Save the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard

Dunes sagebrush lizards live in the sand dunes of Texas and New Mexico under the shade of shinnery oaks, burying themselves in the white sand to avoid predators and stay cool.

But these lizards are slipping toward extinction as their last small pockets of habitat are destroyed by oil and gas drilling, herbicide spraying and other development. Because of that, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last year proposed protecting the species under the Endangered Species Act -- a proposal supported by independent scientists.

Now the oil and gas industry and its cronies in Congress are trying to block those protections by pitting the lizard against jobs. But the conflict is trumped up: The lizard occupies a small fraction of oil and gas leasing areas, in a region where many gas leases have gone unsold and existing protections for the lizard have had little impact on leasing in any case.

You can help save this vanishing species by asking White House policymakers to put in place the protections federal biologists have proposed.