The Last Hunters

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Proponents of drilling claim that the Central Arctic Herd population rose after installation of the Prudhoe Bay facilities, proving oil installations don't interfere with caribou. While the population did increase initially, recent studies show a dramatic (nearly 50 percent) drop in the western group of the Central Arctic Herd, which must traverse oil field intrusions as it travels between coast and feeding grounds in the summer. The herd has abandoned its birthing grounds around Prudhoe Bay for more quiet, isolated areas.

Caribou biologists argue that the much larger Porcupine Caribou Herd would encounter more difficulties than the Central Arctic Herd. Because the Porcupine Herd is 10 times bigger, it nearly always travels in large, cumbersome groups. The displacement of the herd's birthing and feeding grounds would most likely be toward the Brooks Range, a mountainous area to the south where predators such as wolves and bears would find easy game in the newborn calves. Some estimates predict that after several years the Porcupine Caribou populations could drop 40 percent or more due to higher predation and forage deprivation.

The drop in the Porcupine Caribou population would profoundly affect the Gwich'in. Their villages are spread out in a remarkable symbiosis with the yearly caribou migration pattern. A lower population would mean the herd would fail to reach hunting perimeters of villages with the consistency and numbers of the past. "Some villages could go years without seeing caribou," says Pam Miller, chairman of the Alaska Coalition. "That would be disastrous for a people whose protein intake is nearly 80 percent from caribou.

" But the question of whether to drill in the refuge does not only affect the Gwich'in. Another people that lives much closer to the refuge than the Gwich'in, the Inupiat Eskimo, is strongly in favor of drilling in 1002. And the Inupiat fear that if the federal government fails to open the refuge, their own livelihood will be in danger.

Divide and Conquer

The largest oil field in the United States is Prudhoe Bay, which supplies 25 percent of the nation's domestic oil supply. Oil from Prudhoe Bay flows via the Alaska Pipeline down to Valdez, where it is transported south in huge tankers. The Inupiat, owners of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, have reaped tremendous economic rewards from Prudhoe Bay via tax revenues garnished from corporations such as Exxon and British Petroleum. Kactovic Village, the center of Inupiat oil concerns, is, per capita, the wealthiest region in America, with a median household income of $46,250.

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