During President Dan Richards' term on the Fish and Game Commission he's been hostile to protecting endangered species and has opposed marine reserves in California. Now he's shot and killed a mountain lion -- not allowed in the state whose wildlife commission he's supposed to be leading -- on a $6,800, canned trophy hunt in Idaho. To make matters worse, he went on to make fun of the state's mountain lion-protection law.
Reform of the Fish and Game Commission is long overdue; leadership is needed to bring it into the 21st century. The commission should publicly champion protecting all of California's native wildlife and ecosystems, not simply maximize game for hunting and fishing. What's more, the terms of two other anti-conservation commissioners, Richard Rogers and Jim Kellogg, have expired.
Tell Governor Jerry Brown and the state legislature to can Richards and bring three new faces to the commission who respect California's wildlife-protection laws and are actually qualified to make decisions about the management of its wildlife and habitats.
Your help is needed to save Florida's largest and deepest spring, and the incredible animals that live there.
The state of Florida is considering opening Wakulla Spring to recreational diving, which would threaten the survival of species like the manatees that call the spring home. Please send a letter to Florida officials asking them to keep in place the current policy, which protects Wakulla Spring from development and recreational impacts.
Manatees use Wakulla Spring as a warm-water refuge during the winter. One of the biggest threats to manatees is the loss of spring habitats. Diving is known to be particularly disruptive to manatees, and opening Wakulla Spring to recreational diving and development would disturb the manatees and degrade the value of this important habitat.
Florida officials need to hear loud and clear that Wakulla spring is too delicate to be opened for recreational diving -- please sign the letter below and protect this American treasure.
Anyone who's spent time in the woods of Arizona and New Mexico knows that ORVs have been trashing our public lands, causing long-term damage, for decades. But now that local forests are finally getting a handle on excessive motorized abuse by creating proper land-management rules, an Arizona sheriff is openly deriding these rules and lobbying Arizona politicians to abandon them.
He's accused the Forest Service of "creating wilderness by fiat" and has outrageously asserted that they would make "criminals out of families." We need your help to let Sheriff Pribil know he's out of touch with the vast majority of people who visit national forests for hiking, backpacking and wildlife watching.
Please take a few moments to send a letter to the sheriff, which we'll deliver on March 20, the first day of spring. The Southwest's wildlife needs your help.
Now that Wisconsin's wolves have been removed from the Endangered Species Act, responsibility for their conservation lies with state managers. Determined to use their new authority to drastically cut the wolf population, state legislators have introduced bills authorizing hunting and trapping for sport.
The bills, introduced in the State Assembly and the Senate, could erase decades of wolf recovery. If passed, the legislation would allow hunters to chase down wolves with dogs; use inhumane traps and snares; and lure wolves with baits and calls. Hunting and trapping would occur from mid-October to the end of February each year, disrupting wolves during their breeding season.
We should not move forward with hunting and trapping for sport until the state can accurately gauge whether the wolf population can cope with current killings under its management. The proposed policies are too aggressive and risk returning Wisconsin's wolves to the federal endangered species list.
Help us defend these wolves by filling out the form below. Tell Wisconsin state officials not to allow hunting and trapping for sport. Comments will only be accepted from Wisconsin residents.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game wants to reduce wolf numbers in its Lolo Zone from an estimated 70-120 wolves to just 20-30 wolves in a misguided attempt to increase the elk population. Because this region is largely wild and inaccessible, the U.S. Department of Agriculture'sWildlife Services intends to gun the wolves down from the air.
Killing wolves is unlikely to increase elk numbers, because long-term changes in habitat have caused elk decline in the Lolo Zone -- but even if elk numbers do increase, this will only harm the ecosystem as a whole. Elk will browse too heavily on cottonwood, aspen and other trees that support a great variety of wildlife.
In Yellowstone National Park, scientists have found that the return of wolves caused elk to browse fewer cottonwood sprigs, enabling growth of new trees, which led to more nesting songbirds, more beaver dams and more fish.
There is no good reason for the federal government to spend money to kill imperiled wolves in national forests, where they help to keep the natural balance. Please take action now and fill out the form below to protect these wolves from pointless slaughter.
President Barack Obama rightly denied a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline in January, but Big Oil is not taking his decision lying down. To please oil interests, Senate Republicans are pushing legislation that would reverse the president's decision and grant immediate approval to the pipeline.
We need to tell the rest of the Senate to stand up to oil-industry pressure and oppose this dangerous legislation.
If built, the pipeline would transport dirty tar-sands oil across six states and hundreds of water bodies, making any spill an unacceptable risk. An existing pipeline called Keystone 1 has already leaked 14 times since it started operating in June 2010, including a 21,000-gallon spill. Another tar-sands pipeline dumped 800,000 gallons of tar-sands crude into the Kalamazoo River.
This pipeline, or any other from tar sands, should simply not be built. If you live in a state with Democrat or moderate-Republican senators, please ask them to oppose any legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.
Then tell your friends on Twitter and Facebook to do the same.
A harebrained plan to pump water from the ancient, underground Cadiz Valley Aquifer in the Mojave Desert -- to sell to Southern California -- has been popping up for more than 15 years. The aquifer is just south of the Mojave National Preserve, supplying water to preserve wildlife. It's also in the center of the newly proposed Mojave Trails National Monument. Water agencies have typically passed on this ill-conceived proposal.
But now the water-grab scheme has been revived. The current proposal is based on a flawed environmental review process that relies on bogus hydrological modeling and an absurd water-monitoring and management plan that only detects problems after the damage has been done. Once these ancient aquifers are drained, natural springs and seeps critical for wildlife could take decades to rebound, if they ever do -- it has yet to be proved that full recovery, even after all pumping has ceased, is possible.
The Cadiz Valley is surrounded by wilderness areas, including the Old Woman Mountains and the Sheephole Mountains, and is home to threatened desert tortoises. The mountains are safe havens for several herds of desert bighorn sheep that rely wholly on mountain springs and seeps surrounding the Cadiz Valley to survive the summer.
Fill out the form below to tell the water districts of Southern California that this dangerous plan has always been a bad idea and still is.
Then tell all your friends on Twitter and Facebook to follow suit.
This is an important time for Hawaiian monk seals. Overall the population is perilously close to extinction, declining from about 1,100 seals; however, as seal numbers decline on Hawaii's northwestern islands, populations on the main islands are growing, and these seals are healthier.
The main islands could be a refuge for the seals, and critical habitat protections can help ensure they have a place to call home -- but sadly Hawaii's officials are hearing vocal opposition to habitat protections and other recovery actions that could save our seals. These concerns are fueled by false statements that monk seals are not native to Hawaii and that the public will lose access to beaches if protections are granted.
To set the record straight: Protecting seals does not close beaches, but it could require limits on coastal development and pollution that would benefit seals and other beachgoers alike.
We have to make a strong show of support for monk seal recovery now. Fill out the form below to let Hawaii's officials know you care about monk seals and believe they must not be allowed to go extinct.
The latest attack on Oregon's wolves comes from the Oregon Cattlemen's Association, making a push for reckless legislation that would tamper with the state's Endangered Species Act and allow for the annihilation of the Imnaha pack.
The pack was the first to establish and produce pups in the state in more than 60 years. While measures should be taken to prevent depredation of livestock, there are better ways to keep cattle safe than killing the family of Journey, the wolf that has captured the nation's imagination with its thousand-mile expedition to become the first wolf in California in nearly a century.
Last fall, the Center for Biological Diversity and allies won an emergency stay of execution from the Oregon Court of Appeals that stopped the state from killing two wolves in the Imnaha pack -- a stay that remains in place while the Oregon Cattlemen's Association pushes this appalling bill.
Help us continue to defend the pack by filling out the form below and asking Oregon state officials to oppose this legislation and the killing of the Imnaha pack.
If you feel like making an even bigger impact, give them a call -- and tell your friends on Twitter and Facebook to do the same.
Right now, the Obama administration is accepting comments on a draft policy interpreting the phrase "significant portion of its range" (SPOIR), which specifies that if a species is at risk of extinction in any significant portion of range, it shall be protected.
This provision has played a key role in the recovery of the bald eagle, grizzly bear and many other iconic wildlife species, ensuring that animals and plants receive protection before they're past the point of saving by providing protection to
species in important parts of their home ranges.
The draft policy would limit species protection in two ways. First, it proposes that a portion of range would only be considered significant if loss of the species from that portion would threaten the species as a whole. This amounts to a regulatory sleight-of-hand that would effectively eliminate the SPOIR provision by making it largely synonymous with a species being at risk in all of its range.
Second, the policy says historic range will not be considered when determining whether a species is endangered in a significant portion of range. In effect, this calls for turning a blind eye to past losses of species, providing a perverse incentive to delay determinations of species' status, so that they may go extinct in various portions of their range, which would then, in turn, no longer be considered for protection.
Please tell the Obama administration to scrap this disastrous policy proposal and develop one that will truly protect species when they are at risk in significant portions of range.
Stop commercial ships from killing whales by urging speed limits in our marine sanctuaries. California's sanctuaries are home to some of the nation's richest ocean habitat, as well as some of the most heavily trafficked shipping lanes. In the past 10 years, more whales are showing up along California's coast to feast in these rich waters; but sadly, this also puts them in harm's way -- right on the path to busy ports.
Collisions with vessels are a primary threat to endangered Pacific-coast populations of fin, humpback, blue, sperm and killer whales. Ship strikes are an increasing problem in California, where, since 2001 alone, nearly 50 large whales have been documented injured or killed by ships.
In June 2011, the Center for Biological Diversity and allies petitioned the marine sanctuaries to impose a mandatory speed limit of 10 knots to protect whales from ship strikes while traveling through these special areas. Speed limits have the added benefit of reducing greenhouse gas pollution from vessels.
Please fill out the form below to urge California's marine sanctuaries to slow ships and save whales.
Pesticide contamination is widespread in our waterways and water supply. Toxic pesticides cause significant, unnecessary threats to wildlife and human health every day in the United States.
Right now, industry lobbyists are trying to persuade Congress to gut the Clean Water Act to allow unregulated pesticide applications in our water. At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency is poised to approve the broad-scale application of pesticides into wetlands and waterways.
The Center for Biological Diversity is working hard to stop this toxic assault on our wildlife and waterways, but we need your help to tell Congress and the EPA to keep pesticides out of our water.
Please fill out the form below to speak out and demand that our wildlife and waterways get stronger protections.
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 Atlantic bluefin tuna to the brink of extinction. These magnificent animals are famous for their racecar-like speeds, but their population has been reduced 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. International efforts aren't helping either. And in November 2011 the international body that is supposed to watch out for the bluefin failed to ban tuna farms or reduce catch quotas.
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.
Already in the United States thousands of species – from elk and river otters to frogs and orchids – have been pushed toward extinction because the land and water they depend on has been polluted, paved over, or destroyed.
To save and recover these imperiled plants and animals, we have the strongest law in the world for protecting species: the Endangered Species Act. But it can only work if we use it. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has recently refused protections for more than 259 imperiled plants and animals in the United States that are critically close to extinction. Instead of taking action now, the administration put them on a waiting list, where they'll remain without protection for years or even decades.
We must take action today to tell the administration to do right by plants and animals that desperately need protection.
If we do nothing, species like these will go extinct in our lifetimes: the Pacific fisher, a fierce but imperiled carnivore that lives in fast-disappearing old-growth forests along the West Coast; Montana fluvial Arctic grayling, a near-extinct purple-silver fish; and the Black Warrior waterdog, a large, gilled salamander that's been waiting for protection since 1991.
We need to get them on the endangered species list immediately – because that's the only way that killing them becomes illegal and the only way to save their habitat from logging, bulldozing and other forms of destruction. Please fill in the form below to add your name to our petition to President Obama and then share with all your friends. Thank you for being part of the solution.
Although it has helped cause the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history in the Gulf of Mexico, BP now has the audacity to propose testing new drilling technology in the fragile Arctic Ocean. This is an especially troubling proposition when we consider BP’s poor safety record in Alaska. BP has a history of flouting environmental and safety regulations in its Arctic operations. In 2006, BP’s failure to maintain its aging pipelines led to the worst oil spill ever on Alaska’s North Slope. BP has been the object of a number of investigations and enforcement actions in Alaska over the past decade. As recently as April 20, 2010 (the same day BP’s well in the Gulf exploded), the federal pipeline safety administration sent BP a warning letter about corrosion issues in the company’s Alaska pipelines.
If something were to go wrong in the Arctic, BP simply would not have the ability to deal with it. No one does. There is an utter lack of infrastructure and technology to deal with an oil spill in the Arctic. BP’s drilling location is extremely remote: The nearest Coast Guard station is more than 1,000 miles away. There is no technology for cleaning oil on ice, and the poor visibility and frequent storms of the Arctic would make responding to a spill extremely difficult.
What’s at stake is an environment that is both singular and fragile. The Arctic is already reeling from the effects of global warming. Species such as polar bears and walruses are losing their sea-ice habitat at an alarming rate. BP’s Liberty project is in the heart of polar bear territory. If an oil spill were to happen at the wrong time it could be disastrous for the Beaufort Sea’s struggling polar bear population.
The Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups have called on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to say no to BP’s Liberty project until proper environmental reviews can be completed. The decision about whether to risk destroying the Arctic as BP has destroyed the Gulf is in Secretary Salazar’s hands. Please tell the secretary not to let BP drill in the Arctic.
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.
Several lines of evidence show that allowing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to remain above 350 ppm for a sustained period of time will lead to dangerously acidic oceans, runaway global warming, and melting of the polar ice caps. Such a climate would be well outside anything experienced in the history of the human species, and would carry with it irreversible cascades of species extinctions and significant dangers for human civilization.
What's needed is an immediate reduction of atmospheric carbon dioxide, with the goal of an overall concentration of 350 ppm or less to be achieved as quickly as possible. To accomplish that, the Center supports the rapid phasing out of all coal-fired power plants, the highest technologically feasible vehicle-mileage standards, and a moratorium on Arctic oil and gas drilling, among other critical measures.
Please take one minute to join us in moving toward a real solution the climate crisis by calling on the EPA 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 Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Ambassador to Japan John Roos.
In May, the last known U.S. jaguar -- Macho B -- was unnecessarily, tragically killed by government agencies. This heartbreaking loss to the species, and to us, demands swift action to preserve habitat for Macho B’s majestic relatives.
If jaguars are to rebound, as wolves and grizzlies have, they need a federal recovery plan, reintroduction from Mexico into the United States, and protection for their essential living space.
The Center for Biological Diversity’s lawsuit to stop the killing of jaguars has entered a critical phase. Earlier this year, the Center won a court case requiring the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a recovery plan and designate critical habitat for jaguars. But instead of complying with the law, the agency is delaying by appealing the ruling.
Jaguars don't have time to wait. Sign the petition urging the Service to comply with Endangered Species Act requirements to save and recover the American jaguar.
