Freshwater turtles in New York desperately need your help. Threats like habitat destruction and pollution are causing dangerous population declines for these imperiled animals across the country. But rather than protecting New York's turtles, legislators in the state are pushing forward bills that would dramatically increase the number of turtles killed each year.
Assembly Bill 2490 seeks to legalize trapping and other cruel methods -- like spears and clubs -- to kill common snapping turtles in New York. But turtle traps can't distinguish between snapping turtles and other, often rarer species such as endangered bog turtles.
We need to act quickly to defeat this lethal legislation -- this bill's counterpart already passed the state Senate.
Because of pressure from Center for Biological activists and supporters, states across the country have been taking steps to restrict turtle trapping and help prevent further population declines for these vulnerable animals. A.B. 2490 is a step in the wrong direction -- its passage would deal a devastating blow to New York's turtle populations.
Please, help us fight for freshwater turtles -- take action using the form below and tell the New York Assembly to oppose disastrous turtle trapping.
Right now it's legal for trappers to kill unlimited numbers of bobcats in California -- all so that their fur can be sold for fashion in places like China and Russia. Trappers can even kill bobcats along the edges of national parks and other protected areas.
Commercial trapping is inhumane, and it damages the ecological integrity of California's beautiful and important wild places. Help us end this practice and protect bobcats in our state.
Joshua Tree National Park experienced runaway commercial trapping in 2012. The region has seen a more than eight-fold increase in commercial trapping in just two years.
Luckily there's a ray of hope for California's bobcats: Assembly Bill 1213, the Bobcat Protection Act of 2013, would limit the commercial trapping of bobcats in our state. The bill immediately prohibits bobcat trapping around Joshua Tree National Park. It directs the California Fish and Game Commission to institute further protections, including closing areas around parks and refuges to bobcat trapping.
A.B. 1213 must pass a vote of the full California Assembly by the end of this month to continue moving forward in the legislature this year.
Take action now using the form below: Please ask your assembly member to vote yes on the Bobcat Protection Act.
Since 1978 wolves have been protected under the Endangered Species Act across the lower 48 States. In the past two years, protections have been removed in the northern Rocky Mountains and western Great Lakes, and states in these regions have approved aggressive hunting and trapping seasons that have resulted in many more than 1,000 wolves dying and, this year, a 7 percent drop in the population in the northern Rocky Mountains.
Despite the disaster that state management has presented in these states, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is plowing ahead with removal of protections for wolves in the remainder of the lower 48 states outside the range of the Mexican wolf, including the Pacific Northwest, southern Rocky Mountains, Northeast and California.
The agency's plans to walk away from wolf recovery before the job is done date back to the Bush administration, but with a new interior secretary, there may still be hope for wolves.
Wolves are loved by many for their close family ties, beauty and spirit. It has been deeply sad to see so many wolves die, often in gruesome situations.
We hope you'll lend your voice for continued protection for wolves by sending the below letter or calling the White House.
Thanks to Endangered Species Act protections, Yellowstone's grizzly bears still survive today -- but they are far from recovered. In the lower 48 states, grizzly bears occupy less than 2 percent of their original range.
Excessive killing and expanding human development still put these magnificent predators at risk -- but a newly proposed recovery plan doesn't work to curb these threats.
Grizzlies in Yellowstone could face severe isolation under the new plan, which does not connect the population to other more robust groups of grizzly bears. The plan also arbitrarily excludes important grizzly habitat and does not address the loss of wildlands and food sources caused by climate change as well as human-caused conflicts.
Please take action using the form below to tell the Fish and Wildlife Service to give grizzly bears the protection they deserve.
Alaska's Bering Sea is home to one of the world's most remarkable natural wonders: 16 submarine canyons, among them the largest ocean canyon in the world. Despite providing important nutrients and habitat for the abundant life in the Bering Sea, and more than a decade of repeated appeals for needed protections, these canyons remain open to damaging commercial fishing.
But the Bering Sea Canyons could see their luck change: The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council will decide in June whether to provide important protections for these essential canyons.
More than a billion dollars of seafood is harvested along the Bering Sea shelf break each year -- providing massive profits to a select group of commercial fishing fleets. And the greed of these corporations is fueling the destruction of one of our nation's richest natural resources. Their trawl rigs plough up thousands of miles of seafloor -- in the process destroying the corals and sponges that provide essential habitat for fish and other marine species.
Protecting the incredible diversity and rich fisheries of the canyons starts on the seafloor, with the corals and sponges that provide habitat for many other species.
Take action using the form below to tell the council to act now to protect the Bering Sea Canyons from corporate fishing fleets and their wasteful and destructive trawling practices.
Every day the wildlands of Appalachia are under attack as millions of pounds of explosives are detonated in the mountains, sending toxic dust into the air. Then the mining waste is then dumped directly into streams. All of this destruction is in the name of mountaintop removal mining that poisons water and destroys wildlife habitats and human communities.
Right now Congress has the opportunity to place a moratorium on this dangerous practice -- and we need your help to make that happen.
More than 500 mountains and 2,000 miles of streams have already been destroyed. In some counties, nearly a quarter of the total land area has been permitted for surface mining with devastating effects on human health and wildlife.
People living in areas of mountaintop removal mining face significantly elevated rates of cancer, birth defects and other major health problems like kidney, heart and respiratory diseases. And what's bad for people is also bad for wildlife. Mountaintop removal threatens endangered fish, salamanders, crayfish and freshwater mussels found nowhere else in the world.
A new bill in Congress would protect Appalachia from mountaintop removal and ensure that human health and endangered species aren't sacrificed for the coal industry's profit. Please take action now to urge your representatives to support the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act and place a moratorium on mountaintop removal permits.
Our elected representatives are again trying to tackle immigration reform. But newly released proposals are looking like more of the same ineffectual policies all over again.
Some members of Congress are trying to broaden the Department of Homeland Security's already unprecedented authority to waive all laws with regard to border enforcement and exempt wall and road construction from legal requirements. The proposals also prioritize more construction of ineffective, expensive and disastrous fencing as a preferred border strategy.
We've seen the impacts of the removal of laws from our borderlands: dangerous and damaging floods in border communities; wildlife migration pathways severed; our treasured national parks and wilderness areas cut by roads and other infrastructure -- all in the absence of laws and public input that should have protected the American people, wildlife and our land.
So far, 37 federal laws -- including the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act -- have been waived along the border to build about 650 miles of walls and other barriers without regard to environmental protection or public health and safety, and without any public review or comment.
The proposals also call for billions of dollars of new border-security infrastructure and emphasize the expansion of the wasteful, destructive border wall.
There is little evidence that waivers and walls have been effective at stopping border crossings. But it is clear that these expensive measures pose a grave threat to America's unique and fragile borderlands environment, putting communities, wildlife and wildlands at risk.
Please take action using the form below; send a clear message to your senators: "No Walls, No Waivers."
Loggerhead Sea Turtle Habitat Proposed for Protection
Each year loggerhead sea turtles cross the entire Atlantic Ocean to nest on the beaches of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Sadly, the beaches they travel hundreds of miles to reach are threatened by climate change, coastal development and increasing human use -- all dangerous for the turtles.
In March the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to protect more than 739 miles of beaches in the region as "critical habitat" -- giving loggerheads a fighting chance against the host of threats they face at the end of their epic journey.
Critical habitat is an important tool for local and national governments to help plan and manage threats to endangered species and their habitat. And it works: Species with designated critical habitat are twice as likely to be recovering as those without it.
For loggerheads this protection will mean safe places for laying eggs, and those eggs will have a better chance of survival.
Please use the form below to take action now and urge the Fish and Wildlife Service to finalize habitat protections for loggerhead sea turtles. Also check out our interactive map above of the areas proposed for protection.
Since losing federal protection last year, hundreds of wolves in Minnesota and Wisconsin were shot, snared, trapped or otherwise killed. Now Michigan wolves are facing a new threat: the Michigan state legislature.
More than 250,000 Michigan voters signed petitions in support of a referendum against trophy hunting of Michigan wolves to help wolves survive in the state.
In what can only be described as an outlandish response, state legislators introduced bills to defeat the referendum effort and give unprecedented authority over Michigan's wildlife to an unelected agency. S.B. 288 and H.B. 4552 would put all power in the hands of the Michigan Natural Resources Commission -- the agency bureaucrats could open a new hunting season on any species without public input, and there would be no way for voters to intervene.
On Thursday, April 25, the Senate passed S.B. 288 -- the House could vote on H.B. 4552 any day.
Please take action using the form below: Tell the Michigan House of Representatives not to take away the rights of Michigan voters and to protect gray wolves against unchecked hunting.
State and federal agencies are considering four proposed coal terminals that would export millions of tons of coal mined in Montana and Wyoming to coal-fired power plants in Asia -- but only after the coal travels through Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Traveling by train and barge, the coal would threaten our air and water with coal dust, spills and dirty diesel exhaust.
And Big Coal is pressuring federal agencies to rubber-stamp permits for these disastrous projects without first reviewing the environmental impacts.
Turning the Northwest into a conduit for dirty coal is bad for endangered species and people. Because of the significant negative impacts to air, water, climate, wildlife and human health these projects would pose, each should receive an in-depth study before any permits are issued. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which facilitates these proposals, should also look at the cumulative impacts these terminals create -- from the mines all the way to the power plants.
Please use the form below to send a message to Congress and the Army Corps of Engineers to stop these disastrous coal terminals in their tracks.
Any way you look at it, Keystone XL is an environmental nightmare.
If we're going to stop this disastrous project and preserve a safer, saner future for our planet, we have to take to the streets and town halls and store fronts and the pipeline route to make our presence felt.
President Obama needs to hear from Americans in every corner of the country, from the rooftops of Brooklyn to the grasslands of Nebraska to the coasts of California.
Please join with the Center for Biological Diversity in signing our pledge to stop Keystone XL and stand with thousands of people rising up for a future that preserves the animals and the wild places we all love.
Together we can make history in California with legislation that would place a moratorium on fracking.
Fracking is a dangerous, rapidly spreading oil and gas extraction technique that endangers our state's water, air, wildlife, climate and public health. Despite the grave risks, California doesn't require oil and gas companies to report when or where they are fracking wells -- or what toxic chemicals they use.
California already has serious water shortages and pollution problems; fracking will only worsen these grave threats to public health. The pollution and intense industrial development associated with the technology threaten key wildlife habitat as well as our agricultural industry. And fracking will greatly undermine California's efforts to address the climate crisis.
But that could change with current legislation in the California Assembly: Despite intense pressure from the oil industry, Assembly Bill 1301, which would put a moratorium on fracking our state, won a key vote, passing out of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee.
But the battle is far from over. Please take action using the form below; tell your legislators to protect California from a fracking disaster by supporting A.B. 1301.
The Oregon legislature is gunning for a fight: A new bill, making its way through the state House of Representatives, declares a state of emergency in order to override Oregon wolf-management and recovery plans while trampling on the state's Endangered Species Act.
The Center for Biological Diversity has been fighting for decades to defend wolves in Oregon. After a lawsuit filed by the Center and allies, a court order was issued in 2011 to protect wolves in Oregon from being killed over livestock-related conflicts.
The court order pushed ranchers and government agencies to rely on conflict-prevention methods to prevent livestock deaths. These methods worked: Livestock conflicts dramatically decreased, and the wolf population nearly doubled. Despite the success of preventative methods over wolf killings, House Bill 3452 amends the Oregon Endangered Species Act and overrides the state wolf plan to allow more killing.
H.B. 3452 would allow endangered wolves to be killed without permits when they are caught in the act of either attacking or "harassing" livestock. Landowners can also kill wolves suspected of having attacked livestock. Wolf-killing with a permit would be expanded too -- wolves would be prime targets just for "causing damage." These extremely vague standards open the door to rampant, unchecked wolf-killing.
Please take action now by using the form below to send a message to your representatives and the House Committee on Rules (which will discuss H.B. 3452). Tell them to vote no and keep protecting Oregon's endangered wolves.
Willits Bypass -- a proposed four-lane freeway-widening project with a $300 million price tag -- will bulldoze wetlands, oak forests, streamside trees and critical habitat for salmon and other endangered species habitats in Northern California.
Caltrans claims the project will ease traffic congestion, but the agency's own data show no increase in highway traffic in two decades. Worse yet, Caltrans has refused to seriously examine other alternatives or routes -- completely ignoring community suggestions for less environmentally destructive solutions to address traffic congestion.
Despite a pending lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and partners, Caltrans has already begun clearing old oak forests in preparation for this mega-highway. The project will destroy vegetation along life-sustaining salmon streams and fill wetlands before the case can even be heard in federal court.
Please help put the brakes on this destructive, wasteful project today. Demand that Caltrans, California state legislators and Governor Jerry Brown halt Willits Bypass before it's too late.
There's disturbing news out of New Mexico: A Wildlife Services agent very likely killed a Mexican gray wolf in January. Making matters worse, the government is evidently trying to keep the truth about this incident from the public.
Every year Wildlife Services kills tens of thousands of animals -- and these killings are frequently hidden under a veil of government secrecy. The public has the right to know the circumstances around the January killing.
We need your help to hold the agency accountable for its actions and prevent future senseless killings.
The government has the responsibility to protect recovering Mexican gray wolf populations, but this marks the 13th time federal agents have shot a Mexican gray wolf since their reintroduction began in 1998. Mexican gray wolves -- with just three breeding pairs in the Southwest -- are hanging on by a thread in New Mexico and Arizona.
Please take action now to end the secrecy and protect wolves across the country. Tell U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who oversees Wildlife Services, to call for a full and open investigation into the wolf's death.
Don't let the politicians and bureaucrats fool you: The Mid County Parkway is an environmental and financial boondoggle.
The parkway would hurt threatened and endangered species and habitat for thousands of birds including the Southwestern willow flycatcher. It would encourage urban sprawl, increase traffic and greenhouse gas emissions, threaten water supplies and reduce available farmland. This new highway is slated to cut through the heart of the San Jacinto Valley, a biodiversity hotspot and globally important bird nesting and breeding area.
To add insult to injury, with a price tag of $2 billion it's a major waste of taxpayer money. There are smarter, cleaner, cheaper transportation options. Even at half its original size, the Mid County Parkway is still an oversized disaster.
Use the form below to speak out now. Tell the Riverside County Transportation Commission to say no to outdated road building that favors trucks and big-money developers over people and threatens one of Southern California's most precious biodiversity hotspots.
Across the country, more than 1,000 documented cases of water contamination have been associated with fracking, which pollutes our air and emits methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas. It also opens up new areas to fossil fuel development at a time when we need to transition rapidly to a clean and renewable energy future.
California's officials, in response to public concern, have issued draft regulations to govern fracking, but the proposed regulations would keep the practice shrouded in secrecy and do almost nothing to protect our environment.
California should follow the lead of New York, New Jersey and Vermont and prohibit fracking to protect our wildlife, our natural resources and our health. That's why the Center for Biological Diversity is joining our allies in pushing to get more signatures in support of a fracking ban than on any other environmental petition in the state’s history. We need your help now to make it happen.
Please use the form below to sign the Center's petition to urge California to ban fracking.
California lawmakers are considering a bill (AB 711) that will finally ban lead in hunting ammunition. If it goes through, it will provide important protections for wildlife and people.
If you live in California, we need you to speak out in favor of the bill.
Just over five years ago California passed landmark legislation and revised hunting regulations to require nonlead ammunition for all hunting done in central and Southern California. This move attempted to prevent endangered California condors from suffering lead poisoning. The regulations have helped revive condor populations -- but success is limited. American bald eagles and other wildlife continue to be afflicted by lead poisoning throughout much of the state, and lead ammunition is still a threat to humans who eat wild game.
Regulations have shown that hunters can easily transition to nontoxic bullets. Over the past five years, hunters in Southern and central California have continued to hunt traditional game using copper bullets -- there has been no decrease in game tags or hunting since the nonlead ammunition requirements went into effect.
California has the opportunity to switch to safer, nontoxic hunting ammunition and protect wildlife and people from lead poisoning by passing statewide legislation.
Please urge your legislators to support a statewide ban on lead ammunition and a move to nontoxic ammunition for all hunting in California.
More efficient airplanes and new technologies to reduce greenhouse gas pollution from airplanes are available. But the airline industry and the U.S. State Department have been blocking international proposals to reduce greenhouse gas pollution from aviation as the climate crisis continues to worsen.
Last year the industry even got Congress to pass legislation which would allow U.S. airlines to ignore the European Union's new rules to reduce aviation emissions. The result: The EU program was suspended for one year to allow for an international body to put together an agreement to reduce global emissions from the sector.
Now we need to make sure our new secretary of state hears from us: The aviation sector should not be exempted from reducing their emissions. We need a binding international agreement to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas pollution from aviation now.
The Obama administration recently released its "environmental impact statement" on the Keystone XL pipeline -- moving this dirty and disastrous oil pipeline closer to approval.
The administration is now accepting comments on that study. Please let President Obama know that the environmental consequences of the pipeline are too costly -- it should be rejected.
Strip mining of oil from Alberta's tar sands, which will be transported by Keystone XL, is already destroying tens of thousands of acres of boreal forest and polluting hundreds of millions of gallons of water from the Athabasca River -- in the process creating toxic ponds so large they can be seen from space.
Extraction and refinement of tar-sands oil also produces two to three times more greenhouse gases per barrel than conventional oil. The process creates a massive new source of fossil fuels -- eliminating our ability to avoid a climate catastrophe.
Keystone XL would cross the heart of the Midwest and deliver oil from Canada's tar sands all the way to the Gulf of Mexico -- where much of it would be exported to other countries. Along the way the pipeline would cut through rivers, streams and prime wildlife habitat -- including habitat for at least 20 imperiled species like the whooping crane and pallid sturgeon.
Please use the form below to tell the administration to reject Keystone XL and halt its progress for a second time.
Rat poisons are made to kill rats, but many of the most dangerous of these poisons accidentally poison wildlife, pets and even children.
The most hazardous of all are what's called second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides -- or "super-toxic" rat poisons. They work by interfering with normal blood clotting and induce a slow, agonizing death by internal bleeding. Endangered San Joaquin kit foxes, golden eagles and Pacific fishers are bleeding to death because of them.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is trying to address the problem of accidental poisoning by banning super-toxic poisons and by placing common-sense restrictions on certain dangerous products. The makers of d-CON -- one brand of those products -- are opposing the agency's decision in order to continue selling hazardous poisons.
Thankfully, stores have the power to control which poisons they put on the shelves. Please use the form below to ask retailers to save countless lives by pulling deadly d-CON poisons from their stores.
California has the largest shale oil reserves in the nation. And that means oil and gas companies are chomping at the bit to extract this oil through hydraulic fracturing, commonly called "fracking."
Fracking is a dangerous, rapidly spreading drilling technique that endangers our state's water, air, wildlife and public health. Frighteningly, California's state regulators do not now require oil and gas companies to report when or where they are fracking wells -- or what toxic chemicals they use. This means that when fracking is happening right next to our communities, streams, lakes and fragile wildlife habitat, we may not even know it.
The best way to protect our state is to prohibit this dangerous practice. Californians now have an opportunity to push for a ban.
Use the form below to ask your state legislators to impose a ban on fracking in California before irreversible damage is done to our wildlife, land and water.
"Fracking," or hydraulic fracturing, is a dangerous drilling technique that endangers our state's water, air, wildlife and public health. And yet, California regulators don't currently track when or where fracking is occurring, let alone protect California from its many dangers.
More than 1,000 documented cases of water contamination across the country have been associated with fracking. California officials, in response to public concern, have issued draft regulations to govern fracking, but the proposed regulations would keep fracking shrouded in secrecy and do almost nothing to protect our air, water or climate.
The best way to protect California is to ban fracking now.
Please use the form below to ask the California Department of Conservation, which is charged with overseeing oil and gas drilling, to impose a ban on fracking in California before irrevocable damage is done to our state and the natural resources we all value.
California's ORV division has never addressed the serious environmental damage to soil, water quality, vegetation and endangered species at Carnegie State Vehicular Recreation Area, a moonscape of completely eroded hills. Yet the agency now wants to let intensive ORV use tear up Alameda-Tesla purchase lands.
Carnegie State Vehicular Recreation Area is updating its general plan and will be preparing an "environmental impact report," but its notice for the environmental review leaves out any mention of expanding destructive ORV use. It likewise fails to describe the important biological resources in the Tesla area that would be destroyed -- or any alternative uses for the park.
The Center for Biological Diversity has joined with the Friends of Tesla Park to preserve the Tesla lands as a nonmotorized park and low-impact recreation area, to save its historic and natural resources.
Please use the form below to protect Tesla from being pulverized by ORVs.
In 2011 the Big Five oil companies made $137 billion in profits. During just the first quarter of 2012, Chevron, BP, Conoco Phillips, Shell and Exxon Mobil made a combined $368 million per day. At the same time, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are now the highest the Earth has seen in 15 million years, and the decade from 2000 to 2010 was the warmest on record.
Despite this crisis, our government continues to subsidize fossil fuels at nearly six times the rate of renewable energy. Our government needs to stop rewarding big polluters for destroying our climate. At a time when they should be slapped with a damage bill, offering these dirty-energy profiteers a government handout is absurd.
But the fossil fuel giants aren't going to give up without a fight, so we need an unstoppable groundswell of support for this important effort.
Please, sign the petition to Congress and join the Center for Biological Diversity, 350.org and other organizations around the country to support stripping away these outrageous subsidies.
Your beach may be more polluted than you think. Each hour we dump one ton of invisible pollution into the ocean; if it were a visible, tangible substance like oil, we would demand that the spill be halted. Even though you can't see it, this pollution threatens our sea life -- from the smallest of plankton to the greatest of whales.
The pollution is carbon dioxide, and it's making our oceans more acidic. Ocean acidification is linked to global warming in that both are caused by CO2 buildup and both threaten to cause unprecedented devastation to the planet's biome. The early effects are already here: Baby oysters cannot survive in waters off the Pacific Northwest, coral growth has been stunted in Florida, and polar waters have eroded the shells of prey that sustain Alaska's salmon and whales.
Sign the petition below and tell the president and the Environmental Protection Agency we must act now to end ocean acidification. The science is in, and there's no debate: Ocean acidification threatens our marine life and coastal communities. The EPA has the tools to prevent ocean acidification from hurting corals, sea otters, salmon and whales, but it must act swiftly.
There's nothing sporting about poisoning bald eagles. But the NRA and other extremist groups continue to try and push through exemptions for lead ammunition and fishing sinkers.
In 2012 the Center for Biological Diversity led a successful effort to prevent these exemptions through the so-called "Sportsmen's Act," which would have prevented the Environmental Protection Agency -- the same agency that got lead out of paint and gasoline -- from protecting wildlife, as well as families that eat game shot with lead ammunition, from lead poisoning.
The NRA, however, will stop at nothing to get special favors from members of Congress, no matter the cost.
Toxic lead continues to enter the food chain through bullet fragments in game and spent lead shot. Bald eagles, endangered condors and more than 130 species of wildlife are needlessly poisoned or killed by lead left in the wild. The EPA can address these preventable deaths through the Toxic Substances Control Act, a well-established and time-tested federal law aimed at limiting our exposure to dangerous substances like lead.
Effective, nontoxic bullets and shot are widely available and in many cases are now comparable in price to lead -- there's simply no reason to continue to use toxic materials for hunting.
More than 250 organizations in 40 states called for regulation of lead ammunition to help defeat the Sportesmen's Act. But the same radical legislation that would gut the Toxic Substances Control Act and prevent the EPA from doing its job could pop up again attached to a must-pass spending bill.
Use the form below to tell President Obama and members Congress to keep lead poisoning and radical legislation out in 2013.
Each year thousands of rattlesnakes are removed from the wild and killed at "rattlesnake roundups." Rattlesnakes play a key role in the food web, maintaining balance in nature by preying on rodents, but hunting of snakes for roundups is pushing some species toward extinction.
Please sign this petition asking communities to change their roundups to festivals where snakes are not hunted or killed. Several communities have already changed their roundups to wildlife-appreciation festivals, which generate important income for the communities and educate the public about the importance of saving native species, not slaughtering them.
Overfishing is pushing bluefin tuna to the brink of extinction. These magnificent animals are famous for their racecar-like speeds, but their population has been reduced to historically low levels by more than 80 percent since industrial fishing began.
The government ignored the danger to bluefin tuna and gave industry its way when it denied Endangered Species Act protection to the fish in June 2011. After years of catching Pacific bluefin tuna before they reproduced, now Pacific populations are at critically low levels, having declined 96.4 percent from unfished levels.
So right now the best way to stop overfishing is to vote with your plate.
Bluefin tuna remains a prized menu item in some restaurants. Send the message that serving bluefin tuna is unacceptable by signing our pledge; then share this with your friends and local restaurants.
Prominent climate researchers have warned that we must reduce the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million (ppm) or below in order to stabilize climate change and avoid global catastrophe. The Center for Biological Diversity, along with Bill McKibben's group 350.org, is advocating strongly for this necessary standard.
While carbon dioxide isn’t the only global warming pollutant we need to control, it’s the number-one contributor to climate change.
Please take one minute to join us in moving toward a real solution to the climate crisis by calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to do its job as science, the law and common sense require. Sign the People's Petition to Cap Carbon at 350 Parts Per Million today.
Okinawa is home to ecologically significant coral reefs that support more than 1,000 species of reef fish, marine mammals, and sea turtles. Creatures like the highly imperiled dugong, a critically endangered and culturally treasured animal, rely on these reefs for their survival.
But the U.S. government is planning to build a new American military base atop a healthy coral reef that will likely destroy the diverse array of animal life the reef supports, including at least nine species threatened with extinction. Okinawa's coral reefs are already threatened by global warming and pollution: More than half have disappeared over the past decade. We must protect the reef and its inhabitants.
American, Japanese, and international organizations have spoken out for this critical area and against the potential harm that the new military base would cause. Back in 1997, Japan's Mammalogical Society placed the mighty dugong, a distant relative of the manatee, on its "Red List of Mammals," estimating the population in Okinawa to be critically endangered. Our own Endangered Species Act lists the dugong and three sea turtles affected by the project as endangered. The U.S. government's Marine Mammals Commission is weighing in with fears that the project would be a serious threat to the dugong and other animals' survival, and the World Conservation Union's dugong specialists have expressed similar concerns.
Construction of the offshore facility will devastate the marine environment and have dramatic consequences for oceangoing birds and coastal species as well. In addition to destruction of the coral reef off the coast of Henoko village, the planned base will deplete essential freshwater supplies, increase the human population in sensitive areas, and encourage more environmentally harmful development -- causing irreversible ecological damage to one of the most diverse ecosystems on earth. The U.S. government must abandon this plan.
Environmental groups from both sides of the Pacific Ocean -- the Center for Biological Diversity and the Turtle Island Restoration Network in the United States and Dugong Network Okinawa, Save the Dugong Foundation, Committee Against Heliport Construction/Save Life Society, and the Japan Environmental Lawyers Federation in Japan -- have filed a lawsuit in federal district court in San Francisco against the U.S. Department of Defense to stop the base.
We need your help to speak out. Please take a minute to send the letter below to President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Ambassador to Japan John Roos.
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