Red-Faced Cormorant
The red-faced cormorant, with its distinctive red bare-skinned face, is a year-round resident of Bristol Bay. During breeding season, it comes ashore and mingles with other species of seabirds while it nests on rock ledges and slopes.
Bald Eagle
Bald eagles are common in Bristol Bay year-round thanks to the plentiful supply of salmon. Even when populations plummeted in the lower 48 states, bald eagles held strong in Alaska thanks to clean, unspoiled environments like Bristol Bay. And they continue to thrive; there are more bald eagles in Alaska than in all the lower 48 states combined.
All these animals and so many more rely on Bristol Bay as one of America’s few remaining pristine wild places. But for more than 10 years, conservation organizations and local communities have fought tooth and nail to keep Bristol Bay undisturbed by industrialized mining. Pebble Mine, a proposed gold and copper mining operation, would cut a mile-long, quarter-mile-deep gash through the headwaters of Bristol Bay. The mine would also require extensive transportation and energy infrastructure and produce around 1.1 billion tons of waste during its 20-year operation. Bristol Bay, and the wildlife it supports, would be marred forever.
And the damage wouldn’t stop at Bristol Bay. The mining company plans to construct an 83-mile corridor all the way to Amakdedori Beach on Cook Inlet. This would jeopardize marine mammals, the world’s largest concentration of brown bears, and seabirds like puffins, cormorants, and murres.
After years of victories and setbacks in this fight, we are now at a critical moment. The federal government is attempting to fast-track Pebble Mine, disregarding fundamental concerns about its environmental impacts. If we’re going to stop Pebble Mine, we need your help. Join hundreds of thousands of Americans who have already been loud and clear about their stance on our shared national treasure: no Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay -- not now, not ever.