A number of those opposed to the Ambler Road have claimed that the main reason for their opposition is the resulting negative impact that the road will have on caribou.
They believe that the caribou will either not cross such a road and/or will change their pattern of use of adjacent habitat.
These writers need to know that there are a number of caribou herds in Alaska, including the Nelchina, the Mentasta, the Fortymile and the Central Arctic herds, to name just a few, which have major roads within their ranges, and these caribou cross these roads seasonallyto move between winter, calving and summer portions of their range. One associated question is: How long did these herds take to adapt to crossing these roads? I do not have the results of some prior studies of this question, but I can tell you that when the 800-mile trans-Alaska pipeline was built in the late 1970s, together with an adjacent road used to monitor and service the pipeline, the Nelchina caribou crossed it during construction and immediately afterwards, on their way back and forth between their winter range to east and calving range to the west.
As long as there is a good reason to cross a road, such as the presence of good forage, or to reach important winter range or calving areas, caribou have a long history of crossing roads.
— Jim Lieb
Palmer
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