I currently live in Sudbury Ontario where there is a lot of underground copper mining. The biggest players are CVRD/Inco and Falconbridge/Xstrata (or vice-versa).

The refining process has been the most damaging here on the environment, killing all vegetation back in the '70s, but with today's technology and re-greening efforts, the vegetation has returned and is now sustaining itself. I wasn't here in the 1970's but there are still signs of the fallout.

As for wildlife, there is no shortage of deer, bears, etc..., even within city limits (pop. ~160,000) and the dozens of lakes, all within 15 minutes of town, have ample variety of species, with numbers growing all the time.

Perhaps an open pit mine would have a different impact on the environment, but I think that so long as the effort is made to limit the impact with the technology we have today, there should not be any real effect on the local wildlife.

Just my 2 cents of course, I'm not in the industry but I do notice the environmental effects first hand.

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