A Bird Paradise

The Teshekpuk Lake area is a vast maze of small lakes and tundra wetlands that comprise one of the single most valuable wetland complexes for waterfowl in the entire Arctic. This vast wetland maze provides prime nesting habitat for numerous species of waterfowl, shorebirds, and loons, including the rare yellow-billed loon. This area is especially important geese molting habitat and is visited by over 30 percent of all Black Brant in the Pacific Flyway. The area additionally provides insect-relief and prime calving habitat for the 45,000 head Teshekpuk Lake Caribou Herd.

• If this wetlands is degraded by industrial-scale oil development, the likely impacts on wildlife will be felt not only in Alaska, but in the Lower 48 states, Mexico, Canada and Siberia. 
• For more than 40 years the area north and east of Teshekpuk Lake has been recognized for its biological significance. This remote area offers high quality forage and refuge for flightless geese to escape predators. This prime habitat attracts up to 37,000 Pacific Black Brant, 35,000 greater white-fronted geese (6% of the mid-continental population), as well as thousands of Canada and snow geese in the summer months for their annual molt.
• Geese prefer remote sites for their annual molt.  During this time they are flightless and extremely vulnerable.  Disturbance associated with routine human activities, including helicopters adds undue stress to geese during this very taxing time. Behavioral responses such as reductions in feeding or excessive energy expenditures could lead to reduced reproduction or survival.

We Need A Smarter Energy Plan

• Since 2001, the Bush Administration has made more than 18 million acres on Alaska’s North Slope and federal waters off the coast of Alaska available to oil companies for leasing.
• The Bureau of Land Management is revisiting its oil and gas plan, with the possibility of opening the present "no lease" zone north and east of Teshekpuk Lake, which previously was set aside as habitat for molting geese and calving caribou.
• To combat our increasing demand for energy we need not drill the last wild lands of America's Arctic, but focus on overcoming our oil addiction. Drilling in this extraordinary wildlife habitat will not solve our energy problems, but it would fragment essential migration routes vital to the Teshekpuk Lake Caribou Herd and several species of geese that return to this area each year during their annual molt.

Eventual development of oil and gas fields associated with structures and disturbance in or near this area could have significant, long-term impacts on unique habitats used by geese, and the conditions and survival of molt-stressed Brant according to the Pacific Flyway Council.