Pictures: Animals That Blocked Keystone XL Pipeline Path

Prairie Display

Photograph by Joel Sartore

A greater prairie chicken inflates orange sacs on the side of its throat and stutter-steps at a lek in the Nebraska Sandhills; due to its flamboyant display, this grouse is often considered America's own bird of paradise. In its mating dance, "it converts itself into a different creature altogether," says award-winning National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore, a lifelong Nebraskan.

Sartore captured this photo and the previous image last spring from a blind at Calamus Outfitters, a working ranch near Burwell, Nebraska, that opens its land to bird watchers.

Sartore says that ranchers are well aware of the fragility of the Sandhills soil, which is not suitable for cultivating crops. "I don't think there are any better stewards than the owners in the Sandhills," Sartore says. "They know if you break up the soil, the sand blows away. You can't drive big pick-up trucks over it and you can't overgraze. It's a very delicate place."

(Related: "A Quest to Clean Up Canada's Oil Sands Carbon")

Environmentalists had protested the Keystone XL pipeline for many reasons, including that oil extraction from the Canadian oil sands is far more energy intensive than conventional oil production and results in greater carbon emissions. But it was the concern about the land and water of the Sandhills that ultimately halted the project.

(Related: "The Canadian Oil Boom")

Published January 18, 2012

A Herd Preserved

Photograph by Joel Sartore

Bison, the largest land mammal of North America, once roamed the Great Plains in huge herds, but their numbers dwindled to less than 1,000 by the late 1880s. Today, there are probably 500,000 bison on private ranches and in public reserves like the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, where Sartore captured this herd grazing.

(Related Blog Post: "Video: Ranchers Who Opposed the Keystone XL Pipeline")

Published January 18, 2012

A Vocal Resident

Photograph by Joel Sartore

With its scarlet and gold shoulder patches and distinctive song, this red-winged blackbird, pictured at the 4-D Rush Lake Reserve, is one of the more showy denizens of the Nebraska Sandhills. The unique grassland and sandy soil, which holds water like a sponge, attracts a wide range of birds, from crane and heron to the red-winged blackbird, one of the most abundant birds in North America.

Published January 18, 2012

Precious Water Resource

Photograph by Joel Sartore

Visible in this aerial view of the wetlands at the 4-D Rush Lake Reserve, the hundreds of feet of coarse sand and gravel that lie below the surface of the Sandhills contain one of the largest aquifers in North America, the Ogallala. The aquifer supplies drinking water to about 2 million people in Nebraska and seven other states.

(Related: "Yellowstone Spill and the Trouble With Pipelines")

The largest sand dune formation in America, the Sandhills acts like a giant sponge that absorbs precipitation with very little runoff. As much as one half of annual rainfall percolates to the groundwater. In the valleys, the water table is elevated, helping to form the 1.3 million acres of wetlands throughout the area.

Dave Heineman, Nebraska's Republican governor, cited his concern over the risk to the crucial water source for the state's farmers and ranchers last year in voicing opposition to the pipeline route through the Sandhills. Heineman initially resisted calls for a special session of the legislature to address Keystone XL, but relented as opposition mounted. Controversy was so great across the state that fans at a University of Nebraska Cornhusker football game booed in their own stadium when a logo for TransCanada appeared on a video screen. In November, the legislature voted 45-0 to approve measures that would route the pipeline around the Sandhills.

Published January 18, 2012

Fertile Ground for Game

Photograph by Joel Sartore

Originating in Asia, the ring-necked pheasant first appeared in North America in the early 1700s and has since become a popular game bird, recognizable by its long, pointed tail and (on males) iridescent green head with white collar. It thrives in areas with ample grass cover, marshes, and ditches, making the Sandhills an ideal home. This pheasant is photographed at the 4-D Rush Lake Reserve.

Published January 18, 2012

Fragile Flora

Photograph by Joel Sartore

Currently classified as threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the prairie fringed orchid has suffered most from the conversion of prairies and meadows to crop land. Dependent on a few species of moths (not pictured) for reproduction, it is vulnerable not only to land changes but to anything that could harm its chief pollinators.

Published January 18, 2012

Traveling Shorebird

Photograph by Joel Sartore

The federally protected long-billed curlew poses a challenge to conservationists, because it migrates across multiple regions of the United States and Mexico over the course of its life cycle. Its long beak helps it forage for shrimp, crab, and insects. This curlew was photographed at the 4-D Rush Lake Reserve.The working ranch opens it doors to outdoor enthusiasts, including birders.

Sartore, whose travels have taken him to every continent, and who has photographed in challenging environments from the high Arctic to the Antarctic, notes that the curlew's numbers are in decline and it may one day need to be listed as endangered. "I'm an 'endangered species guy,' but I wouldn't applaud something being listed any more than you'd applaud someone being wheeled into an emergency room," he says.

Sartore, who also photographed the aftermath of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, said he was inspired by the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline to buy ranchland in the Nebraska Sandhills to help preserve it. "We'll maintain this ranch as a working ranch, always with conservation in mind," he said. "To me, it's critically important to do something with one's life that matters. I think that preserving habitat is one of the highest, noblest things one can do."

Published January 18, 2012

A Ranchers’ Welcome

Photograph by Joel Sartore

These deer were photographed at the 4-D Rush Lake Reserve, a ranch that has been in the same family for nearly 100 years. Tim Dietlein, the fourth-generation rancher who stewards the 8,000 acres along with his wife, Ellen, has opened the land to prairie ecotourism as well as the traditional cow-calf operation. They welcome guests to the ranch for bird-watching, wildflower-viewing, hiking, and stargazing. The western Sandhills, so far from cities and other development, is among the least light-polluted places in the world.

Published January 18, 2012

A Mated Pair

Photograph by Joel Sartore

Distinguished by their very long bills, northern shoveler ducks, like these photographed at the 4-D Rush Lake Reserve, are one of many duck species-among them, mallard and blue-winged teal-for whom the Sandhills are a prime breeding ground. Northern shovelers are loyal couples, pairing off monogamously for longer periods than do similar species.

Published January 18, 2012

Endangered Beetle

Photograph by Joel Sartore

Using the sharp organs of smell on its antennae, the American burying beetle can sense death from as far as two miles. This scavenger plays a crucial role in recycling decaying materials back into the prairie ecosystem, but it has been on the U.S. endangered species list since 1989.

(Related: "Endangered Beetle Lies in Keystone XL Path")

Known for its shiny black body and orange markings and as big as 1.5 inches (3.81 centimeters) long, the American burying beetle is the largest insect in North America that relies on carrion. Once a year, a pair of burying beetles will work together as small bulldozers, displacing soil beneath a carcass until it settles into the ground. They will then lay eggs and raise young near the carcass underground. The burying behavior prevents competing flies from laying eggs on the animal's remains.

But carrion is an unpredictable food source, and human development has restricted the range on which the insect can thrive. "Today, the American burying beetle seems to be largely restricted to areas most undisturbed by human influence," says the University of Nebraska Museum's web site. "In Nebraska, the Sandhills is just such an area."

In October, several environmental groups filed suit against the U.S. government for allowing the trapping and attempted relocation of the endangered burying beetle this past summer in advance of the Keystone XL decision. The Center for Biological Diversity, the Western Nebraska Resources Council, and Friends of the Earth said it amounted to "illegal construction" activity, because the U.S. government had not yet completed the required environmental impact study to determine whether the pipeline should be built across the Sandhills in the first place.

Published January 18, 2012

Shy Swimmer

Photograph by Joel Sartore

Although the pied-billed grebe is common in North America, it likes to stay out of sight and is rarely spotted in flight. The grassy wetlands of the Sandhills, like this wetland area at the 4-D Rush Lake Reserve, makes the perfect hideout for the bird, which dives when frightened. It looks like a duck at the surface, but beneath, it has no webbed feet. Instead, its toes have extended lobes that provide needed surface for paddling.

Published January 18, 2012

A New Route Sought

Photograph courtesy TransCanada

TransCanada argued that it had built environmental considerations into the design of its pipeline, which was to be underground the entire route, as shown in an image from the company, above.

The Keystone XL was designed to be buried 25 feet underneath any water crossing, "reducing the chance for an impact on the water source if something did happen," said Shawn Howard, a spokesman for TransCanada, interviewed before the Obama administration decision. Howard said the company also had engineered additional shut-down valves into the design, and planned to lay straw mats down all along the route for equipment to sit on, to minimize disturbance to the land. "Everywhere along the route, all of the environmental aspects are examined, whether vegetation or endangered or special species," he said.

Now, Howard said that the company has been doing aerial flyovers of a broad area to consider the landscape for other potential routes. Nebraska's Department of Environmental Quality on December 29 produced a map outlining a Sandhills no-go area covering all or part of 25 counties.

Finding a new pathway for the Keystone XL will not be easy. The U.S. State Department, in its environmental impact statement released last August, considered five possible pipeline alternate routes outside the Sandhills. A route west it deemed "financially inpracticable." Four other routes to the east also were more expensive and technically difficult, and of questionable environmental benefit, the agency said. "They would not avoid the Northern High Plains Aquifer system, and they would not avoid areas of shallow groundwater," the agency said. "Instead, these routes would shift risks to other areas of the Northern High Plains Aquifer system and to other aquifers."

After the Obama administration decision on Wednesday, TransCanada released a statement saying that it would continue to work with Nebraska to find "the safest route for Keystone XL that avoids the Sandhills." The company said it would reapply for a presidential permit and anticipated a new application could be processed in time for a pipeline to be in service by 2014.

"While we are disappointed," the company said. "TransCanada remains fully committed to the construction of Keystone XL."

Published January 18, 2012