Defenders of Wildlife Blog

The Royal Dutch Shell Company began drilling in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea on Sunday, with potentially disastrous consequences for Alaska’s wildlife.

The Chukchi Sea is home to many imperiled species, such as bowhead whales, Pacific walrus, and polar bears, a species already facing enormous challenges due to melting sea ice, one of the many effects of climate change.  A major oil spill here could be even more destructive to wildlife than the Gulf oil spill of 2010, because a cleanup response would be nearly impossible to perform.  Here’s why:

The threatened Steller’s eider, a seasonal visitor to the Chukchi. Birds suffer heavily in oiled waters: the oil on their feathers destroys their insulation from the cold, and makes them sick when they try to clean themselves.

Infrastructure.  The nearest coast guard station is in Kodiak, Alaska, more than 1000 miles away.  The closest village to the Chukchi Sea drilling site has just one small boat ramp and no hotels to accommodate cleanup crews.  The nearest airports that can handle the large cargo planes needed to transport oil cleanup equipment are 100 miles away or more.

Weather.  The Chukchi Sea is almost completely covered in ice over the winter months.  In summer, 20-foot swells, gale force winds and thick, lingering fog is common.  Stormy seas would endanger the lives of crew members and render oil booms and skimmer boats useless.  It can take weeks or months for backup rigs to drill relief wells, even in the relatively calm waters of the Gulf; in the Chukchi Sea, it may take even longer.  Worst of all, if an oil well breaks open and can’t be capped by the end of the summer, it will gush into the sea for months beneath the Chukchi Sea’s winter ice pack.

Temperature.  The temperature of Arctic seawater is often far below freezing, making it difficult to burn off oil because the water below the surface-oil cannot be heated sufficiently to start the burn.  Oil dispersant chemicals are known to be ineffective in cold temperatures, in addition to the potential harmful effects they could have on marine life.  Finally, oil simply takes longer to break down in cold temperatures.

A Fragile Ecosystem.

Polar bears are already stressed by the loss of sea ice they use to hunt due to climate change.  A major oil spill would jeopardize their food supply even more.  Photo (c) Joan Cambray.

The Chukchi Sea supports an intricate and delicate web of life. It provides critical food sources for migratory birds from around the world and pristine waters for important parts of the life cycle of many fish species. Every part of this ecosystem, from the tiniest zooplankton to the greatest bowhead whale, would be threatened by an oil spill in the Chukchi.  As the Defenders of Wildlife Fact Sheet on drilling in the Arctic details,

 “exposure to oil damages the eyes, mouth, skin and lungs of marine mammals and reduces the insulating effect of feathers on birds. Wild animals can also suffer from kidney failure after ingesting oil in attempts to clean themselves. Those animals that manage to survive will still be at risk from accumulating pollutants and metals in their bodies from the fish they eat. They may also suffer from starvation as the food chain they rely on for survival is disrupted.”

Even without a spill, noise and toxic pollution that are a normal part of industrial drilling will negatively impact local wildlife.  There is also so much about the arctic ecosystem of the Chukchi that we just don’t know anything about.  In its review of drilling plans the government admitted to a complete lack of information on key wildlife populations and their use of the Chukchi, but approved Shell’s drilling plans anyway.    The fact is that the Chukchi Sea is one of the last places any oil company should be allowed to drill.

Noise from drilling rigs disturbs marine mammals like these bowhead whales, which depend on echolocation to navigate the icy waters of the Chukchi.

Ironically, Shell was only able to drill for one day before a large ice floe forced it to back off the drill site. This should be a warning cry about the hazards of drilling in the Chukchi Sea.

We must not let our thirst for oil put yet another rich and vibrant ecosystem at risk of an environmental catastrophe, especially when this time, if an oil spill happens, cleanup will be virtually impossible.  Only time will tell if Alaskan wildlife can weather this latest threat to their survival.

UPDATE 9/17/12:  Shell’s oil containment barge suffered damage to its oil containment dome during testing, causing the company to scrap efforts to drill in the Chukchi until next year.  The barge had been previously plagued with leaks and safety standard issues, and has been unable to reach Coast Guard certification.  The threat of an oil spill has subsided-for now-but this fragile place will be in danger once more if drilling resumes in 2013.

Petition calls for stronger protections from ship strikes

Collisions with ships in the busy waters off the U.S. East Coast are one of the greatest threats to the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. And with only about 400 of these animals left, every whale death can have a huge impact on the long-term recovery of the species.

That’s why Defenders and a coalition of our conservation allies filed a petition today with the National Marine Fisheries Service, demanding stronger protections to guard against the threat of ship strikes.

Temporary protections were put in place in 2008 that set speed limits in important whale habitat, including the species’ calving grounds off the coast of Florida, their feeding and breeding grounds off the coast of New England, and their well-traveled migration path in between. But those protections were arbitrarily set to expire in December 2013, even though the threat of ship strikes remains.

As a result, Defenders is asking federal officials to extend the current ship speed limits, apply them to additional areas where ship strikes are likely to occur, and lengthen the amount of time that seasonal protections are in place.

As Defenders senior staff attorney Sierra Weaver says:

“Protections for highly endangered whales should not be removed until the whales have recovered. We hope the agency will follow the advice of its own experts and act quickly to make sure there is no gap in protections.”

Read the coalition’s press release about extending right whale protections.

In past centuries, North Atlantic right whales were decimated by the commercial whaling industry, and while whaling is no longer a threat, other man-made problems like ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear continue to regularly kill and seriously injure whales.

Right whales received federal protection under the Endangered Species Act in the early 1970s but still have not recovered. Females don’t reach reproductive maturity until age eight, and they only give birth to one calf every four years. Furthermore, these reproductive females and their babies are both the most important animals to the future of the species and the most vulnerable to ship strikes because they spend more time near the surface of the water.

Extending seasonal boat speed limits is the best way to ensure as many right whales as possible are able to survive and reproduce.