This summer, Alaska wildlife agency personnel reportedly staked out a known wolf denning site –a practice that is illegal under Alaska law – and, using helicopters, gunned down 14 adult wolves from the air.
When they landed, they found 14 helpless wolf pups in the nearby dens – infant wolves just weeks old – and methodically shot each one in the head. 28 wolves gunned down in all.
Due to a loophole in federal law, Alaska is the only state in the U.S. where a few hunters still use aircraft to shoot wolves or chase them to exhaustion before landing and shooting them point blank. But the practice of "denning" – the killing of wolf young in the den – is prohibited even under Alaska law. This killing of 14 wolf pups disturbs even longtime hunters in Alaska. During her two years as governor, Sarah Palin proposed a $150 bounty for the severed foreleg of each killed wolf and introduced legislation to make it even easier to use aircraft to hunt wolves and bears.
But it's time that Governor Palin call for a thorough investigation into the killing of these 14 wolf pups, and bring any Alaska employees who acted illegally to justice.
Please sign this petition to hold her accountable. To sign, click here.
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Defenders of Wildlife have put out a new video (released on Youtube October 10th) regarding Sarah Palin's gruesome support of wolf killing.
In June, after gunning down 14 adult wolves from a helicopter, officials from Governor Palin’s Department of Fish and Game rounded up 14 orphaned wolf pups and methodically shot each one in the head in clear violation of a state law.
Watch their video (not for the faint of heart)
What you can do to help wolves:
1. Take Action to Save Rare Southwest Wolves here 2. Urge President Obama to End the War on Wolves here 3. Urge Cabela's and Sportman's Warehouse to Withdraw Their Support for Wolf-killing Derbies here 4. *Click* to Protect Threatened Wolves daily. How it works: Your free click generates donations from our sponsors. You may click once a day, every day. 100% of the donations raised go directly to Defenders of Wildlife to help stop aerial hunting of wolves, continue efforts to expand wolf recovery in the Northern Rockies, and more. Click here daily. 5. Boycott Alaska Until The State Stops Targeting Wolves. Sign here.
For more than 15 years, IFAW's Animal Action Week has been giving young people around the world the knowledge and tools they need to take positive action on behalf ofanimals and our shared environment.
The Week, which takes place annually during the first week of October, marks the launch of an international educational program with a different animal welfare and conservation theme each year. This year’s theme: Beneath the Waves, Protecting Marine Wildlife.
Whaling ships armed with harpoons hunt whales in defiance of international treaties. Plastic pollution chokes sea turtles and other marine animals and sea birds. And as the icecaps continue to melt, polar bear habitats shrink and they are left to starve or drown
To help protect the ocean, you can start by taking three easy actions:
Visit www.AnimalActionWeek.org to learn more about Animal Action Week, the largest animal-focused educational event in the world;
Take the Plastic Bag Pledge to help combat one of the main threats to marine wildlife;
And spread the word by telling your family and friends about IFAW Animal Action Week 2008.
During the week of IFAW Animal Action week (October 4th-10th), you can adopt a whale: here. Please wait until that week, because the program won't be launched until then.
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By now, most of the world knows of Sarah Palin's support of brutal aeriel hunting of wolves. (Please read my other posts regarding Sarah Palin.) 1. Petition to Sarah Palin about the wolf killing: Here
Let's get the word out further.
The organization Defenders of Wildlife (one of my favorites) released the video I am sure you all have seen.
More than 68,000 potential voters have viewed their video on YouTube, with many more spreading the word by re-posting the video on their websites and blogs and forwarding it to friends.
CNN and other news outlets have picked up the story, running clips from Defenders of Wildlife Action fund and their sister organization Defenders of Wildlife.
In an effort to reach hundreds of thousands of "swing voters" who help decide this election, The Defenders of Wildlife created a new, powerful television ad that details Sarah Palin's efforts to kill wolves.
They can only run it with our financial help. Running a television ad during an election year is expensive. We need to help them raise $100,000 to run the ad and support their work to provide a voice for endangered wildlife. Make your donation here.
Donation overview:
$20.00 Part of one 60-second spot
$40.00 Two parts of one 60-second spot
$60.00 Three parts of a sixty-second
$100.00 Half of one 60-second spot
$200.00 One 60-second spot
$1,000.00 Five 60-second spots
Other: If you cannot afford any of the above, even giving $5.00 will help so much.
This is a call for all Americans, especially the citizens of Wyoming to protect the Red Desert.
Adobe Town and what the Bureau of Land Management has called the “Jack Morrow Hills Area” are of particular importance to Wyoming’s Red Desert. The Bureau of Land Management has identified seven Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) within the 620,000-acre Jack Morrow Hills Area of the Red Desert. Wyoming conservation groups and the Wilderness Society have recommended that these areas, as well as several other areas within the Red Desert, be designated as wilderness. Jack Morrow Hills/Northern Red Desert (Ferruginous Hawks) (Wild Horses)
Concerning the Jack Morrow Hills Area, the "Record of Decision" called for an initial development of 255 natural gas and coalbed methane wells. This number is not a cap, but merely an estimate. The public asked for no new oil and gas development in the Jack Morrow Hills. More than 80,000 people who commented to protect this area were ignored by the Bureau of Land Management. These lands are public and the BLM did not respond to the public’s desires. Mountain lions, coyotes, golden eagles, ferruginous hawks, and wild horses inhabit this area.
Friends of the Red Desert is a coalition of citizens, businesses and conservation organizations united to protect Wyoming's magnificent Red Desert. Please help them protect the Jack Morrow Hill area by writing to the following and let them know you want the Jack Morrow Hills protected as a NCA: U.S. Senator Mike Enzi Gillette Office, 400 S. Kendrick Avenue, Suite 303, Gillette, Wyoming 82716 or email at his website.
U.S. House Representative Barbara Cubin Casper Office, 100 East B Street, Suite 4003, Federal Building, Casper, Wyoming 82601 or email her website.
Fremont County Commissioners Office 307.332.1130; address 450 N. 2nd Street, Lander, 82520; email commission@wyoming.com
Another way the Friends of the Red Desert suggest to help is to write to their local newspapers. A listing:
(Cheyenne) Wyoming Tribune-Eagle LTE Contact: Letters to the Editor, Scott Smith e-mail: reede@wyomingnews.com address: 702 W. Lincoln Way, Cheyenne, WY 82001
(Gillette) The News-Record LTE Contact: Ann Franscell, publisher, editor email: news@gillettenewsrecord.com address: P.O. Box 3006, Gillette, WY 82717 Note: under 300 word limit, no personal attacks; signature, and phone number required
The Green River STAR LTE Contact: Kathy Gilbert email: grstar@sweetwaterhsa.com address: P.O. Box 580, Green River, WY 82935 Note: signature and phone number required.
The (Riverton) Ranger LTE Contact: Letters to the Editor e-mail: ranger@wyoming.com address: P.O. Box 993, Riverton, WY 82501
Rawlins Daily Times LTE Contact: Dave Perry email: dtimes@trib.com address: P.O. Box 370, Rawlins, WY 82301
We need to protect this beautiful land and its wildlife:
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I previously wrote about stopping the drilling of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Unfortunately, there are more places we need to protect. The Bush Administration’s “lease and drill everything” policy is aimed at opening some of our most fragile places to oil and gas development. Here is a list of places that are too fragile to drill, and we need to take action to prevent it:
7. Little Missouri National Grassland, North Dakota
8. Otero Mesa, New Mexico
9. Red Desert, Wyoming
10. Roan Plateau, Colorado
11. Rocky Mountain Front, Montana
12. Teshekpuk Lake, Alaska
13. Upper Green River Valley, Wyoming
14. Utah's Redrock Wilderness
15. Valle Vidal, New Mexico
16. Vermillion Basin, Colorado The number of oil and gas wells is increasing at a scary rate. There are now more than 63,000 producing oil and gas wells on the public lands and nearly double that amount, at least 118,000 new wells, are planned for Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and New Mexico.
Drilling is bad for the environment. Full-field oil and gas development means production facilities, staging areas, airstrips, drill pads, and hundreds of miles of pipelines and roads which cause noise, water, air, and light pollution. For wildlife, the development destroys their habitat into smaller and less usable areas. Eventually, animals can no longer survive in these areas at all.
The government is supposed to guard our public lands. The Bureau of Land Management's increased oil and gas permitting activity "has lessened BLM's ability to meet its environmental protection responsibilities," according to a 2005 report from the Government Accountability Office
Citizens want to preserve the West's last great places. Voices is speaking out on behalf of protecting areas from drilling, but are often ignored.
Don't let your voice be ignored. Research what you can do to stop this from happening.
I plan on profiling each of these threatened lands in future posts. Please watch these videos.
Nearly 300,000 natural gas and oil wells have already been drilled in the Rockies, and hundreds of thousands more are planned. Watch this video:
Save Colorado's Majestic Roan Plateau
How could you not want to save them?
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President Bush has called for drilling in the Arctic Refuge by 2010 in his new budget proposal. Development in this habitat would threaten numerous animals, including polar and grizzly bears, wolves, caribou, migratory whales and many species of birds. The most urgent is to protect the polar bears. Oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would do nothing to solve America's energy problems.
We need to permanently protect the Arctic Refuge. Please ask your Representative to support the Udall-Eisenhower Arctic Wilderness Act to permanently protect the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Congressman Ed Markey and Congressman Jim Ramstad introduced the Udall-EisenhowerArcticWildernessAct. If this bill is passed, it would designate the 1.5 million acre Coastal Plain as wilderness.
Stop the possibility of oil drilling and protect the animals who would be affected by it.
Urge Congress to permanently protect the Arctic Refuge by signing the petition located here.
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For 35 years the Endangered Species Act has protected plants and animals that are on the brink of extinction. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration wants to change the act. They are targeting the important Section 7 of the act. As of now, Section 7 has independent experts reviewing projects. Currently federal agencies need to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service or Fish and Wildlife to determine whether a project would affect species and/or its habitat.
If the Bush Administration has its way, no experts would be involved in reviewing new projects. Instead, certain federal agencies such as the Department of Transportation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or the Office of Surface Mining would have the authority to review projects and let the projects procede. They would be doing this without consulting important independent biologists or botanists who are experts in this type of decision making. In other words, the Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.
It is ridiculous that agencies whose missions are building roads and leasing land and waters for mines and oil drilling will have the power to assess the environment. Their main concern will not be the endangered animals and plants. Their main concern is money, building, and doing anything possible to fulfill their selfish goals.
1,353 animals and plants in the U.S. are listed as threatened or endangered. We need to protect them.
Please sign a petition to protect America's endangered species. It is sponsored by the Environmental Defense Fund. Click here to sign.
