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https://www.adn.com/opinions/2019/0...about-fish-our-wild-game-is-at-risk-too/

The Pebble fight isn’t just about fish. Our wild game is at risk, too.
Author: Tia Shoemaker | Opinion Updated: 4 hours ago Published 4 hours ago



I identify as a hunter.
Growing up on a homestead near Bristol Bay inside a designated wildlife area, I am intimately familiar with ecosystems and how they relate to the hunting world.

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For a healthy life cycle, many game species need wilderness. By “wilderness,” I mean an entire biologically intact, healthy ecosystem with operating balances and counter-balances and minimal human impact.
As an angler, an avid hunter and a registered Alaskan hunting guide, the effects of the proposed Pebble Mine on hunting and fishing has my full attention! As human needs and populations increase, pressure on our few remaining wild places is amplified. For the continuation of our sport and outdoor heritage, we hunters are obligated to protect Alaska’s wild places and our unique hunting opportunities.
When done responsibly, mining lends great benefit to the state. Our country needs jobs and raw materials, which is an angle the Pebble Partnership is using. The industry-created jobs from Pebble sound enticing until you consider the cost.
The problems with Pebble are location and magnitude. The foreign-owned proposed open-pit mine, with potential to be the world’s largest, would sit at the headwaters of the most massive sockeye salmon run on the planet.


Salmon are the lifeblood of the area. Without them, the entire region’s ecosystem, and thus economy, would collapse. Salmon are highly susceptible to environmental disturbances, as discovered on both coasts of the U.S., Canada and Europe. While it is well established that Pebble has the potential to irrevocably change the most valuable salmon fishery worldwide, what does that mean for hunters?
Bristol Bay is one of the last great game fields and home to the world’s densest population of brown bears. This phenomenon is due to the vast expanse of undeveloped lands and seasonable accessibility to high caloric fish. Herbivores such as caribou and moose also depend on the influx of nitrogen and fertilization of the soil and vegetation surrounding the streams and tundra.
A mine of this size involves billions of gallons of discharged wastewater, dams implicitly leaking toxic chemicals into surrounding waterways and plenty of other impacts aside from just the mine pit itself. Together, the components of what Pebble would need to build to operate would have devastating impacts on the entire region’s ecosystem from the salmon up.
The flooding that will occur as a byproduct of resource extraction would reduce forage, which serves as sustenance for the ungulates of the area. What’s more, gambling that monstrous, toxin-filled lakes, sitting on porous soil in a seismically active area, will never leak, is a fool’s bet. Statistically, it is a certainty. At risk is the entire Bristol Bay ecosystem. Not only are we gambling with a cultural and traditional subsistence lifestyle, an indefinitely sustainable, $1.5 billion per year commercial fishery and a $60 million sport fishing industry, but the health and viability of all our big game.
The most significant threat our hunting culture faces today is habitat destruction. While the environmental threats are a big issue involving the entire food web, it is to say nothing of the effect such massive infrastructure and boom in the human population would have on our wild areas and our game!


The Pebble Partnership’s draft Environmental Impact Statement addresses only the initial mine footprint. At present, the development and resource extraction they propose is not enough to make a profit. No business is sustainable without profit so we can assume it will only expand as that is the rule rather than the exception with mining.
The road alone will have dire consequences on the bear population, as it would pass within 400 yards of McNeil River bear sanctuary. History demonstrates that once the infrastructure of roads are in place, they will be used by all, thus fragmenting habitat. The decline in rich hunting land will reverberate through Alaska, as displacement of hunters and anglers will lead to increased pressure throughout other parts of the state.
The irreversible damage and long-term environmental consequences of Pebble would go beyond anything the world has seen and threaten the heart of our hunting heritage. Hunting is a way of life for many Alaskans - not just our passion, but also our identity.
We cannot sit back and let big money dictate what happens to our land and animals. We must fight to protect our hunting if we wish for future generations to experience the same opportunities we have had.
Aldo Leopold said it best, “I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are 40 freedoms without a blank spot on the map?” Just as we wouldn’t sell our rights to free speech or of the press, to bear arms, the right to assembly and worship, neither shall we sell our rights to hunt what wilderness is left.
Tia Shoemaker has been guiding for 17 years for her family’s hunting and fishing business Grizzly Skins of Alaska. She grew up in Becharof National Wildlife Refuge and has been living off and hunting that land since she was a small child.

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Scare tactics from a liberal hippie hunter. Mine it!

Your ignorance is astounding.

No kidding. Get a clue WDH. I believe that woman is about as far from being a hippy as Obama is from being a klansman.

Clearly you have not read his other posts if his current ignorance is astounding...

Probably typed it up on her iPhone!

You've become your father........

If ever there was a time for a "facepalm" smiley, this was it.

Just what the world needs, less salmon and game.

Liberal hippie hunter? You can't possibly be that ignorant.
She's a hunter with an ethos in conservation. Beside obviously clueless, what are you?

Going on on not much of a limb here, but yes he can be.

Wow you must be bored. This reply was possible due to mining.

So what is ol tia shoemaker making off them bear and moose hunts in the Becharof national refuge?

Well no price on the the website. I guess as the old saying goes if you have to ask, you probably can't afford it..

And eco tour and fishing trips..so yeah I would be opposed to pebble as well if I were her. But I'm not her, and mining and oil are the life blood of this state.. so build the mine..

The author is Phil's daughter. As you mignt Imagine, she like her father, is the real deal.

I'll wager she can out shoot, out hunt, and out fish Wadda Dick Head. Probably kick his ass too.

Set your emotions to the side, and let's look at the real reason she's against pebble..

Lots of people are against pebble, for a lot of reasons. A lot of them are not anti-mining as well.

I need a job and pebble is the answer.. not all of us can be yoga/karate instructors like you and teach jeet kune do in soldotna city park..

Not sure I see the issue IE whats wrong with protecting your job. OTOH knowing Phil and betting his daughter is about the same, I know they would have no issue making ends meet no matter the results.

That said I'm not anti mine or anti oil at all either. But one has to make sure its done safely and I think the mine has a lot of downstream dangers, much more so than oil production ever would. With all that said there could be ways to do it, BUT it would have to toss out making max profit, and give some extra guarantees to safety and liability.

At least this is just IMHO.

Nice little shaker here just now.

Quite certain in 2019 tourism’s economic impact for our state far exceeds that of mining; roughly 4:1 in the numbers I could find. I’ll certainly concede oil ... mining, maybe not so much. As ‘bender articulated, lots of people who aren’t necessary anti-mining (myself included) are strongly opposed to THIS mine. Heck, even Stevens was opposed to it ... let that marinade for a spell.

There are too many issues with Pebble to address them all quickly and easily, but it is the wrong mine at the wrong time in the wrong place. There is a reason EVERY reasonable company that has signed on has left.

They want to dewater a major piece of the Iliamna watershed to 2,500' and build the largest dam in the world on the dewatered peat sponge. And that lake is going to hold back a pile of heavy metals which have been safely secured in the ground for millennia. Having disturbed by the mining means it will have to sit for decades until it is capped by silt. When the dam washes out because no dam that size has ever been built and virtually all bigger ones DO wash out it will cause tremendous damage and likely kill quite a few people.

There will be no jobs for Alaskans aside from a very few locals. The skill set required to run the huge machines is rare and will be imported from other projects. The money will be funneled out of AK to Canada mostly. There is a back-door plan in place to allow a Native Corp to run the operation which would eliminate the need for ANY bonding. But the people they kill will not the money anyway.

Oh, and the heap leach gold extraction they claimed would not be done is already on the planning table.

That said I am strongly pro-resource extraction but this is a horrible plan.

Uh you mean uncle ted? Get it right Jesus..

I’m just giving people [bleep], you articulated it very well. I read shoemakers article maybe she should of had you proof read and add what you wrote. Anyhow great info you put out..

you forgot to add hint at the end...

Great to hear you have hippy hunters in Alaska.

What is the daily bag limit?

She is an excellent writer. Very impressive! Like Will Rogers said about land, they ain't making any more of it. Spoil a pristine area and what are the chances of it ever coming back?

I am against pebble mining , when you remove the pebbles from a eco system the whole thing crumbles , pebbles are the building blocks of wilderness , they should just take the big rocks and let the pebbles grow up for future generations to argue about. Let the 3rd world mine their pebbles , they have the safest mining practices on the planet in the 3rd world. The 3rd world IS NOT A PART OF OUR ECO SYSTEM and its fine if they do it because at the end of the day we need the pebbles and honestly I don't care if the 3rd world destroys their environment because there isn't anyone there that will applaud my association with an image that has nothing to do with facts. People in the 3rd world don't even own protest signs , how could they possibly be taken seriously by anyone without protest signs.? Off to the capital building to protest pebble harvesting, hopefully the Empire will see me and publish a photo of my protest sign so that I can put it on facebook so I can get some attention , I mean save the planet .

Count me as a hippie hunter too ! As a hunter I care about the environment as money is not my god !
And no , our hunts are not free, but we have always been conservative in how many and what we take .
Just the infrastructure required to start proposed Pebble mine will irreversibly alter the entire SW portion of the state and if history has taught us anything, it's that these massive mines always take the profits and leave the mess for the locals