Alaska is battleground for Endangered Species Act At the Resource Development Council’s annual conference in Anchorage, Denby Lloyd, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, projected a large map of the state on an overhead screen. One at a time, swathes of red marking the habitat of Cook Inlet beluga whales, Steller’s sea lions, spectacled eiders, polar bears, Kittletz’s murrelet, bowhead whales, Aleutian shield fern, Lynn Canal herring and other species protected by the Endangered Species Act were layered on top of one another, encroaching further and further in on Alaska’s familiar coastline until all but a small bubble in the Interior remained. “God,” uttered a man seated at a linen-covered table close to the podium, audibly sucking in his breath. “I guess I was impressed when I saw these graphs,” said Lloyd. “It appears that the ESA will blanket Alaska’s coastline, with potential to smother human activities.” In a session entitled “The Endangered Species Act: Should Alaska’s Natural Resource Economy be Listed as Endangered?” state, environmental and industry officials weighed in on the impact that new ESA regulations would shape Alaska’s future in resource development. It was perhaps appropriate that what loomed largest in the panel discussion was the Arctic’s most massive land-based predator, the polar bear....