups, and raise cubs that impose a large energetic cost due to their prolonged care. So, why do they do it?
One possible explanation is that new moms gain valuable parenting experience through adoption, increasing the probability of success for a subsequent litter. But this doesn’t seem to be supported by research. The most likely explanation is that polar bears haven’t developed the cognitive ability to keep track of the number or identity of their own cubs. Solitary polar bears don’t cross paths very often, so it’s usually safe for a mother to assume that any cubs within an arm’s reach are hers… with the caveat that she won’t notice if one of her cubs has just wandered into the group and doesn’t belong. It’s also possible that mothers who have lost their own cubs recently are biologically predisposed to parenting, and will adopt any cubs that come her way as her own.
Either way, it looks like this curious case of cub adoption is just another example of an energetically costly mistake, rather than a heartwarming instance of altruism and concern. In the wild, it’s still every parent for themselves in the struggle to survive, and pass their genes to the next generation.
The Estimation of Survival and Litter Size of Polar Bear Cubs By: Douglas P. Demaster and Ian Stirling Bears: Their Biology and Management, Vol. 5, A Selection of Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Bear Research and Management, Madison, Wisconsin, USA, February 1980 (1983), pp. 260-263 International Association for Bear Research and Management
The Status and Conservation of Bears (Ursidae) of the World: 1970 By: I. McTaggart Cowan Bears: Their Biology and Management, Vol. 2, A Selection of Papers from the Second International Conference on Bear Research and Management, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 6-9 November 1970. IUCN Publications New Series no. 23 (1972), pp. 343-367 International Association for Bear Research and Management
Wabusk of the Omushkegouk: Cree-Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) Interactions in Northern Ontario By: Raynald Harvey Lemelin, Martha Dowsley, Brian Walmark, Franz Siebel, Louis Bird, George Hunter, Tommy Myles, Maurice Mack, Matthew Gull, Matthew Kakekaspan, The Washaho First Nation at Fort Severn and The Weenusk First Nation at Peawanuck Human Ecology, Vol. 38, No. 6 (DECEMBER 2010), pp. 803-815 Springer
MAX DELBRÜCK CENTER FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE IN THE HELMHOLTZ ASSOCIATION
IMAGE: GRIZZLY BEARS' MUSCLES MANAGE TO SURVIVE HIBERNATION VIRTUALLY UNHARMED. RESEARCHERS ARE TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE MECHANISMS BEHIND THIS ABILITY IN ORDER TO HELP BEDRIDDEN PATIENTS. view more
CREDIT: GOTTHARDT LAB, MDC
Grizzly bears spend many months in hibernation, but their muscles do not suffer from the lack of movement. In the journal "Scientific Reports", a team led by Michael Gotthardt reports on how they manage to do this. The grizzly bears' strategy could help prevent muscle atrophy in humans as well.
A grizzly bear only knows three seasons during the year. Its time of activity starts between March and May. Around September the bear begins to eat large quantities of food. And sometime between November and January, it falls into hibernation. From a physiological point of view, this is the strangest time of all. The bear's metabolism and heart rate drop rapidly. It excretes neither urine nor feces. The amount of nitrogen in the blood increases drastically and the bear becomes resistant to the hormone insulin.
A person could hardly survive this four-month phase in a healthy state. Afterwards, he or she would most likely have to cope with thromboses or psychological changes. Above all, the muscles would suffer from this prolonged period of disuse. Anyone who has ever had an arm or leg in a cast for a few weeks or has had to lie in bed for a long time due to an illness has probably experienced this.
A little sluggish, but otherwise fine
Not so the grizzly bear. In the spring, the bear wakes up from hibernation, perhaps still a bit sluggish at first, but otherwise well. Many scientists have long been interested in the bear's strategies for adapting to its three seasons.
A team led by Professor Michael Gotthardt, head of the Neuromuscular and Cardiovascular Cell Biology group at the Max Delbrueck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin, has now investigated how the bear's muscles manage to survive hibernation virtually unharmed. The scientists from Berlin, Greifswald and the United States were particularly interested in the question of which genes in the bear's muscle cells are transcribed and converted into proteins, and what effect this has on the cells.
Understanding and copying the tricks of nature
"Muscle atrophy is a real human problem that occurs in many circumstances. We are still not very good at preventing it," says the lead author of the study, Dr. Douaa Mugahid, once a member of Gotthardt's research group and now a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Professor Marc Kirschner of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
"For me, the beauty of our work was to learn how nature has perfected a way to maintain muscle functions under the difficult conditions of hibernation," says Mugahid. "If we can better understand these strategies, we will be able to develop novel and non-intuitive methods to better prevent and treat muscle atrophy in patients."
Gene sequencing and mass spectrometry
To understand the bears' tricks, the team led by Mugahid and Gotthardt examined muscle samples from grizzly bears both during and between the times of hibernation, which they had received from Washington State University. "By combining cutting-edge sequencing techniques with mass spectrometry, we wanted to determine which genes and proteins are upregulated or shut down both during and between the times of hibernation," explains Gotthardt.
"This task proved to be tricky - because neither the full genome nor the proteome, i.e., the totality of all proteins of the grizzly bear, were known," says the MDC scientist. In a further step, he and his team compared the findings with observations of humans, mice and nematode worms.
Non-essential amino acids allowed muscle cells to grow
As the researchers reported in the journal "Scientific Reports", they found proteins in their experiments that strongly influence a bear's amino acid metabolism during hibernation. As a result, its muscle cells contain higher amounts of certain non-essential amino acids (NEAAs).
"In experiments with isolated muscle cells of humans and mice that exhibit muscle atrophy, cell growth could also be stimulated by NEAAs," says Gotthardt, adding that "it is known, however, from earlier clinical studies that the administration of amino acids in the form of pills or powders is not enough to prevent muscle atrophy in elderly or bedridden people."
"Obviously, it is important for the muscle to produce these amino acids itself - otherwise the amino acids might not reach the places where they are needed," speculates the MDC scientist. A therapeutic starting point, he says, could be the attempt to induce the human muscle to produce NEAAs itself by activating corresponding metabolic pathways with suitable agents during longer rest periods.
Tissue samples from bedridden patients
In order to find out which signaling pathways need to be activated in the muscle, Gotthardt and his team compared the activity of genes in grizzly bears, humans and mice. The required data came from elderly or bedridden patients and from mice suffering from muscle atrophy - for example, as a result of reduced movement after the application of a plaster cast. "We wanted to find out which genes are regulated differently between animals that hibernate and those that do not," explains Gotthardt.
However, the scientists came across a whole series of such genes. To narrow down the possible candidates that could prove to be a starting point for muscle atrophy therapy, the team subsequently carried out experiments with nematode worms. "In worms, individual genes can be deactivated relatively easily and one can quickly see what effects this has on muscle growth," explains Gotthardt.
A gene for circadian rhythms
With the help of these experiments, his team has now found a handful of genes whose influence they hope to further investigate in future experiments with mice. These include the genes Pdk4 and Serpinf1, which are involved in glucose and amino acid metabolism, and the gene Rora, which contributes to the development of circadian rhythms. "We will now examine the effects of deactivating these genes," says Gotthardt. "After all, they are only suitable as therapeutic targets if there are either limited side effects or none at all."
###
Literature
Douaa Mugahid et al. (2019): "Proteomic and Transcriptomic Changes in Hibernating Grizzly Bears Reveal Metabolic and Signaling Pathways that Protect against Muscle Atrophy," Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-56007-8
Max Delbrueck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC)
The Max Delbrueck Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) was founded in Berlin in 1992. It is named for the German-American physicist Max Delbrueck, who was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. The MDC's mission is to study molecular mechanisms in order to understand the origins of disease and thus be able to diagnose, prevent, and fight it better and more effectively. In these efforts the MDC cooperates with Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) as well as with national partners such as the German Center for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK) and numerous international research institutions. More than 1,600 staff and guests from nearly 60 countries work at the MDC, just under 1,300 of them in scientific research. The MDC is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (90 percent) and the State of Berlin (10 percent), and is a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers. http://www.mdc-berlin.de
Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off by 2050 — and the entire population gone from Alaska — because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday.
Only in the northern Canadian Arctic islands and the west coast of Greenland are any of the world's 16,000 polar bears expected to survive through the end of the century, said the U.S. Geological Survey, which is the scientific arm of the Interior Department.
As climate change thins sea ice around the Arctic, making travel by snowmobile during the spring precarious even for practiced hunters, one solution may be to borrow technology from the swampy Everglades of Florida.
Arctic Kingdom Marine Expeditions is reporting success in using airboats to guide tours to the floe edge outside Pond Inlet this summer.
The estimate is based on a study of national and international computer models keeping the period 1979-1999 as a base. An earlier report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had found that sea loss was greater in the summer in Arctic Sea located north of Alaska, Canada and Asia.
The IPCC report had placed the blame on greenhouse gases and had said that unless these emissions were controlled, the Arctic Sea would almost disappear by the turn of the century.
About 40 percent of the floating ice that normally blankets the top of the world during the summer will be gone by 2050, says James Overland, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. Earlier studies had predicted it would be nearly a century before that much ice vanished.
"This is a major change," Overland said. "This is actually moving the threshold up.
"If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have said it wouldn't happen until 2070 or 2100," said Serreze, who was not involved in Overland's project.
Even a 40 percent loss of ice would be devastating to ice-dependent animals such as walruses and ringed seals, said Overland, who shared his data with federal officials considering an endangered-species listing for polar bears.
Gray whales will suffer if the ice-loving crustaceans they feed on disappear. But some commercially important fish species, like pollock and salmon, could thrive in warmer water — a possible boon for the Seattle-based fishing fleet that plies Alaska's Bering Sea. There are also hints, though, that the disappearance of ice would favor predators that undermine fisheries, Overland said.
Shipping will benefit if the Northwest Passage across the Canadian Arctic melts out each summer — as it did for the first time this year.
Of course that is why we are having the international race to declare sovereignty over the arctic because heck there is a silver lining to global warming after all.
"We think it's a great frontier ...." Fox says. "The belief is that about 25 percent of the world's remaining reserves are in the Arctic. And I think it's a major play for us."
Even the climate seemed to be cooperating with that major play. Polar ice retreated this summer from the spot where Shell plans to explore for oil.
Shell would hardly need its reinforced hulls, or rented Russian icebreakers.
The effects of burning fossil fuels today will extend long beyond the next couple of hundred years, possibly delaying the onset of Earth's next ice age, more properly called a glacial period, says researcher Toby Tyrrell of the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.
A tiny Alaska town is split over a gold mine. At stake is a way of life
This year, plans to open operations finally took a significant step forward when Dowa took over the majority interest in the project from its Canadian partner, exploration company Constantine.
LONG READ
Dominic Rushe in Haines, Alaska
THE GUARDIAN JUNE 22,2021
For 2,000 years, Jones Hotch’s ancestors have fished Alaska’s Chilkat River for the five species of salmon that spawn in its cold, clean waters. They have gathered berries, hunted moose and raised their families, sheltered from the extremes of winter by the black, saw-toothed peaks of the Iron Mountain.
Now Hotch fears a proposed mining project could end that way of life.
Hotch has an infectious, boyish laugh – but there is no mistaking how worried he is about plans to build a mine where millions pounds of zinc, copper, lead, silver and gold are buried, beneath the valleys’ mountains. We arejust miles from the headwaters of the Chilkat, the glacial river that serves as the main food source of the Tlingit, the region’s Indigenous people, as well as the inhabitants of Haines, the nearest port town.
“You guys might have your Safeway,” he says, waving his arm across the valley. “There’s ours all around here.”
Hotch, a tribal leader, lives in Klukwan, a village that takes its name from the Tlingit phrase “Tlakw Aan” – “the village that has always been”. It is the hub of an ancient trading route – later known as the Dalton Trail – that runs from Haines to Fort Selkirk in Canada.
Here in south-east Alaska, the consequences of the climate crisis are already visible. “Our mountains used to be snow-capped all year round,” Hotch said. “Two summers ago, our mountains were almost totally bare.” In Haines, hardware stores sold out of box fans because it was so hot.
King salmon – also known as Chinook – are in particular trouble. Haines’ popular annual fishing derby for largest species of Pacific salmon has been canceled, and now if anyone catches one, it must be released, in the hopes of encouraging their numbers.
“We need the snow to keep water cold for the salmon, for the summer blueberries,” says Hotch. Last year he saw fewer bumblebees, essential for pollination, and the blueberry crop was very disappointing. “I saw a bumblebee last week and I got real happy,” he laughs.
The mine, known as the Palmer Project, is still in the exploratory stage but financial control of the project was taken over by Dowa – a metals manufacturer and one of Japan’s largest companies – in a move that is seen as giving fresh impetus to the project.
If it gets approved, Hotch worries that contamination from the mine, located under the Saksaia glacier, could destroy the salmon runs they rely on. Even the exploration now under way could irreparably damage the fragile ecosystem, he believes, adding that the town would suffer too. Haines is heavily reliant on commercial salmon fishing, as well as tourism – each November, visitors flock to town to watch the largest convocation of bald eagles on the planet gorge on salmon.
“This project is a serious, significant threat facing our people,” says Hotch. “Some of the younger generation here now, they could say, ‘We were the last ones that were able to smoke fish, jar fish, pick blueberries,’” says Hotch. “We are working very hard to make sure no generation will have to say that.”
Mining has a long and storied history in the Chilkat Valley, stretching back all the way to the 1890s Klondike gold rush. Hopeful prospectors have been trying to strike it rich ever since Haines local Merrill Palmer – hence the name of the mine project – first laid claim to the site in 1969.
This year, plans to open operations finally took a significant step forward when Dowa took over the majority interest in the project from its Canadian partner, exploration company Constantine.
“It is a decision by an investor, already highly invested, to put in additional money to further develop it and take control of the project,” Jim Kuipers, a Montana-based consultant, told the Chilkat Valley News. “Every year the project continues to get financed and ownership gets more consolidated it does become more likely to happen.”
Along the banks of the Chilkat, there are already signs of increased activity. The Haines highway is being extended to carry heavy trucks at higher speeds, and the state-run Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (Aidea) is proposing financing reconstruction of the town’s deepwater dock to include an ore dock that would make it easier to transport the bounty that the Constantine corporation believes the mine contains.
The economic turmoil triggered by the coronavirus has added impetus to the plans. The unemployment rate in Haines was over 14% in January. Meanwhile, copper prices have soared to record levels as large parts of the global economy emerges from pandemic lockdowns. The Palmer project would support 220 full-time jobs and 40 contractors, a significant boost to a town with a population of 1,863.
‘What we have here is special, not just for us but for the world’
For Gershon Cohen, a long-time Haines resident and project director of Alaska Clean Water Advocacy, rumblings that the mine may finally become a reality are “a nightmare”.
Cohen moved to Haines in 1984 and lives surrounded by trees in a beautiful wooden house he built himself – nothing out of the ordinary for Haines’s hardy, self-sufficient residents. On a walk to the shed he uses as his outside office, his wife suggests he gives me the “moose and the bear” talk. I joke I am a little old for that, but the dangers of the area’s two largest mammals are very real. Bears are likely to sniff you coming from a mile off and leave before you ever see them, but moose are easier to surprise and likely to trample you if spooked.
This is still a wild place. A record 40 grizzlies were killed in Haines last year, perhaps because poor fish runs and a bad berry season drove them into town looking for food (they have also been kept out of the local dump by an electric fence.) Bears, however, are smart – they have learned to open car doors to look for food and are not averse to breaking and entering houses.
“What we have here is very special, not just for us but for America and the world,” said Cohen. “There is a very real possibility that this mine will destroy the fisheries here. With the fish gone, there will be no eagles, no bears, no tourists. If this mine gets started it’ll be here for what? Ten years? What’s that against thousands of years of supporting this community?”
Haines and Klukwan are part of the Inside Passage, the longest and deepest fjord in North America and a place with a unique ecology. Cold, glacial freshwater meets the sea here, making it the perfect spawning ground for salmon and a critical corridor for bears, moose, lynx, coyote and snowshoe hares.
“Part of what makes this place so full of life is the robust salmon runs,” says Shannon Donahue, executive director of the Great Bear Foundation. The salmon transport nutrients from the ocean to the streams, they feed the bears and the eagles and their bodies feed the forest. But salmon are “pretty picky about their habitat,” she says.
Copper in particular can be catastrophic for them. Salmon can travel thousands of miles to return to the stream where they were born to die, using a smell memory bank to navigate one of the greatest migrations in the animal kingdom.
Metals leaked into streams can destroy the fish’s ability to find their way home, and“fugitive dust” shaken from trucks transporting extracted minerals can also contaminate the waterways, eventually building up to levels that can destroy the salmon’s unique homing abilities.
The mine’s supporters believe they can safely extract the Palmer Projects riches. But even if they do, the mine’s “tailings” – the waste materials including millions of tonnes of contaminated water – will have to be managed forever. For local opponents, one recent disaster comes to mind immediately. In 2014 the tailings at the Mount Polley gold mine in British Columbia failed, sending 24m cubic metres of mine waste into the local waterways.
The Palmer site sits on active earthquake faults and in an area prone to catastrophic landslides. Only last December, two people died and multiple houses were destroyed after record-breaking rainfall triggered a landslide in Haines, leaving a huge, brown scar on the hillside.
As he recounts the tragedy, Cohen shakes his head. “What could possibly go wrong?” ‘It’s nerve-racking to even pick a side’
Alaska is heavily Republican and deeply pro-mining, but Haines is split on the project – and this includes the Native community, says local artist James Hart, a tribal council member of the Chilkoot Indian Association.
Hart is against the mine, but is wary of speaking out. “I am not a scientist, but I have seen what has happened in other places,” he says. “Worst-case scenario [is] it could potentially devastate and wipe out all of our salmon runs.”
Sharing that view in a small town where everyone knows everyone has consequences. “It’s nerve-racking to even pick a side or voice an opinion as a minority person,” he says. “The political climate in Haines makes it really hard.”
Hart’s mother has long been involved with tribal politics and and is another opponent of the mine. Recently people yelled at her in the street “just for having an opinion,” he says. “It’s not even an opportunity for having a dialogue, it’s just yelling because you have an opinion.” The incident made him more nervous for himself and his family.
Support for the project also runs deep. Jan Hill, Haines’ former mayor, is also Tlingit and a First Nation’s member of the Southern Tutchone. Her family has deep ties to the community and the project; Palmer was a friend of her parents.
“Mining is kind of in my blood,” she said. Her great grandparents came up to Alaska in 1898 from Washington state for the Gold Rush. “We have dealt with resource extraction in this community and it’s worked well for us. For the most part it is done responsibly and that’s what is important to all of us,” she said.
She points to Constantine hiring local people who can buy homes , offering “good paying summer jobs” for students and purchasing all the goods it can in Haines. And experts at Constantine offered help after the recent fatal landslide that would not have been available otherwise.“They stepped up immediately,” said Hill. “They are a part of our community.”
“None of us want bad things to happen to our fish or any of the wildlife. We live a subsistence lifestyle here. We depend on our fish and moose, the bears and ducks – all the creatures that God gave us. We all have these concerns, but I believe Constantine is very responsible. They are very regulated, they are good stewards of the environment.”
Garfield MacVeigh, Constantine’s chief executive, says he listens closely to the community’s apprehension. “We hear and appreciate those concerns. All the work we are doing is to demonstrate that we won’t be a threat to the environment. If we can’t demonstrate that, you are not going to build the project,” he said.
He points to a similar sized mine, Greens Creek silver mine near Juneau, about 80 miles as the eagle flies from Haines, which went into production in 1989 and has been operating for 32 years without any obvious impact on salmon.
Asked about Hotch’s concerns, he said: “I hear them, and as far as I am concerned they [the Tlingit] will be there for another 2,000 years, because we won’t take a risk that would result in any threat to the river environment.”
Many of the concerns about the impact of the mine were unscientific, he said, and comparisons to the Mount Polley catastrophe were “very misleading”.
“These days you are seeing virtually every project, anywhere, being contested. You have got the extreme group on one end contesting all of these things. They seem to become political rather than scientific. That’s their intent, to create noise around this and make it more and more political. The more extreme element doesn’t seem to be interested in the scientific data that may or may not justify the project,” he said.
Cohen dismissed MacVeigh’s comments, saying that there had been plenty of evidence, including from state reports , of high levels of pollution near Greens Creek.
Holding strong opinions can be hard in a small community. Other Haines residents were happy to talk as long as they were promised anonymity. One said it was particularly hard for the younger generation to speak out. The pandemic recession hit the town hard and, given its isolation, life was already too expensive for many here. “My friends are moving away,” he said. “I’m lucky – I’m working. But I can’t afford to piss anybody off. Older people have less to lose.”
He suggested I go and check out how much a gallon of milk cost in the local supermarket. A gallon of 2% milk was $6.89 in Haines, while the national average in April was $3.58. Nearby, the supermarket was selling organic cucumbers for $2.29 a piece, compared to $1.49 in a Whole Foods in Brooklyn.
It’s not just the mine that divides Haines. The town has a long reputation for sharp-elbowed politics and bitter generational infighting.
Few people know that better than Kyle Clayton, publisher of the Chilkat Valley News. Trying to objectively cover the Palmer project is a hard task. “I piss everybody off,” says Clayton. “I’ve been called a lackey for the mine.”
A handsome 36-year-old, Clayton has the worried look of a peacemaker. “It comes from all directions. The good thing is that in a small town, you can talk to people and reach some kind of understanding.”
He dislikes the black or white nature of the debate. “There’s a lot of unknowns. It’s still a long way off from being a project,” he says. He wants to see more information before deciding whether he should take a side.
On his paper-strewn stand-up desk is a list of 22 questions to be asked of interviewees to “complicate the narrative”, to “amplify contradictions and widen the lens”. In this hyper-partisan age, he is determined the paper will try its hardest to be fair to both sides.
People warned Clayton of Haines’ reputation before he moved from Petersborough, another small Alaskan town near Juneau. These days, he thinks it’s not so different from much of America. When he speaks to people back home, they tell him people there are at each other over face masks and Covid vaccinations.
“Maybe we just did it first?” he says. “Haines is definitely a divisive little town. But what doesn’t get said is a lot of people are very engaged,” he says.
As plans for the Palmer project pick up, the community and the wider world is likely to get even more engaged – and enraged. The Biden administration recently banned drilling for oil and gas in Alaska’s Arctic national wildlife refuge. Alaska’s Republican governor Mike Dunleavy called it an “assault on Alaska’s economy”.
But the opposition to the mine may not come entirely from the left. Last year Donald Trump Jr, the former president’s son and a keen hunter and fisherman, joined opposition to the controversial Pebble mine at the headwaters of salmon rich Bristol Bay. That project is now in jeopardy.
Hotch said his community would be fighting hard to make sure Merrill Palmer’s gold stays underground. No short-term gain is worth the risk involved, he said.
“There might be money for five, 10, 15 years and then they will leave for the next spot, wherever that is. And we here will have to live with the consequences of what they did to our lands.”
More than anything, he wants the way of life that has supported his people for 2,000 years to be protected.
“I long for the day we can stop having to do this and look at ways that the salmon can have a friendlier way swimming up river. That’s how we can help them. That’s my goal after we finish this battle. They have been helping us for generations. It’s the absolute least we can do.”
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
Pentagon Admits It Has No Evidence Iran Was Behind Drone Attack That Killed 3 US Troops in Jordan
Regardless, the Pentagon says Iran 'bears responsibility'
The Pentagon on Monday said Iran “bears responsibility” for the drone attack in northeastern Jordan that killed three US troops but admitted it has no evidence that Iran was directly involved.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said the responsibility fell on Iran due to its support for Iraqi Shia militias the US believes carried out the attack.
“In terms of attribution for the attack, we know this is an [Iran]-backed militia. It has the footprints of Kataib Hezbollah, but [we’re] not making a final assessment,” Singh said at a press conference. “Iran continues to arm and equip these groups to launch these attacks, and we will certainly hold them responsible.”
When asked if the US knew Iran and Iranian leaders were “actually behind this attack, as in planned, coordinated, or directed it,” Singh admitted the US had nothing to show that.
“We know that Iran certainly plays a role with these groups, they arm and equip and fund these groups. I don’t have more to share on — terms of an intelligence assessment on if leaders in Iran were directing this attack,” she said.
Singh was again asked about the claim that Iran was behind the attack and said the US just knows that “Iran funds these groups” and had nothing more to add. Later in the press conference, she said Iran “bears responsibility” for the killing of three American soldiers.
Also on Monday, The New York Times reported that US intelligence officials have no evidence Iran had advanced knowledge of the attack. “American intelligence officials say that while Iran provides weapons, funding and sometimes intelligence to its proxy groups, there is no evidence that it calls the shots — meaning it may not have known in advance about the attack in Jordan,” the report reads.
Iran has strongly denied it was behind the attack and said the resistance factions were targeting the US forces in the region due to its support for the Israeli slaughter in Gaza. Since mid-October, US bases in Iraq and Syria have come under attack about 160 times, and the US has never produced evidence to show Iran was directing the operations.
The comments from Singh came as President Biden is mulling what his response will be to the killing of the three American troops. He is under pressure from hawks in Congress to bomb Iran directly, and a previous report from the Times said that’s something the administration would consider in response to the death of US troops despite the risk of a full-blown war with Iran.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
MUTUAL AID Solidarity and humor in the coronavirus crisis From friendly gestures or encouragement to helping others in need, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us all how humanity can come together in times of crisis. This is how people around the world are showing solidarity. PHOTO ESSAY SEE HERE Brightening everyday life Turkey has taken a different tack, imposing a curfew for people older than 65 or chronically ill — for their own protection. In the city of Mersin, 25-year-old Zulkif Cengiz has been playing a few tunes to pass the time for elderly people staying at home. In other countries, people sing in front of nursing homes, where residents are not allowed to have visitors to avoid infection. Bear hunt With schools and kindergartens closed for weeks, kids can get bored. To keep them amused, thousands of Belgians and Dutch have put cute teddy bears in their windows — it's bear-spotting time! Many bears are registered on interactive maps so parents can plan their family outings along the route that has the most teddy bears. Positive approachMany Italians have been confined to their apartments for weeks. Emergency measures are to remain in place until at least mid-April. But they haven't lost heart. Posters with a colorful rainbow and the slogan: "Andra tutto bene" ("Everything will be fine") are hanging in windows and from balconies across the nation. Hope on the horizon Switzerland is also sending a message of solidarity. True to the motto "light is hope," bright messages beam from the Matterhorn, that highly symbolic Swiss mountain. But "#hope" alternates with "#stayathome" — the call to take the pandemic seriously and not go out.
A volunteer dressed in protective gear feeds dogs in Dhaka (picture-alliance/NurPhoto/S. M. Rahman)
Animals suffer, too Public life has also come to a halt in Bangladesh. For animals that feed on garbage and leftover food, it is a problem when people no longer go out to eat. Volunteers in the capital, Dhaka, have taken to feeding stray dogs. In Germany, the Animal Welfare Association has warned that pigeons in the cities face starvation. Pigeons at risk of starvation over coronavirus empty streets A German animal rights group is warning that pigeons are struggling to find enough food amid the coronavirus lockdown. Empty city centers mean no leftovers for them to feast on and thousands may die. A German animal rights charity on Tuesday called for a campaign to save pigeons from starvation during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Bonn-based German Animal Welfare Association has warned that while the nationwide lockdown may have cleared the country's city centers of humans, thousands of pigeons are not self-isolating but are struggling to find enough food. The birds, which normally feast on tiny leftovers dropped by residents leaving cafes and takeaways, are now going hungry. Leonie Weltgen, the charity's specialist for species protection, told the Express newspaper that thousands of pigeons could die unnecessarily. "Pigeons are very loyal to their local habitat. They will not leave the city centers and will starve to death if they are not provided with food soon," she told the paper.
"Since it is the breeding season, many young animals will die in their nests if parents can no longer feed them." Weltgen has called for feeding points to be set up to ensure the birds can continue to feed on corn, grain or seed. She says animal rights activists and other volunteers could distribute the food. Weltgen acknowledged that several German cities have trouble controlling the pigeon population but said it was important not to let the birds die painfully. "The ancestors of the city pigeons were once bred by humans, so we have a special responsibility for these animals." DIY face masks All over the world, volunteers are sewing simple face masks. They may not necessarily protect the wearer from infection, but if tied properly over mouth and nose, they can help to prevent the virus from spreading. The masks these Armenian-Syrian women produce are distributed among the poor in Aleppo.
Two men in Senegal paint a mural (Getty Images/AFP/Seyllou) Fighting infection through art Helping by doing what you do best definitely applies to the RBS Crew graffiti collective in Senegal. With their works of art on walls in Dakar, they are showing the population how they can stem the spread of the coronavirus. Sneezing into the crook of your arm is one of the important rules for protecting others. Clown or president? Reactions to the crisis are also satirical. Aira Ocrespo is not the only one to criticize Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for his lax approach to the pandemic. As the artist sees it, a red clown nose is the only facial protection the president wears against the coronavirus. Sweet distraction In Germany, coronavirus-related humor tends to be linked to food. Check out the "antibody" coronavirus chocolates, cakes shaped like rolls of toilet paper and chocolate Easter bunnies complete with face masks. But it wouldn't be Germany if there wasn't something to complain about: Critics argue that the merchandise is in bad taste. A person in a T-Rex costume stands by the Washington Monument (picture-alliance/AP Photo/J. Martin) A sense of humor Reuben Ward sauntered around the US capital, Washington D.C., dressed up as a huge, scary Tyrannosaurus Rex. "It was an entertaining way to distract people a little from the coronavirus and cheer them up," the 29-year-old said. His message: Even if the situation is serious, you need to keep a sense of humor. Toilet paper bonus Toilet paper is in great demand in many countries. A restaurant in a town in the US state of Minnesota adds a roll of the precious product to every take-out order over $25 (€22). "When the customers get their order, you hear a genuine laugh and that's the best thing right now," the owner told FOX 9. It's also a clever marketing strategy.
