Letter: Caribou adapt to oil pipeline

Friday, April 12, 2002 | 9:06 a.m.

One would think after the attack on America on Sept. 11, and now seeing in Israel the terrorist acts that could be a foreshadowing of things to come in America's future, that everyone would understand the continuing danger of exporting American dollars for oil imports from Arab nations, some of whose leaders and citizens hate Americans and the things we stand for.

The Sun's executive editor, Mike O'Callaghan, is a rare exception.

In his April 5 column, "Not a security issue," Mr. O'Callaghan downplays the relationship between national security and imported oil from Arab countries in arguing against drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Mr. O'Callaghan uses the same argument that was used to argue against drilling on the North Slope and installing the Alaskan pipeline some 30 years ago: the end of the caribou.

Apparently Mr. O'Callaghan is not aware of the follow-up studies carried out on the North Slope caribou which, as anyone who watches The Learning Channel knows, have acclimated to the pipeline and are thriving.

It is amazing that some who believe in Darwinian evolution and natural selection, where a species determines it needs longer legs to continue to survive and grows them, do not believe the same animals have enough sense to acclimate to drilling on a relatively few acres of tundra.

Is Mr. O'Callaghan asking us to believe that the caribou in ANWR are a more stupid strain of caribou than those who adapted to the pipeline?

DAN KANE