Twenty years after the Exxon Valdez spilled millions of gallons of crude oil into Alaskan waters, the disaster continues to wreak havoc on wildlife, according to a 2009 report from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council. The Animal Welfare Institute reports that more than 16,000 gallons of oil remain in the environment.

On the growing list of likely extinctions attributed in part to the spill is a small AT1 population of orcas, which has inhabited the area for thousands of years.

Source: Animal Welfare Institute 

Image by jimbrickett, licensed under Creative Commons.

Who needs to travel abroad when you can see new things (beavers! butterflies!) in your airport’s own backyard? A few notable airports around the world (including Beijing, Boston, and Toronto) have managed to go green with beauty and aplomb. In its June 2009 issue, enRoute profiles the environmentally conscious Zurich Airport, where, in addition to utilizing rainwater, geothermal energy, and solar cells to keep the place running, curious citizens can safely planespot (an activity in sad decline) and observe the airport’s adjoining “safe habitat for over 50 species of flora and fauna.”

Source: enRoute 

Image by GIDESIGN, licensed under Creative Commons.  

Call it scenery stimulus. America’s national parks are getting more than $900 million in funding in the recently passed stimulus bill, a much-needed shot in the arm for a system that has been underfunded for years. The money will be spent on a host of projects including maintaining trails, fixing roads, cleaning up old mine sites, constructing new facilities, and doing “energy efficient retrofits of existing facilities.”

The almost-a-billion amount hammered out in the Senate is quite a bit less than the $2.25 billion originally approved by the House, and far short of what is needed in the eyes of the National Parks Conservation Association, which says the parks have amassed a $9 billion backlog of maintenance and preservation projects.

Still, NPCA President Tom Kiernan welcomed the “reinvestment” in the “crumbling national park infrastructure” in a statement. “This is a very strong step toward restoring our national parks by 2016, the centennial of the National Park Service,” he said.

Parks aren’t the only outdoorsy beneficiaries of the stimulus package, whose details are being parsed by bloggers. Bill Schneider at New West describes the fish and wildlife habitat improvement projects in the bill. Greg Peters at EnviroWonk asks the broader question “The Stimulus: What’s In It for Enviros?” And Ned Hudson at The Daily Green takes a historical view of public works projects in “Why Investing in Parks Is Smart Economic Stimulus.”

Image of Lake McDonald courtesy of  Glacier National Park . 

Sources: National Parks Conservation Association, New West, EnviroWonk, The Daily Green, National Park Service 

With the nation scrambling to learn more about a vice-presidential candidate thrust into the spotlight less than two weeks ago, environmentalists are working to get the word out about Sarah Palin’s environmental record, which could push John McCain’s relatively eco-friendly platform further right.

Grist delves into Palin’s positions on various environmental concerns in an overview called “Palin Around” (see what they did there?) and a more comprehensive article called “Palin Comparison” (and there?). Not surprisingly, Palin leans rightward on most issues, including global warming, where she parts company with her running mate. “I wouldn't call her a climate change denier, but she is extremely close to that position,” says John Toppenberg, director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance. “She seems to be failing to acknowledge virtually all credible science.”

Alaskans are already familiar with their governor’s attitude toward their ecosystem. Yale Environment 360 tells the story of (the appropriately named?) Bristol Bay, whose headwaters cover a massive deposit of valuable minerals. A ballot initiative to protect the salmon-rich bay from development by Northern Dynasty Minerals was publicly opposed by Gov. Palin, despite a constitutional ban on state officials’ involvement in ballot measures. The initiative was defeated and Northern Dynasty is proceeding in Bristol in the face of widespread opposition from various state groups.

And with Palin pushing for oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, McCain reversing his position on offshore drilling, and various party faithful chanting “drill baby drill!” at the Republican National Convention last week, a curb on national oil consumption and a greener White House don’t seem terribly likely under a McCain-Palin leadership.

Image by bobster1985, licensed by Creative Commons.

When it comes to conservation, all gun rights advocates are not created equal. And according to Pat Wray at High Country News, the National Rifle Association (NRA) is the worst of the worst.

Wray, a life member of the NRA, is running for the organization’s board of directors to try to change that. Wray is a hunter who wants his right to bear arms protected, but he also wants wildlife habitat protected, and at this the NRA is failing miserably, he says.

“The NRA’s ability to take money from hunters and use it in ways that will ultimately ruin hunting constitutes one of the most dishonest public relations campaigns ever perpetrated on the American people,” Wray writes.

Wray goes on to describe politicians the organization has supported, like former Rep. Richard Pombo, Sen. Larry Craig, and President Bush, who have sold off public lands to private companies or removed protections for roadless areas. As a member of the board, Wray says he would “Require the organization to work with politicians who care about the environment, wildlife and wild lands in addition to their support of our Second Amendment rights. The two are not mutually exclusive.”

While Wray tries to change the system from within, the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA) is competing with the NRA from the outside, but with some of the same complaints.

At New West, Bill Schneider calls the AHSA “the bane of the NRA because it’s not just pro-gun but unlike the NRA, also pro-hunter.”

The NRA will spend up to $40 million to defeat Barack Obama this election season. Meanwhile, the AHSA will be throwing its weight—however much that is—behind Obama and emphasizing conservation in its message. As AHSA president Ray Schoenke stated, “Senator Obama’s commitment to conservation and protection of our natural resources and access to public lands demonstrates to us his commitment to America’s hunting and shooting heritage.”

For his part, Obama told Montana voters, “There is not a sportsman or hunter in Montana who is a legal possessor of firearms that has anything to worry about from me.”

Image by Richard Bartz, licensed under Creative Commons.

Outdoor retailer Cabela’s inspires an almost religious following among hunters and anglers who make pilgrimages to its humongous shrinelike stores filled with taxidermied trophy game. But New West magazine reports that Cabela’s lost some of its flock in Montana by acting like an 800-pound gorilla.

In New West’s premiere issue, writer Bill Schneider cites two reasons for a revolt among some Cabela’s customers. For one, Cabela’s got involved in a real estate business, Cabela’s Trophy Properties, that could reduce access to land used by hunters and anglers. For another, the store threw its weight around with “aggressive subsidy requests” from local governments in places where it wanted to build new locations. (The magazine’s affiliated website, NewWest.net, has covered the controversy online.)

The real estate blunder seems to have been the biggest misfire. After word got out, “The Montana Wildlife Federation, the state’s largest sporting group, told its 7,000 members to return or burn Cabela’s catalogs,” writes Schneider. “And they did.” Cabela’s backed off and started making concessions to its critics, but not before taking a shot to the flank.

I’ve long wondered how any truly conservation-minded hunter or angler could give money to Cabela’s. Not only does the store seem to glorify the worst elements of the hook-and-bullet crowd by focusing on spectacle and trophies over subsistence and conservation, it has strong ties to the environmentally destructive Bush administration. (The environment, it should be noted, is where game fish and animals live.) As Slate has reported, the Bush-Cheney campaign made a string of campaign stops in Cabela’s stores, and founders Dick and Mary Cabela “maxed out as donors to President Bush’s 2004 campaign and [have] given thousands of dollars more to other Republican candidates and organizations.”

Cabela’s may be seeing the limits of its influence, however. Bush is now a very lame duck, Cheney has distanced himself from any hunting affiliations for obvious reasons, and, Schneider reports, Cabela’s has announced a dramatic cutback in its store openings—including one proposed for Billings, Montana.

Image of lion at Cabela's licensed under Wikimedia Commons.

The great spring bird migration is under way, and here in Minnesota, right in the fast lane of the Mississippi flyway, we’re seeing all kinds of winged travelers. Loons and mergansers are clustering on lakes, awaiting a late ice-out on more northern waters. Hawks are circling and screeching out territorial threats. The juncos are already here and gone, having high-tailed it to their summer places in the boreal forest.

The modern birdwatcher can track this spectacular avian parade not just with binoculars and spotting scopes, but also with Nexrad radar. The Minnesota Birdnerd blog tipped me to this radar image from just after midnight last night, showing patterns of circles around Nexrad stations that indicate migrating birds aloft. To learn more about tracking migrating birds by radar, check out these tips from the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology.