http://www.japantimes.com/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20040911a6.htm

Our continued appetite for Energy draws manking into odd corners of the Earth where animals have ruled....

Sakhalin oil, gas mega-project seen threatening rare sea eagles

By OSAMU HIRABAYASHI

YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, Russia (Kyodo) A massive oil and natural gas project under way off Sakhalin is threatening Steller's sea eagles, which breed on the island and migrate to Japan in the winter, according to ornithologists and other experts.
Excavation work and the laying of pipes are well under way and year-round crude oil output is due to gradually start at the end of next year.

Experts appealing for the protection of the sea eagles from extinction cast doubt on claims made by the project promoters that they are taking steps to protect the environment.

The oil developers have divided the sea surrounding Sakhalin into nine zones. Thus far, Sakhalin 1 and 2 are in the phase of development and production, with more than $10 billion invested by non-Russian firms in each zone.

An international consortium that includes Exxon Mobil of the United States and Japanese trading firms Itochu Corp. and Marubeni Corp. is in Sakhalin 1, while Royal Dutch Shell and Japanese trading companies Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Corp. are participating in Sakhalin 2.

The project's base is in Chaybo Bay in the northeastern part of Sakhalin, where an excavation rig of the world's largest class, at about 70 meters tall, and other facilities overlook the Sea of Okhotsk.

A team composed of academics from Moscow University and people from the Wildlife Preservation Bureau of Hokkaido, a nonprofit group based in Kushiro, studied the sea eagles' habitat in July and August and found 15 fledglings in nests in "kuy" pine trees in areas around the oil facilities.

The yellow-beaked sea eagles are the world's largest eagle species and have a wingspan of about 2.5 meters when fully grown.

The World Conservation Union lists them as in danger of extinction. They breed in the Sea of Okhotsk coastal areas of the Kamchatka Peninsula and Sakhalin, among other places.

Of the some 5,000 estimated to exist, around 2,000 fly to parts of Hokkaido to winter, including the Shiretoko Peninsula.

They are designated as a "natural monument" in Japan.

"There is no doubt that the sea eagle's inhabitable environment is becoming smaller year after year," said professor Vladimir Mastrov, 43, of the department of biology at Moscow University, who has been regularly observing the birds on Sakhalin for 15 years.