Oppose Incidental Harassment Authorization for the Southern Beaufort Sea

The groups on this fight

4 groups work Alaska

By footprint, from the same match the STAND matchmaker runs; none is linked to this decision in our record yet. Give straight to them; nothing routes through us.

• Alaska Wilderness League

  Works Alaska: built around defending the Arctic Refuge from oil and gas drilling.

• Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges

  Works Alaska: lead plaintiff in the November 2025 federal suit challenging the land exchange signed to put a road through the Izembek Wilderness.

• Southeast Alaska Conservation Council

  Works Alaska: southeast Alaska’s homegrown defender of the Tongass since 1970.

• The Wilderness Society

  Works Alaska: has litigated the 211-mile Ambler industrial road since the original 2020 approvals.

Every group above is on STAND for Public Lands, with its court record, its filings and who backs it.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to authorize the nonlethal harassment of up to 10 Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears over one year while the Bureau of Land Management plugs legacy oil wells and conducts cleanup and soil sampling work on Alaska's North Slope. The authorization would only allow Level B harassment, meaning disturbance to normal behavior without physical injury, and no lethal take is proposed. Polar bears are a threatened species, so this affects ongoing federal obligations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and ESA for a population already under climate-related stress.

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in response to a request under the Marine Mammal Protection Act from the Bureau of Land Management, propose to authorize nonlethal incidental take by harassment of small numbers of Southern Beaufort Sea (SBS) polar bears (Ursus maritimus) for 1 year from the date of issuance of the incidental harassment authorization (IHA). The applicant requested this authorization for take by harassment that may result from activities associated with oil well plugging and reclamation, soil sampling, snow trail, pad, and airstrip construction, and summer cleanup activities in the North Slo…

Federal Register 2026-02960 ↗

More actions that need you