Governor Palin is an active promoter of Alaska’s aerial hunting program whereby wolves and bears are shot from the air or chased by airplanes to the point of exhaustion before the pilot lands the plane and a gunner shoots the animals point blank.
* Palin offered a $150 bounty for wolves to entice hunters to kill more wolves in certain parts of the state, with hunters having to present a wolf’s foreleg to collect the bounty.
* She actively opposed a ballot measure campaign seeking to end the aerial hunting of wolves by private hunters and approved a $400,000 state-funded campaign aimed at swaying people’s votes on the issue.
* She also introduced legislation to make it easier to kill wolves and bears and which would have also removed the aerial hunting initiative from the ballot and block the ability of citizens to vote on the issue.
* The Board of Game, which she appoints, has approved the killing of black bear sows with cubs as part of the program and expanded the aerial control programs.
* The media is currently looking into reports that state officials implementing one of the aerial wolf killing programs illegally killed five-week old wolf pups just outside their dens.
Defenders of Wildlife: Protect Utah Prairie Dogs and Other Wildlife Fill out the form below to urge your Representative and Senators to support the Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2007 (H.R. 1422 and S. 700), important legislation that would help private landowners protect Utah prairie dogs and other imperiled wildlife that live on their property.
Center for Biological Diversity: Kempthorne Awarded Rubber Dodo On Friday, August 24, we awarded the first annual Rubber Dodo Award to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in recognition of his one year and 90 days in office without listing a single new species as threatened or endangered. That’s a record.
The Bush/Cheney Administration has announced two proposals to jumpstart the killing of hundreds of wolves in the Yellowstone area and elsewhere in the Northern Rockies.
Officials in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are now seeking public comment on the agency’s proposal to accept Wyoming’s disastrous wolf management plan and to give Idaho and Wyoming vast new powers to kill wolves — even while these magnificent animals remain listed under the Endangered Species Act.
We must stop the Bush Administration’s plan to declare open season on the wolves of Greater Yellowstone and central Idaho. Once approved, Wyoming and Idaho intend to begin exterminating up to half their gray wolves — by aerial gunning and other cruel methods — as early as this fall.
Our Southwest wolves have some pretty powerful enemies — from local anti-wolf zealots who try to kill them to the politicians in Washington, who just weeks ago attempted to end federal wolf recovery efforts in New Mexico and Arizona.
Fortunately, our wolves also have some powerful friends….Late last week, our imperiled wolves found another powerful champion: New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.
Governor Richardson has announced an immediate suspension of his state’s involvement in the so-called “three strikes” policy on the removal of wolves accused of killing livestock.
Citing deep concerns about the recent escalation in wolf removals, Richardson suspended state involvement in wolf removals pending further investigation and revision of the rules governing wolf removal.
The governor’s announcement comes on the heels of the killing of AF924, the Alpha Female of the Durango Pack who had been implicated in three livestock deaths. Her removal last week by federal agents resulted in conflict between state and federal officials and left the wolf’s pups without a mother.
With just 58 wolves in New Mexico and Arizona, the loss of AF924 — and the possibility that her pups could be lost as well — comes as a major blow to wolf recovery efforts.
Please take a moment right now to thank Governor Richardson for taking a stand for one of the Southwest’s most beloved and imperiled animals. Send your message to the governor online now!
After decades of decline, hope is on the horizon for Alaska’s Cook Inlet belugas. Thanks in part to the support of more than 15,000 Defenders activists like you, federal officials plan to list Alaska’s beleaguered beluga as an endangered species. But they need to hear from you to make these vital protections a reality.
Take action now! Tell the National Marine Fisheries Service that you support their plan to protect Cook Inlet belugas as an endangered species!
Just 59 southwest wolves now remain, and some in Congress want to end federal efforts to save them.
An amendment expected to be offered by Representative Steve Pearce (NM) and would eliminate funding for southwest wolf recovery — completely ending the program and dooming the wolves to extinction.
Last fall, more than 35,000 activists like you sent comments asking the Forest Service to stop the massacre of tens of thousands of prairie dogs on our National Grasslands.
Prairie dogs provide food for eagles, hawks, badgers, swift fox, endangered black-footed ferrets and other Great Plains predators. Prairie dog burrows provide shelter for burrowing owls, salamanders, black-footed ferrets and many other creatures.
But the Forest Service wants to use your tax dollars to poison and kill tens of thousands of these furry critters and destroy the vital habitat prairie dogs create in our National Grasslands.
It was music to my ears: On Wednesday, the House Natural Resources Committee passed H.R. 2337, legislation that would offer a crucial lifeline to polar bears, monk seals and other wildlife threatened by global warming.
Now we need your help to ensure that this important bill becomes law… and we’re pulling out all the stops to address global warming and save wildlife. Here are two things you can do right now to help…
Urge your Representative to support H.R. 2337, vital energy and climate change legislation. This bill would create a much-needed national strategy to help polar bears, monk seals, sea turtles and other wildlife survive and adapt to global warming’s impacts.
Send our free e-card to 3 friends to encourage them to take action to save wildlife, and you will be entered for a chance to win 2 tickets to see the The Police, Melissa Etheridge, Kelly Clarkson, Kanye West and more at the historic July 7th Live Earth concert to raise awareness about global warming. You can learn more about Live Earth on the concert’s website.*
Why are we giving away concert tickets to one lucky winner and a guest? Because global warming is a clear and present danger to our wildlife, and Defenders of Wildlife needs to engage as many wildlife supporters as possible before Congress heads home for its July 4th recess.
Grizzly bears, wolverines, lynx, woodland caribou, wolves, and thousands of plants and other wildlife species rely on undisturbed habitat in America’s National Forests. Unfortunately, the Bush-Cheney Administration has enacted policies that favor road construction, logging and energy development, which are threatening the forest homes of these and other creatures.
Even as global warming and Big Oil’s drills threaten North American polar bears, a loophole in the Marine Mammal Protection Act allows U.S. trophy hunters to kill Canadian polar bears and bring them back to this country. This adds additional pressure to Canada’s vanishing polar bear populations, which — like those in the U.S. — are already declining.
The Polar Bear Protection Act would put an end to imports of polar bears taken as trophies from Canada — and help safeguard the world’s remaining polar bears.
Officials in the Bush/Cheney Interior Department intend to allow harmful new drilling in more than 84 million acres off the coast of Alaska, including an area closed to drilling after the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. Federal officials have also proposed new drilling leases off the coasts of Virginia and Florida.
These areas are teeming with wildlife, including imperiled whales, sea otters and sea turtles. New drilling could destroy these sensitive coastal ecosystems and the wildlife and tourist economies that depend on them.
See also: Protect Alaska’s Beluga Whales by the Center for Biological Diversity. FYI: the action alert was released 4/20, so it appears that a decision was not yet reached as of Friday. Additionally, CBD gives an Campaign Expiration Date of June 19, 2007 – so get to it!
The Cook Inlet once teemed with up to 1300 beluga whales — a genetically distinct population of these white whales. But sadly, their numbers have dropped to around 300 — and they could vanish forever within our lifetime unless we act now!
Federal officials will decide soon whether to list the Cook Inlet belugas as an endangered species. But they need to hear from you.
From Alaska’s polar bears to the rich ecosystems that rely on the world’s coral reefs, the signs are clear that global warming poses a major threat to wildlife. In fact, thousands of species could be lost unless we act now!
Under the leadership of Rep. Henry Waxman in the House and Sens. Barbara Boxer and Bernie Sanders in the Senate, Congress could finally set us on the path for real action on one of the most important issues facing our wildlife — and ourselves. But your elected officials need to hear from you!
Via Defenders of Wildlife, a really cute but totally time-wasting, errr, time waster:
Visit YouWild.org and transform yourself — or a friend, family member, or pet — into a wolf pup, panda, sea otter, or one of our other adorable, majestic, or scary-looking critters!
Just create your personal animal morph page, and then share it with friends, family, co-workers and others to help us raise awareness about the plight of our imperiled wildlife.
YouWild.org is simple to use — you start by choosing one of twenty one different imperiled animals. Then, upload a photo of your own or choose a sample photo from our gallery of people and animals.
Finally, watch as the face you chose gradually transforms into your chosen animal. And if you like the results, you can save your morph and send it to your friends and family (and even post it on your website, blog or MySpace page)!
