Bilmac: As for Pebble, OK that might not have made it to the lower 48 yet, but it's coming.
I just came from spending two months in Florida, Texas, and North Carolina. I saw many spots on TV asking for money to save the endangered Polar Bears. I saw these TV adds running in all three states. There is more Polar Bears on Alaska's North Slope now than there has ever been since they started keeping records.
In reguards to Wolf Control, one report I read reported that it takes $100K to make, distribute and run one of these adds on TV. That one add in particular about the wolf control brought in over $9 Million to Defenders Of Wildlife. Big return for a small investment. It's big business for these folks, and the adds are designed to pull the heart strings of young teenage girls, young women, and little old ladies, and it is very effective. Then they use the money to hire attorneys, and to start court litigation to stop what ever that cause was about.
With the polar bears they are using the money to have the courts stop all off shore drilling and exploration for oil in the Beaufort Sea, and the Arctic Ocean. Yet the science says that the Polar Bears will not be endangered by drilling.
If you happened to be watching the travel channel this weekend, you would have seen two back to back shows about Alaska. In those shows they visited ANWR and showed the Caribou. Then they had a speal about how oil drilling in ANWR would put these majestic animals in danger. Another false statement, look at the Artci Caribou herd for instance. They forcast that the herd would go into extinction, with the construction of the Alaska oil pipeline. The herd has gone from 16,000 animals to over 60,000 animals. They lie under the pipe on the gravel, and on the gravel pads around buildings used for parking vehicles, to get away from the bot flies that drive them crazy out on the tundra.