Deadline Looms for Protections for Polar Bears, Other Wildlife
Roger Schlickeisen
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke have little more than one week to set right one of the Bush/Cheney administration’s most disastrous decisions on wildlife -- and we need your help to ensure that they do the right thing and restore key protections for polar bears, wolves and other imperiled wildlife.
Before leaving office, the Bush administration rammed through regulatory changes to the Endangered Species Act that threaten efforts to save polar bears, wolves, manatees and more than 1,300 other species from extinction.
If left in place, these changes will...
- Prevent the Endangered Species Act from protecting our vanishing polar bears from global warming, which would effectively allow America's threatened polar bears to drown in a sea of inaction; and
- Let federal agencies in charge of building highways, dams and other projects decide whether those projects might drive rare plants and animals toward extinction, without ever checking with the expert biologists in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service.
Defenders of Wildlife -- and caring wildlife supporters like you -- fought hard in Congress for legislation that gives Secretaries Salazar and Locke the authority to overturn these rules. Now it’s up to Secretaries Salazar and Locke to use this hard-fought authority before it expires on May 9th.
More than 200,000 comments opposing the changes were submitted to the Interior Department in the 60 days that the Bush/Cheney administration allowed for the public to respond to its changes. And newspapers across the country have editorialized overwhelmingly against the Bush/Cheney administration’s gutting of Endangered Species Act protections.
Nonetheless, these regulations are now in place, and each day they remain in effect our polar bears and other vulnerable species are being placed at greater risk of extinction.
The good news is that a stroke of the pen by Secretary Salazar and Secretary Locke can restore Endangered Species Act protections for the polar bear and other endangered wildlife. The bad news is that neither secretary has taken action yet.
For the Wild Ones,
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 Rodger Schlickeisen President Defenders of Wildlife |
P.S. Congress gave Interior Secretary Salazar and Commerce Secretary Locke until May 9th to undo the damage the Bush/Cheney administration inflicted on polar bears and other endangered wildlife. Please send your message today.
The Clock Is Ticking
The Obama administration only has until May 9th to reverse Bush/Cheney changes that threaten vital protections for polar bears and other vulnerable wildlife.
Help send a loud, clear message to the Obama administration. Forward this message to a friend and help us send 40,000 messages in support of our imperiled wildlife before the May 9th deadline.