Ryding’s Blog

Title:

Interview with Karla M. Dutton (Defenders of Wildlife, March 12, 2009)

Summary:

Karla M. Dutton is the Alaska Program Director for Defenders of Wildlife, an organization based in Washington, D.C. that is dedicated to the protection of American wildlife throughout the nation.  She is also a resident of Chugiak, Alaska.  Mrs. Dutton was generous enough to take part in a 20 to 30 minute interview with me on Wednesday, highlighting her thoughts on the ANWR and whether or not oil drilling should be introduced into the region. 

Topic:

Should the United States experiment with oil drilling on the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) in an attempt to reduce our dependence on foreign oil?

Category:

Citizen, expert, stakeholder (as a citizen of Alaska)

This source is a telephone interview that took place between Mrs. Karla M. Dutton and myself.

Publication Information:

The information shared  by Dutton in this interview has yet to be published, and much of it will likely not be published on this blog.  For further questions and specifics on this interview, including a transcript of the questions, notes taken from the conversation, and contact information for Mrs. Dutton visit the Defenders of Wildlife website, or please contact Jeff Ryding at Ryding’s Blog, or e-mail him at ryding@uoregon.edu.

This interview was conducted on Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Author:

There is no author for this source in the typical sense, but all of the information comes from Karla Dutton and the Defenders of Wildlife, and was gathered by University of Oregon student Jeff Ryding.

 Location:

There is no online location for this source, but notes on the interview are available upon request.

Accessed:

The interview with Karla Dutton was conducted on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 9 a.m.  I was last in contact with Mrs. Dutton that same evening in the form of e-mails regarding her recommendations for additional sources.

Support:

Defenders of Wildlife- employer of Dutton for the past three years, and institution partially responsible for her status as an expert on this issue.

Issues Policy Council (IPA)- Dutton is part of this committee which is responsible for the direction of the Alaskan Conservation Alliance (ACA).  The ACA is a group that represents 40 member organizations and 38,000 individual Alaskan citizens at the state capitol.

University of Rhode Island-  institution where Dutton earned her B.A. in Natural Resources Management (1981), and her M.A. in Marine Affairs (1995).

Georgetown University- institution where Dutton earned her Senior Executive Management Program certificate.

These sources collaborate in order to generate a strong sense of credibility for this source.  Dutton clearly has a diverse number of degrees (as seen from her time at the University of Rhode Island and Georgetown University), and work experience that qualifies her as an expert on the protection of many of the nation and world’s threatened species.  In addition, as a resident of Chugiak, Alaska, Dutton would qualify as a stakeholder when considering the expansion of oil drilling in Alaska.

Audience and agenda:

Defenders of Wildlife is an organization primarily focused on the preservation of many of America’s native species that are threatened by various forms of change occurring in their environments.  It is a non-profit organization that generates most of its revenue through personal contributions from outside sources.  One of the ultimate goals, in addition to the general protection of those species, is for the Defenders of Wildlife to develop a unified alliance that has a significant influence on issues in Congress.  Defenders of Wildlife employed more than 150 individuals, and had more than 500,000 members nationwide in 2008.  In addition to this large amounts of members, the Defenders of Wildlife website reaches an average of about 229,000 people each month, with 22 perfect of those individuals being regular users.  It is clear that the Defenders of Wildlife agenda and message is reaching a large amount of U.S. citizens.  For this interview my source was attempting to address just myself, with the knowledge that the information taken from the interview would be spread on the internet and in the University of Oregon classrooms.  Mrs. Dutton wishes that her message about ANWAR would reach as many people worldwide as possible; one of the reasons that she was so readily available and willing to do an interview.

Usefulness:

This source has been extremely useful to the process of developing an argument and stance regarding the issue of oil drilling on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  I had already conducted an interview with an Alaskan citizen and expert (Adrian Herrera) who is entirely for the introduction of drilling on the ANWR, so it was very beneficial for me to talk with another Alaskan citizen and expert who has differing viewpoints on the controversy.  That way I can look at the dispute from multiple angles.  In the interview Dutton was forming the argument that there are species such as polar bears that are already experiencing the negative effects of oil drilling in Alaska, and the expansion of the practice would only increase the harm on those species’ environments.  She also asserts that there have already been negative consequences of drilling for multiple native villages in Alaska, which rely much more heavily on the earth’s natural resources than the typical American citizen.  These statements, in combination with the fact that Dutton feels the right research on oil drilling in the region has not been performed, provide the basis for Dutton’s reasoning that oil drilling on the ANWR would be an insensible process at this current time.  While this source was very helpful, I failed to go into depth with her about the specific dangers to the species in the region such as polar bears and caribou.  I will likely have to get this information from other sources.

Works cited:

• Defenders of Wildlife- current employer of Dutton.

http://www.defenders.org/index.php

• The Alaskan Conservation Alliance (ACA)- directed by Dutton and the rest of the Issues Policy Council.

http://www.akvoice.org/

• The University of Rhode Island-

http://www.uri.edu/

• The University of Georgetown-

http://www.georgetown.edu/

• www.quantcast.com- provides statistics on the amount of traffic on the Defenders of Wildlife webpage.  

http://www.quantcast.com/defenders.org#traffic