Endangered Polar Bears.... NOT! (construction, quality of life, tax)

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by MRVphotog

On what planet did that happen? The actual facts are that the price of crude has come down from a high of $147 to $120 today as a result of a reduction in global demand.

Then I stand to be corrected.

Even if we started the process to build more off-shore rigs it would take years before that oil would get to pump. Just to build one off-shore rig on the mainland can take as long as 2 years. They then have to be towed hundreds of miles.

And doing nothing would do what?

In addition, your verbal attacks on environmentalists and conservationists which I assume does threaten your job proves your lack of credibility.

The pics are awesome tho!

Nope, I am a Chief Engineer on ships, that is why I am on boats here for a couple of months, the water freezes (I know that is a shock to some) and we go else where. My job isn't effected at all, I just don't like the left lying to the public and nobody challenges them.

The photos are pretty much fact here, and I hope that most of you can enjoy them and maybe learn a bit about Alaska at the same time.

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Barkingowl

Starlite, Rance has told us that the polar bears like to hide under the stairs to the buildings & platforms. I guess they hope to spring out suddenly & grab someone. Can you tell us a bit more about how they behave around y'all? Have any of the bears actually gotten into the buildings or on the rigs & if so how do you get them to leave?

The pictures are great. Definitely keep them coming.

Here is what the entrance to one of the water treatment plants look like that you asked for, it is designed so the personnel could look around before heading out to the trucks at shift change. The Polar Bears will come up and lay under the building to get out of the wind, and maybe grab a few snacks as they come down the steps... Doesn't happen very often, but they do seem to like eating people now and then so that is a pretty good precaution for them to take.

There is a bunch of that type of entrances along the shore facilities for the same reasons.

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

It is rather clear that you don't care what anyone says, or who is actually right.

There might be a caribou here and a dozen there... but there is no disagreement by virtually every field biologist that the vast majority of caribou are avoiding the oil infrastructure. While you can find a dozen of them to photograph, there should otherwise have been a 1000 or more. You think 12 is a lot of animals, but compared to 1000 it is zilch.

If you have no problem with truth, why don't you post it?

Well they are here in the "thousands"... So what is your point? At times it takes hours to get though them as they cross the roads going between here and Prudhoe. At this very moment we have a few dozen about thirty feet off the pad and just loafing and eating. They aren't scared of anything here, either one by itself of the Thousands...

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

Your academics seem second grade level Satch. You did notice above where I specified only biologists that are credible and have done field work. That is, unlike you, these biologists have a huge grounding in reality.

You are quoting only the biologists that you want to quote, that doesn't make them correct.

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

Except of course, the room is actually green, and you are stubbornly color blind...

Geeze, you are really in your own world, I am starting to feel sorry for you. I am sure your room is green, be happy there!

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Barkingowl

Thanks starlite!





What happens when a polar bear cub gets separated from its mother, say near a platform or near a village? Does anyone try to look after it or does it react to humans much like its mother would?

Well the local native population can shoot them, mom and cubs. They are not legal to hunt by anyone else. Some do end up in the zoos, but not very often, a male bear will kill them if it can get by their mom.

Today I was anchored off a beach with a sow and three cubs, we were too far off to get a good photo of them with my camera, so I used the binoculars and shot though them and it worked out ok, they were almost a mile away, not really clear, but usable. The boat in the back of one of the photos is a company doing some finer seismic work for the drilling island they are building. The bears didn't seem too concerned, they watched the boat for awhile them moved down the beach and swam the three miles to the mainland and we lost sight of them. The security said on the radio that they came up by the Air Force Radar Site where the guy was mauled some years back when it jumped in through a window.

One of the cubs was about a third less the size of the other two, the photos don't really do much justice to them but I figured they were neat anyway. Watched them for about an hour with the binoculars, never get tired of watching the critters here in Alaska.

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

Baby polar bears are cute cuddly things, until they get a little older and want to eat anything that moves...

But there is quite an interesting story in regard to the DEWLINE site, and since probably very few people reading here have heard the whole of it...

On November 30, 1993 a bear jumped through a window at the Oliktok Long Range Radar Site (near Nuiqsut Alaska). There were two men in the room the bear came into, and others in a nearby room. The bear immediately attacked Donald L. Chaffin. At least two other men tried to fight the bear off with fire extinguishers. Alexander Polakoff went to his room and retrieved a 12 gauge magnum shotgun loaded with slugs. He fired at the bear 4 times, eventually killing it with a shot that hit its heart. Chaffin was in very serious condition and was evacuated to Providence Hospital in Anchorage, where he eventually was patched up with several hundreds of stitches and required 7 metal plates to repair damage to his skull. He suffered serious permanently disabling damage.

A few additional facts are of significance before the odd parts of the story can be told. Inupiat whalers from Nuiqsut were storing whale meat within a few hundred yards of the building, and in the previous week 3 bears had been wandering in the area, one of which was shot. An ADF&G wildlife biologist visited Oliktok and left earlier in the day, after providing advice on how to "bear proof" the site, where there had been a long history of polar bear interactions.

The radar site, which was operated by Martin Marietta (since 1989) and was owned by the US Air Force, was built in the middle 1950's. The USAF regulations at the time required all weapons to be locked up in a special cabinet with the keys strickly under control of the Site Supervisor. Basically, individual access to a firearm was prohibited by USAF regulations.

Because Polakoff killed the bear with a firearm he had illegally kept in his private room, he was disciplined by Martin Marietta. (I seem to recall that they actually terminated him, but I cannot find anything to verify that, only that he did get a letter of reprimand.)

Donald Chaffin sued Martin Marietta and the US Air Force for negligence, and eventually won a large settlement. The USAF was held primariily responsible.

Today there are loaded shotguns at strategic places in all LRRSs where polar bears are a danger. Typically part of the sign-in procedure for visitors will be information about the danger from bears and instructions about use of the bear protection weapons and locations.

Very impressive, you are correct for once and the story is mostly correct. Here is a photo of the site I took this last week. The boat in the picture is a "Gun boat", it uses compressed air for making an underwater "Bang" that replaces things like Dynamite for doing seismic tests of the past.

Oh, when you copy and paste stories, you need to quote what paper you got it from and who wrote it... I would assume it was the Anchorage Daily News?

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by starlite9

Very impressive, you are correct for once and the story is mostly correct. Here is a photo of the site I took this last week. The boat in the picture is a "Gun boat", it uses compressed air for making an underwater "Bang" that replaces things like Dynamite for doing seismic tests of the past.

Oh, when you copy and paste stories, you need to quote what paper you got it from and who wrote it... I would assume it was the Anchorage Daily News?

If it was a cut and past job you would be able to google almost any line in it and find where it was cut from. But it wasn't a cut and paste at all. It was also precisely correct. You might want to learn about how to accomplish that sort of thing... I've been giving you enough lessons, it should start showing up in your articles. Maybe next week?

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

If it was a cut and past job you would be able to google almost any line in it and find where it was cut from. But it wasn't a cut and paste at all. It was also precisely correct. You might want to learn about how to accomplish that sort of thing... I've been giving you enough lessons, it should start showing up in your articles. Maybe next week?

The man that was mauled is a friend of my counterpart here and lives in Wasilla. The story you posted was taken from a paper because I had read it before "verbatim" and not from any posts you have done. and the dates and times are too exact to be from memory from someone who cuts and pastes from the internet as often as you do, but it does elude me where I saw it. Given time and had I any drive or the need to track it down, it wouldn't be that hard, I'm just not interested, but I was just pointing out that Plagiarism is illegal.

The fact that you may have moved a few words around to trip an internet search engine shows that you "May" do that alot. I never thought about copying and pastiing your post to Yahoo or Google to find the source, but that would make sense, most people wouldn't have thought to do that to cover their tracks. Very impressive! I just don't do that....

Thanks

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by starlite9

The man that was mauled is a friend of my counterpart here and lives in Wasilla.

Hot damned, man... you actually know somebody that worked on the DEWLINE. That's kool! (Pardon me, while I giggle and laugh...)

Ask your buddy what is at "1000 Godawful Way, Oliktok Alaska", and if he knows, then he's genuine. (And try finding that in a newspaper article!)

The story you posted was taken from a paper because I had read it before "verbatim" and not from any posts you have done.

You, sir, are clueless. You cannot come up with even one short phrase from that entire article that is the same as anything elsewhere.

Moreover, you might also notice that if you do look up every public account of the incident you can find there will both be things reported that I did not mention simply because I am aware that they are wrong, and there were a couple of items in my article that are "personal knowledge", that you just cannot find anywhere in any newspaper article.

and the dates and times are too exact to be from memory from someone who cuts and pastes from the internet as often as you do, but it does elude me where I saw it. Given time and had I any drive or the need to track it down, it wouldn't be that hard, I'm just not interested, but I was just pointing out that Plagiarism is illegal.

When I cut and paste, I make it a quote and provide a way for people to find it themselves.

The fact that you may have moved a few words around to trip an internet search engine shows that you "May" do that alot. I never thought about copying and pastiing your post to Yahoo or Google to find the source, but that would make sense, most people wouldn't have thought to do that to cover their tracks. Very impressive! I just don't do that....

If it were in any way a cut and paste it would be very easy to find traces of it. There is no way to hide that. I commonly track down the sources that people like you use. And no it is not cut and paste or plagiarism to verify ones facts such as names and dates, it's just standard practice for people who, unlike yourself, insist on accuracy.

This is just one more example of you spouting off without any knowledge or facts behind what you say. You just make up a story to fit what you want to be true, and call it "fact".