The actual report is available here and is a 19 MB Acrobat file. Assuming you can get through to the server. I'm downloading this mama and will check it out later. Maybe. I might not be inspired enough to plow through this just to make a point. I don't get paid for this. Unfortunately, most reporters are going to feel the same way.

Just read the letter on the page linked above. They say that five different fictional development scenarios were studied, with impacts ranging from "none" to "substantial." Those aren't the headlines you're reading in the press, are they? Somehow only "substantial" manages to filter through.

Also note that they are discussing one group of caribou, the Porcupine caribou herd. This is not a species of caribou, it is a specific herd, although you will see people talking as though it is a species. About 130,000 caribou. If you look carefully, almost EVERY LAST REFERENCE to an endangered caribou refers to a specific herd with a falling population.

And what about caribou species? There are five major "species" of North American caribou listed: All belong to the same species that includes the domesticated reindeer, but are broken into 5 categories, for record keeping purposes, by geographical boundaries. This is the environmentalist's best trick, and is used extensively. "That's not just a squirrel in your back yard, Brosz, that's a 'Brosz's Squirrel,' the only one in the world. You must immediately tear down your house and leave."

The categories are Woodland (Newfoundland), Quebec - Labrador (in those two providences), Central Barren Ground (on Baffin Island, a portion of the NWT's east of the Mackenzie River and west of Hudson's Bay), Mountain Caribou (Alberta, British Columbia, and portions of the Yukon and the MacKenzie Mountains of the NWT's), and Barren Ground Caribou (Alaska, and portions of the Yukon). The latter include the further subdivision of the Porcupine herd.

These are further broken up into smaller segments. Frankly, at this point, it gets so confusing that I pretty much gave up. There does not seem to be an overall discussion of Caribou of the World. I did manage to find population figures for the Central Barren Ground caribou: about 1.24 million.

As usual, we are being taken for a ride by the environmental movement, whose radical wing--currently largely in the driver's seat--has the sole agenda of the elimination of all human activity on Earth.

By the technique of taking a particular biological species and "dividing" it into enough subcategories, environmentalists can make any animal "endangered." I just hope someone with more time and incentive than I've got can research this properly. Odds are this will include no one in the news industry.

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The amazing coincidence of an "Official Report" being released just as an important vote comes up is a time-honored Washington scam. Like most politicians, most think tanks have an agenda. Some are more honest about it than others. The USGS has been in the environmentalist's back pocket for some time. To be fair to the leftists, one of the most common a few years back was a huge report on the massive Soviet military machine, complete with pictures, that would pop up just when the military budget was going to be voted on.