From the Alaska Wilderness League (http://www.alaskawild.org):
We’ve all seen the pictures: oil and birds do not mix.
Yet, Interior Secretary Zinke could expose Teshekpuk Lake – a protected Special Area with the highest density of shorebirds in the Arctic – to new oil drilling. Can you send Secretary Zinke a message at http://act.alaskawild.org/sign/reserve2017_email/ to make sure Teshepuk Lake and other Special Areas in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska stay protected?
Located in the northeast corner of the Reserve, Teshekpuk Lake provides critical habitat for threatened spectacled eiders, king eiders, red-throated loons, dunlins and buff-breasted sandpipers.
Many birds come to this area to molt, a vulnerable time when they cannot fly to escape threats.
Additional protected Special Areas in the Reserve sustain beluga whales, wolves, polar bears, musk oxen, caribou and peregrine falcons. These areas could face new drilling threats if Zinke revises the Reserve’s management plan.
Current protections for Special Areas in the Reserve resulted from input from the Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group, regional and local tribes in Alaska, and more than 400,000 Americans, including many of you who took action.
All of this consensus-building took years to achieve, and the plan has been in effect for just a handful of years. It would be a mistake to revise it now.
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