The Pebble fight isn’t just about fish. Our wild game is at risk, too.

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.

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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