Our World and Everything in It

The NRDC and other organizations like Greenpeace and Center for Biological Diversity have filed a suit against the Bush Administration again on behalf of the polar bear according to the NRDC. The polar bear is on the endangered list, but it seems its habitat is not. Soooo there is a lot of leeway (loopholes) in that plan for Big Oil.

The White House has been flooded with petitions to protect the polar bear and its habitat, but the NRDC and others have had to file suit even as Bush’s time in office is limited. Likewise, the Center for Biodiversity has a lawsuit against the Dept. of Interior, lead by good ole Dirk Kempthorne, for attempting to expand oil and gas development in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas or the “Polar Bear Seas.” It’s called the “Five Year Plan.” Real nice. In five years we should be on our way to oil independence.

It’s more tail chase logic. Allow oil companies to invade polar bear country with the industry that produces the fuel that emits CO2 fueling global warming that is melting the polar bear’s habitat in the first place. It’s another pretty package with little inside from the Bush administration. Apparently, we are to assume the package itself is a big portion of the actual present. And so goes this administration’s polar-bear-is-an-endangered-species offering that sounds right and just but turns right around and gives oil companies the upper hand in the Arctic.

An Arctic that is diminished with one million square miles, six times the size of California, melted away in the past 30 years. For those that want to argue this all happened before, well it wasn’t the Medieval Warming Period from somewhere in the 900’s-1300’s era. We’re a heck of a lot warmer now. According to New Scientist Environment website we might have to go back 6000 to 125,000 years to get as warm as we’re getting and it’s only going to get worse. This is not just natural phenomenon happening here. Anyway the difference between thousands of years ago and now is almost 7 billion people.

Look at the more dense population areas of the world. They are along the water. Take a pitcher of water with ice cubes in it and watch as they melt. No water level change, but add ice and that pitcher overflows. Imagine the scenario if all the ice that covers the land in our coldest regions slips into the surrounding water. That’s adding some mighty big ice cubes to our albeit mighty big oceans/seas but the pitcher will still overflow.

Big Oil’s intrusion in the Polar Bear Seas is adding insult to injury or in this case certain death to the polar bear. And it’s unnecessary. There are some 63 million acres of land leased for oil exploration that hasn’t been touched. The intruder polluters also endanger birds, fish, and other mammals with potential oil spills.

Organizations like the NRDC, Earthjustice, Greenpeace, Center for Biodiversity, and others are making progress. Shell put off drilling in the Beaufort Sea off the Arctic Refuge coast for another year. Now if they can just hold the Bush Administration and Dirk Kempthorne at bay for oh, a couple of months, maybe a new administration will have a little more empathy for the polar bear and our environment. 

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11644

http://www.nrdc.org/naturesvoice/feature1.asp

http://www.nrdc.org/media/2008/081006.asp

“The Bush Administration announced it intends to withdraw its plan to strip gray wolves of their endangered species protection in the Northern Rockies,” according to an e-mail from NRDC. The wolves will once again be under federal protection.

It seems the Bush Administration erroneously declared the wolf populations fully recovered, nor could it be proven that the wolves were threatening deer and elk populations. Yet when the feds handed off control of wolves to the states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming 110 wolves were dead in no time.

The NRDC also stated: “That means Wyoming, Montana and Idaho will NOT be allowed to begin the extermination of hundreds of wolves this fall as part of a massive public hunt — the first in more than three decades. Instead, those wolves will continue to roam the Rockies — wild and free — as nature and the law intended!”

A big nose thumb to Butch Otter, Gov. of Idaho for wanting to be the first one to shoot a wolf. Congratulations to the thousands of people who worked to stop this illegal hunting. The NRDC, Earthjustice, and eleven other conservation groups took it to the courts and won.

This by no means is a sign to let our guard down. If things don’t change drastically in the future there will be another angle to sport hunt these animals down the road, especially if the state’s ever get that power in their hands again.

Sadly, this victory will not bring back Limpy, the crippled wolf icon of Yellowstone that was shot dead the moment it limped out of the park.

If you’ve never heard of or viewed the panorama of Utah’s Red Rock Canyon area, do it. It is absolutely beautiful. I saw a travel channel segment on Zion National Park and want to visit there. It looks like a place of God. Our national parks are a real treasure, but the Bush administration doesn’t have much time left, and is trying for land grabs right out of OUR national parks to drill for oil.

If Bush has his way, oil drills will destroy eleven million acres of national park in Utah’s Red Rock Canyon. I’m hearing about these attempted land grabs happening all over the place. What I want to know is what is the sense? We know we’re short of refineries in the U.S. It’s a well known fact every time the U.S. has an oil crisis, large or small, that right away we want to invade new areas and drill for more oil. But it’s of no use unless it’s refined, and we don’t have enough refineries.

And it’s not likely we’ll be seeing brand new refineries in the future because of global warming. And yes even the Bush/Cheney administration admitted quite a while ago in 2002 that humans do indeed cause global warming. The U.S. EPA submitted a 268-page report to the UN back then admitting to and agreeing with scientists that oil refining, fossil fuel power plants, and car emissions are significant causes of global warming.

It’s 2008. What aren’t they getting? I know what the Bush administration is getting–more neglectful of our rights when they simply try to take over public lands for nothing more than filling the pockets of the rich from oil production. Trashing these beautiful areas of our country will not sit well with a court system that has been standing for the environment in a number of cases so far.

According to an Earthjustice report, just recently another federal court judge ruled that: “After years of court battles, Kane County must halt its illegal efforts to create roadways through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and other wilderness areas,” which is in another area of Utah’s Red Rock Canyon. A U.S. District Judge “ordered the county to take down its signs inviting vehicles into areas closed to protect sensitive streams, wildlife habitat, archeological treasures, and wilderness values.”

This is good news but Dirk Kempthorne, Secy. of Interior, needs to hear from us again, even though he and the Bush administration know that attempts to drill in Utah’s Red Rock Canyon is going to meet with some mighty big resistance since this judge’s ruling.

http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/utahm00/xwnke5k44xx5mjj?

http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/2008/utah-county-must-stop-illegal-seizure-of-rights-of-way.html

Bush admits humans cause global warming: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2023835.stm

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_the_us_lack_sufficient_oil_refining.html

 I just got a letter from Earthjustice today about the polar bears. It seems that AGAIN the Bush/Cheney administration pulled a fast one with Dirk Kempthorne doing their bidding. They put the polar bears on the endangered list but didn’t provide any real protection for them or their habitat. How convenient for all the oil leaseholders.

There are holes in the judgment for the bears, so that big oil can still feasibly drill in polar bear habitat. You know, like most criminals, if this administration would just take the time to put as much effort in doing something good for our world and everything in it as they do to connive, cheat, steal, and mislead the public to do the exactly the opposite, they would go down in history as one of the better administrations in a time of great global need instead of hitting an all time low.

So according to Earthjustice, (who always catches up with their maneuverings), Representatives Jay Inslee and Maurice Hinchey introduced THE POLAR BEAR SEAS PROTECTION ACT last week to protect polar bear habitats until “essential environmental impact questions are answered and the Dept. of the Interior, [that would be Dirk] clearly designates critical, protected habitats.”

Let Congress know that you want this Act supported, and you want polar bears, their habitat, babies, grandbears, and great grandbears protected. I don’t know about anyone else but I am so sick and tired of chasing down this administration. It is like an evil child, like Damian of “The Omen” that pays little if any attention to ethics, and is manipulative and conniving to the point they just can’t be trusted. When they announce something good for the environment anymore, it looks like I’m not the only one looking around for the real angle.

This act covers some of the holes they’ve purposefully constructed. We’ve got polar bear allies in Congress that just need to hear from us—AGAIN.

Go to Earthjustice to send your message:

 http://action.earthjustice.org/campaign/polarbears_0508

From my e-mail, I read that Earthjustice attorneys filed a case to stop the wolf slaughter in the northern Rockies. A coalition of environmental and animal rights groups like the NRDC, the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the Humane Society urged Earthjustice to use its legal expertise to stop the killing immediately and “compel the federal government to reinstate Endangered Species Act protections for wolves until true recovery is achieved.

This didn’t come out of the blue. Earthjustice filed intent to challenge the decision to take wolves off the endangered list, but the USFWS didn’t answer. So now they go to court because as Earthjustice charges: “The USFWS failed to take into account basic principles of conservation biology, disregarded its own policies, and departed from past practice in delisting the wolf.” And Earthjustice will argue in court that the USFWS

used an outdated and biologically inadequate standard for determining the number of wolves that must be protected in order to maintain a genetically viable population;

ignored the agency’s own requirement that wolves in the northern Rockies’ core recovery populations must be connected and interbreed before they can be deemed recovered; and

failed to take into account that state laws that currently govern the fate of the wolves in the absence of federal protections allow unregulated wolf killing.

What angers me most about this is the time and expense that goes into something like this that shouldn’t have happened in the first place in the U.S. of America. You know from my postings that petitions with signatures in the thousands hit the USFWS before the delisting, as well as, thousands of phone calls. Washington went ahead anyway, a total disregard for their responsibility to us—again. And none of this will bring Limpy or the other 19 wolves back.

I read Mitch Albom’s column in the Free Press this past Sunday, and although I agree with him, I think it was well, um, a little bit dated. His perception that environmentalists are a league of people still derided as Chicken Littles is a little off. As long as I’ve been writing this blog, I think maybe I’ve been called a Chicken Little twice. I had one opponent that appeared to be a drinker going off into raves eventually calling me a cur so as to not get axed from the website for calling me something worse. But that was long ago. Another opponent eventually came to terms with the fact that on a lot of levels we are simpatico. We agreed that we do indeed create trash and should be cleaning up after ourselves, whether or not it does or does not contribute to global warming. Isn’t this moment of agreement in the environmental argument all that’s needed? Because cleaning up after ourselves is the first step to realizing just how much garbage we actually create, which should logically lead to more conservation efforts regardless of global warming.

In this light, how the pro-environmental argument is presented seems to make a heck of a lot of difference. Finding common ground brings people to agreement faster, and that’s what seems to be happening. Unlike Albom, I’m seeing a huge surge of environmentalism on TV and the Internet lately. My 85-year old mother pointed it out to me about 2 weeks ago. I paid closer attention after that and she’s right. There are all types of commercials on TV that are telling people to buy in bulk, don’t shampoo their hair every day, you know insidious mantra that eventually gets an entire population moving toward conservation without knowing it. Admit it. We’re herded more times than not and industry with the help of the media is like the rancher.

I blogged about industry moving the green market quite a while back. Industry’s push to go “green” is getting increasingly stronger because they can’t afford high energy costs either. GE can hardly keep up with the demand for its industrial wind turbines. Green rooftops are appearing on city buildings everywhere thanks to newly formed environmental organizations like Green Roofs for Healthy Cities. And just look up companies growing in leaps and bounds like Sun Edison, who provides an affordable way for industry to benefit from rooftop solar panels, that is, if they aren’t already planted green. Retail giant Wal-Mart starting moving to go green, and now companies like SC Johnson are looking to supply those big stores with their “totally” green .products. Even Conoco Philips (Big Oil) threw in the towel, and joined Tyson Chicken to create biofuel from chicken fat at no real profit, just because it’s the right thing to do for the environment. And when moguls like Ted Turner make statements that it’s absolute suicide to continue to pollute and consume the way we do, well, try calling terrible Ted a “CL.”

I’ve lost count of all the home improvement shows that tout “green,” as well as, media outlets like PBS, Discovery, Science, and National Geographic channels that consistently show the latest findings and discoveries regarding the environment and man. I’ve even watched Canadian TV like “The Outsider,” or “The Fifth Estate” air documentaries about U.S. government cover ups of scientific reports relative to global warming. I’m seeing more and more green shows coming out of Canada now. And I can’t say enough for organizations listed as links on my blog like EarthJustice, The Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Union of Concerned Scientists, and many others that don’t think twice to take on the U.S. Government or anyone else over the environment and wildlife. While we sleep, or go about our usual day, these guys are out on cold oceans, at the edge of public forests, in congress, and everywhere they need to be to stop bad things from happening to our world and everything in it.

But best of all when I see Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich in a commercial urging citizens to contact congress to push ahead to embrace environmentalism, it’s a clear indication that forces are looking to gather against the old energy lobbyists and the spin machine. This was topped off last week when Henry Waxman, Chairman of the Committee for Oversight and Reform, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Johnson, that he need be prepared to testify regarding the recently released Union of Concerned Scientists Report documenting extensive and widespread political interference with the work of scientists at EPA. Yes!!!

Add to that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that the EPA should be regulating CO2 emissions from autos as part of the Clean Air Act, and the U.S. Court of Appeals vacating the EPA’s “Clean Air Mercury Rule,” literally throwing out the EPA’s cap and trade system for mercury, and demanding the EPA set new standards for the coal burning industry within two years. Concurrently, it also vacated the EPA’s “Incinerator Rule.” This bodes exceptionally well for the Chicken Little movement.

The timing is uncanny, but unlike Mr. Albom’s perception of environmental efforts, this past Sunday, for the first time in a very long time, I was optimistic about environmentalism, my faith in America restored. After researching the onslaught against our parks, our air, our water, animals, and their habitat for so long by the Bush/Cheney administration, I finally sensed a real, hardy shove back by the other powers that be, which is American industry and ingenuity. They don’t seem to suffer low self-esteem as a “Chicken Little” crowd at all. Had Mitch written about the “CL” complex a year ago I might have wholeheartedly agreed. But now, all I see is the “greening” of America, like it or not. As for “Chicken Little” calling, sticks and stones…

Today the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing regarding the Clean Water Restoration Act. The Senate held a meeting about this earlier this week. HR 2421 helps clarify that federal safeguards against water pollution must protect all waters of the United States. It may seem funny to some that this is necessary because the general public is out of touch with what has been happening to many of our established environmental laws.

The Bush administration has systematically attacked many of our longstanding environmental laws including The Clean Water Act. Big corporations and developers who seek to pollute have gone to court over the Clean Water Act. It seems they have found a loophole in the act because in many places it describes the waters protected by this act as navigable for one thing, which means if you can’t place a boat on it, well it just might not be protected—by anyone. So we’ve ended up with ambiguous rulings by the Supreme Courts, and federal agencies have issued confusing guidelines on what is or is not protected by federal law.

This leaves ponds, streams, wetlands, drain areas, and many other seasonal wet spots open to damage and destruction from industrial pollution. I’ve read over HR 2421 and what used to be described as navigable waters is now simply called waters. I also read a review on the Big Bear blogsite that it’s doubtful this bill will pass. Hunters, ranchers, and farmers won’t like it. Well more than 175 House members are co-sponsoring it, and 21 Senators so far are co-sponsoring the companion legislation. I had to comment on that site that of course the huge farming and hunting lobby doesn’t want anyone messing with their new found freedom in states like Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. They’ve pushed their weight around in those states to get the wolves, and bison killed, and wild horses rounded up. I believe it is to make way for more devastation of our national forests when Bush tries to weaken the Roadless Rule too. Because with these animals out of the way, no one has to protect their habitat, paving the way for more lumbering, mining, and drilling on or near our national forests.

Contact our legislators and let them know that every ounce of water is precious to us, especially with the drought that prevails in many places in our country. If anything as simple as a pond or a seasonal wetland is not covered by an individual state, as it stands right now, federal protection for that area may be challenged because the water in question is not navigable. It might not be navigable but pollute it with toxic material and it’s going to leach, or flow somewhere now isn’t it? That bad water just might end up in your well, backyard, creek, or pond. 

Read HR 2421 at: http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/bills/110/h2421ih.txt.pdf

Conveniently contact your legislators with a petition at: http://action.earthjustice.org/campaign/cwara0408/w5eu6wbrlmetjdd

On March 5, 2008 I got an email from Earthjustice that buffalo are being threatened in a particular area outside of Yellowstone in Montana called Horse Butte peninsula. Supposedly the buffalo carry a virus that threatens cattle, although no cattle have ever died from it, and there are no cattle grazing nearby. As a matter of fact, Earthjustice said that “in 2002 cattle grazing on public lands was stopped by a court order and the remaining private land in the area ha[d] been purchased by new owners who ha[d] declared the property open to bison.” The best part is the government is using hundreds of thousands of dollars of our money for this slaughter. Earthjustice, the Buffalo Field Campaign, and local landowners want the slaughter stopped and a new environmental impact study initiated that takes into account the above ruling and therefore the justification for this slaughter. What a tail chase with our money.

As of April 3 Defenders of Wildlife reports that 3,000 bison have been killed in the past 15 years. If you’re like me you’re thinking that’s not many. I ate buffalo last summer for the first time because I don’t eat pork or beef, and I know it’s free range. But then I read that already this year alone 1100 bison have been slaughtered, a quarter of their wild population. Now we’re getting into mindless, and needless slaughter. This hasn’t happened since the 1800’s.

Earthjustice, the Buffalo Field Campaign, and local landowners are calling for a halt to the buffalo slaughter and the initiation of a new environmental impact study that takes into account the current circumstances in the area and removes the justification for the killings.

Because I’m always looking at and receiving information on environmental things, I’m a little alarmed at the widespread slaughter of wildlife across our most forested states and can’t help thinking these animals are being forfeited for the mining, oil, and lumber industries. Because none of the excuses for the execution that’s taking place are true. And parts of our national parks have been up for auction in the past few years. It’s as if everything is being cleared away from the perimeter of those parks, perhaps for more slant oil drilling?

Anyway, since I enjoyed the buffalo I ate last summer the first thing I though was who gets all the meat? I found that much of it is given to Native Americans on reservations, and food banks. The Native American handout is such an irony isn’t it? Early Native Americans believed in taking only what was needed from the earth. This is a big slaughter for nothing. They are being urged to not accept the buffalo meat at the reservations by the Buffalo Field Campaign.

Another irony. We have wolves being slaughtered because they supposedly threaten to eat cattle, yet the deer and elk populations are up in Idaho and Wyoming where wolves are threatened. So evidently the wolves aren’t all that bloodthirsty. And even if they are, can’t we see our way to a different compromise. We’re killing buffalo in another state over nothing and looking to hand it out. Why not let buffalo graze in wolf territory and let nature balance things out? We seem to constantly spend money to introduce wildlife, get it to flourish, then spend more money to slaughter it all.

In the balance of all these Nero like mood swings of government is our wildlife, and all of its habitat. It’s outrageous to kill off a species of animal in such a short period of time and despite a public outcry against it. After all it’s our money, it’s our wildlife, and it’s our world.
http://action.earthjustice.org/campaign/bison_0308/w5eu6wb9qmtdwie?

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/media/press0304/news0304/030204.html

In 24 hrs over 30,000 logged on to protest here at Defenders of Wildlife: https://secure.defenders.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=1059&autologin=true&s_einterest=C3C4&s_Affiliate=act_&JServSessionIdr005=0iwmuej2l2.app26a

Many of us had lovely ash trees in our yard once upon a time, and there are many parks around Michigan that have yet to clear out all of the ash trees that died from the ash borer, a simple bug.
Well, there are a lot more bugs to come and we can thank global warming for it.

Colorado is bearing the brunt of an increase in bark beetle bugs that have killed millions of acres of lodge pole pines. These pines are exactly what their name describes, tall, tall trees pine trees whose needled branches are disproportionately at the top third of the entire trunk, think Q-tip. The bottom portion of the trunk is a straight shot of wood, used to build log lodges.

An article on abcnews.com stated 1.5 million acres are already wiped out and all of the lodge pole pines may be gone in 3 to 5 years. It said the infestation was first noticed in 1996. What the heck takes so long for our agencies to act on anything? I lost my ash tree, and the whole time Bayer brand systemic spray would have worked. By time I applied anything to my tree, it was already too late. I know what I found for news before that. Our state officials said nothing worked against the ash borer…so people failed to act. State officials were wrong!

Colorado officials said, “the infestation was concentrated in five northern Colorado counties straddling the Continental Divide and has reached southern Wyoming.” The amount of trees taken by the beetles increased 1500 percent last year and “forest officials attributed the spread of the beetle to warm winters and drought. Susan Gray, group leader for forest health management with the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region, said only 20-below-zero temperatures for a sustained period can kill the beetles.” Keep an eye on your spruce trees! Spruce and aspen pines are susceptible to the beetle also.

To add insult to injury relative to our trees and forests, the Bush administration looks to weaken the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. This rule protects millions of acres of trees in Idaho against the oil, natural gas, timer, and mining industries. According to Earthjustice, Idaho contains more unspoiled wild forest than any state outside Alaska, providing the last intact forest habitat for countless fish, wildlife, and plant species. These areas are enjoyed by hunters, anglers, hikers, and all who treasure the backcountry. Earthjustice disclosed why Bush is pushing the Roadless Rule aside:

The administration’s proposal will open the door to logging millions of pristine acres, risk dangerous toxic contamination from mining, degrade clean fish-bearing streams and important wildlife habitat, and fail to live up to the public’s overwhelming desire to protect all of these areas for future generations.

This forest giveaway could lead to 545 million tons of phosphate being mined on nearly 8,000 unspoiled acres near Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Any increase in phosphate mining would worsen the already serious problem of selenium poisoning in local streams and aquifers. Selenium is an extremely dangerous contaminant known to cause birth defects, which bio-accumulates in the food web — persisting for centuries after entering the environment.

Read more about this and sign a petition to stop President Bush before he weakens the Roadless Rule even more. We’re already losing trees and a lot of our landscape from extreme weather, i.e., floods, fires, tornadoes, and now bugs. Does the Bush administration have a clue about conservation? Do they even care? Trees protect us from the sun, and take CO2 out of the air for Pete’s sake, and the powers that be want to give them away to big money.

About the pine beetle infestation:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=4133205

More about Bush sidestepping the Roadless Rule: http://www.earthjustice.org/our_work/campaigns/roadless_rule.html
Sign the petition to save our national forests: http://action.earthjustice.org/campaign/roadless_ID_0308
 

I’m back on about wolves because I see 56 wolves were recently aerial hunted and killed in Alaska where there is an all out onslaught against them by Governor Sarah Palin. It’s not just the wolves she’s attacking. Defenders of Wildlife revealed that Palin:

· Introduced legislation that could deny more than 50,000 Alaskans the right to vote on aerial killing of wolves and bears.
· Has condoned a $400,000 state-funded propaganda campaign to convince Alaskans to support the state’s shooting of wolves and bears from airplanes — even though wildlife biologists from around the world say that it is scientifically unfounded.
· Nominated her high school basketball coach a man with no wildlife management experience to sit on the state’s powerful Board of Game.
· Proposed a $150 bounty to spur wolf killing in specified management zones.

Palin’s high school basketball coach? The frightening thing is her name has come up as a possible pick for McCain’s vice president. Obstructing democracy in America is especially bad. Using state funds to sway citizens doesn’t sound right either. Alaskans voted down wolf hunting two times already. I found this website with an interesting video about the sport hunting going on in Alaska:
http://current.com/items/88811075_end_aerial_wolf_hunting.

The wolf reduction program in Alaska relies on the premise that wolf numbers must be kept down because wolves are rivals for food, and there are people in Alaska who hunt for food. Considering the wolves in Idaho and Wyoming haven’t made a dent on elk and deer populations there, I can’t imagine that wolves threaten the vast Alaskan bounty. According to current.com, “sport and trophy hunters take up to 73% of prey in areas where aerial wolf hunting has taken place.” And what about oil drilling? It threatens wildlife far worse, yet the $4 per gallon gasoline threat we’re hearing about will propel the oil industry to drill in Alaska. Due to oil drilling there will be loss of habitat for the food animals that sustain the subsistence hunters everyone is worried about and are therefore killing wolves. This is a contrived program. If Gov. Palin is so concerned for the citizens that need to hunt for food, why is she ignoring the majority of citizens that voted wolf hunting down?

It gets worse. Alaska is the model for Idaho and Wyoming. Over 200,000 people in the U.S. petitioned against Bush’s plan to take wolves off the endangered list. Now Bush attempts to strip wolves of federal protection. Secy. of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, whose department oversees the action against wolves, was formerly Governor of Idaho where he pushed to get state control over wolves. And now Butch Otter, another wolf-hater is governor there. Interesting how that works isn’t it? Kempthorne goes from Idaho to head a Federal Agency and now there is a greater and growing interest in killing   wolves. When Kempthorne moved up, did he bring his agenda, or did he move up because of his agenda?

This is the worst. According to NRDC in the March/April issue of “Nature’s Voice,” the federal government spent “taxpayer dollars to purchase two planes for the express purpose of gunning down wolves and other animals from the air in Wyoming.” Seventy five percent of Wyoming residents objected to Wyoming’s wolf hunting plan

It’s pretty clear that the maneuvering against wolves began quite a while ago and is just now coming to fruition. The wolves are innocent. I can’t believe the current onslaught taking place against all types of animals. It’s really noticeable. If we simply sit back and wait until this administration is out of office, it will be too late for too many species. So far Defenders of Wildlife, NRDC, Earthjustice, and many more organizations have been avidly defending wolves in court, in ads, and in education.  Support this fight by contacting your rep. The slaughter is totally unnecessary, we’re being lied to again, and our money is being used in support of it. Tell your rep that.