President Trump’s historic tax reform included opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to energy development and oil drilling in particular. ANWR is critical habitat for one of the largest caribou herds in the world, the Porcupine caribou herd. The 200,000 members of the Porcupine herd have used the coastal plain of the Refuge as a birthing and nursing grounds for decades and this calving grounds is the area threatened by oil and gas development. The ANWR is also home to a network of plains, waters and mountains, provides an environment unlike almost anywhere else. Its unique ecological composition makes it the perfect place for the porcupine caribou to live, raise their young. Peter Mather follows the migrating herd in this gallery including calving females, animals traversing the landscape and shots of the local Gwich’in subsistence hunters that rely upon the very caribou that are threatened by drilling.
