Phyllis,
Could you compare and contrast this egg-gathering proposal with the
subsistence hunting of caribou that takes place in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. Is the caribou kill there limited to a certain number? (I don't call
it "harvesting"--that's manipulative misuse of language.)
Note: from Wikipedia we learn that the human population of the Refuge is
only about 400, in an area of about 19,000,000 acres.
Thanks,
Tom
In a message dated 7/22/2011 8:19:48 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Senate hearing July 28 on bill (S.1063) attacking Glacier Bay National Park
—Your support for the park needed now.
Along with the National Park Service (NPS) in Alaska, Alaska’s Senators
Lisa Murkowski (R) and Sen. Mark Begich (D) want to let members of the Huna
Tlingit tribe of SE Alaska collect glaucous-winged gull eggs in Glacier Bay
National Park. Their bill, S. 1063, would authorize this subsistence
practice in a park long closed to the extraction of wildlife, including
subsistence hunting, trapping, fishing, and gathering by Alaska Natives.
Glacier Bay is one of the nation’s finest wilderness national parks and
wildlife sanctuaries. It is a World Heritage Site, a major component of an
International Biosphere Reserve, and a critically important summer feeding
ground for endangered humpback whales. It provides essential security for
Steller sea lions. It fulfills Congress’s mandate to be one of the national
parks in Alaska that “…are intended to be large sanctuaries where fish and
wildlife may roam freely…without the changes that extensive human activity
would cause.”
The Sierra Club strongly opposes S. 1063. Opening this park would inflict
harm on the gulls—by reducing the number of fledglings in the park by 22%,
according to the National Park Service (NPS)—and it would likely result in
proposals for additional subsistence practices in the park. The tribe is
on public record as wanting the park opened to subsistence hunting for
mountain goats and seals.
If Congress were to approve S. 1063, other federally recognized tribes in
Alaska could ask for the same privilege and other perhaps other subsistence
practices in Alaska’s other three sanctuary parks, Katmai National Park,
the old Mt. McKinley part of Denali National Park, and Kenai Fjords National
Park.
And the potential unraveling of the park sanctuary standard might not stop
in our 49th state. If enacted, S. 1063 could trigger similar Native
American demands for subsistence access to national parks in other states. As
Glacier Bay goes, so goes Rocky Mountain, Yosemite, Yellowstone, North
Cascades, and other premier national park sanctuaries?
Opening Glacier Bay to egg gathering is also completely unnecessary. Just
outside the park boundaries and within Huna Tlingit traditional territory
are a half-dozen traditional gull egg collection sites of the tribe. In a
demonstration project in 2001 and 2002 the National Park Service assisted
tribal members to successfully collect gull eggs on one of these non-park
sites. This proved that NPS facilitation of such non-park collection trips
is a “reasonable and feasible” alternative to opening the park.
Please act to defend the park – one phone call
Members of the Senate Subcommittee on National Parks and the full Senate
Energy and Natural Resources Committee need to hear from Sierra Club members
from throughout the nation:
If your senator is listed below, please call his/her office before July 28
and urge opposition to S. 1063: explain you oppose this Glacier Bay
National Park gull-egg collecting bill because:
(pick one or two)
**You care about continuing the proud tradition of Glacier Bay National
Park as a wildlife sanctuary and one of our national treasures, a
world-renowned park which John Muir explored in the late 19th century and which is a
park dear to the heart of Sierra Club members.
** You support Native subsistence in Alaska but not in this national park
long closed to wildlife extraction, especially as there are alternative
proven egg-collecting sites outside the park.
** You fear the precedent would lead to similar extractive uses in other
Alaska national park sanctuaries and maybe in famed national parks in other
states.
** If you have visited Glacier Bay National Park – let them know.
If you do not have your Senator’s direct office number, call the Capitol
switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your Senator.
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