A Birthday Message -- Here's to Your Victories

Sixty-one years ago today, Defenders of Wildlife was born.

As Defenders celebrates our birthday, we’re reminded that it’s really a celebration of people like you. The fact is, you made these victories happen -- just last week, you helped score big victories for Alaska wolves and Yellowstone bison.

Here are just a few recent victories we have to celebrate because of you:

Your support helped us…

Gray Wolf Howling (Photo: USFWS)

Save Alaska’s voice by helping to defeat Governor Sarah Palin’s legislation that would have cancelled a vote this summer on the state’s brutal aerial wolf hunting program -- a program that Alaskans have voted down twice before.
Bison (Photo: National Park Service, D.A. Buehler)

Give bison a break in Montana. More than 50,000 activists like you wrote messages to Montana tourism officials expressing outrage over the senseless slaughter of bison outside Yellowstone National Park. Last week, Governor Brian Schweitzer announced a deal to create a much-needed winter corridor for these icons of the American West.
Black-Footed Ferret (Photo: National Park Service)

Rally for ranchers like Larry and Bette Haverfield in Kansas. More than 16,000 activists like you spoke out to support efforts to return the once-thought-to-be-extinct black-footed ferret to their land. And last December, the Fish & Wildlife Service came through, releasing the first black-footed ferrets to be seen on the Kansas prairie in 50 years.
Tundra Swan (Photo: USFWS)

Protect the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. Defenders rallied our conservation partners and local residents to save the Refuge, home to snow geese, tundra swans and the world’s only wild population of red wolves. Thanks to this near constant pressure, the U.S. Navy abandoned plans to build a harmful landing field near this important refuge.

As we celebrate these achievements, we’re also looking forward. Our wildlife faces some pretty daunting challenges -- and we’re ready to tackle them with you by our side.

We’ll continue our 35-year fight to ensure the long-term survival of wolves in the Greater Yellowstone region and beyond. And our biggest challenge will be addressing global warming and its impacts on our wildlife.

Thanks to you, we’ve been there for our wildlife and wild places -- and with your help, we’ll continue to be there well into the future.

Rodger Schlickeisen, President (c)Daniel J. Cox/www.naturalexpos

Sincerely,

Rodger Schlickeisen
President
Defenders of Wildlife

No Free Refills! Take the Fast Food Industry to Task

Will you help us kick off the national Fast Food Packaging Campaign? The Southern US is the largest paper producing region in the world. Packaging is the #1 paper product from our forests, led by the fast food industry.

Will you send a message to the fast food CEO's having the biggest impact on our forests? Click here to send your message.

While you're there you can let the CEO's know that they should a) use more post-consumer recycled paper; b) use less; and c) stop using paper for packaging from endangered forests.

We have been on the road the last couple of weeks holding press conferences and community meetings to let kickoff the campaign. We've met some great people, gotten some good media, taken some great photos and videos, and worked with awesome volunteers. No matter where we are, one thing always rings true-Southern forests are too important to be wasted for fast food packaging.

You can tell the biggest Fast Food chains to stop buying their packaging from Southern forests. We identified the top offenders and they are... Taco Bell, KFC, Long John Silvers, Pizza Hut, A&W, McDonalds, Wendy's, Quiznos, Jack in the Box, and Bojangles.

Tell the 11 Fast Food Junky CEO's to stop trashing Southern forests for chicken buckets, burger boxes and to-go containers.

Click here to send your message today!

While you're there you can check out the new website and find more info about the campaign, including a downloadable report linking the top offenders to Southern forest destruction at www.nofreerefills.org.

Why fast food? Because Southern forests are too important to be wasted for fast food packaging.

· Fast Food Chains are buying packaging from Southern forests
· 15% of landfill waste is fast food packaging
· The average American throws out 300 lbs. of packaging waste every year

Our fast food lifestyle is burying us in an avalanche of excessive packaging and waste. Every year millions of pounds of food packaging waste litter our roadways, clog our landfills and spoil our quality of life.

Southern forests, the jewel of the American landscape, are being destroyed to bring you fried chicken, burgers and fries, and super-sized convenience in a glut of wrappers, boxes and cups. Simple choices and creative solutions can reduce the excess and destruction while still allowing us to enjoy the level of convenience we have come to expect.

Join Dogwood Alliance in challenging corporations to change their habits. Our forests are too important to be wasted for disposable packaging. With nearly 100 paper packaging mills in the South, the packaging decisions of these corporations have a tremendous impact on our forests.

Take action today!

http://www.democracyinaction.org/da/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=24343&t=nofreerefillsAction.dwt

For the forests,

Eva Hernandez
Organizing Director
Dogwood Alliance

Death of a Druid: Yellowstone Wolf Killing Begins

Wolf 253M, known as "Limpy" was the beloved member of Yellowstone's Druid Peak pack -- and one of the first wolves shot dead when federal protections were lifted on Northern Rockies wolves.

Please donate what you can today to help us save our Greater Yellowstone wolves and other wildlife.

Help us reach our goal of raising $140,000.

"Nicknamed 'Limpy' because his back legs were crippled in a fight when he was young, 253M was just shy of 8 years old -- a wolf Methuselah -- when he died March 28, shot in Wyoming on the first day wolves lost their protected status under the U.S. Endangered Species Act."

--"Wolf's death stirs fears for species' fate" by Patty Henetz, The Salt Lake City Tribune, April 8, 2008

The killing in the Greater Yellowstone region has already begun.

One of the first victims: Wolf 253M -- a celebrity wolf, affectionately known as “Limpy.”

Help us stop the senseless killing of Greater Yellowstone wolves now. Please make a tax-deductible contribution today.

Limpy was many things to many people -- to wolf-watchers, he was the hobbling member of Yellowstone’s famous Druid Peak Pack. To Utahans, he was the first wolf to be seen in the state for more than 70 years.

But wolf 253M’s celebrity didn’t save him in the end. Limpy and two other wolves were shot dead in an elk feeding ground, part of Wyoming’s brutal shoot-on-sight policy that covers virtually the entire state.

The killing has already begun. Please donate now to support our work to save wolves in the Greater Yellowstone area.

Limpy’s death was just the beginning. It’s been 26 days since wolves were stripped of federal protections in the Greater Yellowstone area -- and at least 17 wolves have already been killed in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. And there are surely more to come.

Officials in Idaho changed their state law on the day wolves were delisted, making it far easier for anyone to kill wolves near livestock or domestic animals.

In Wyoming, state officials stripped all protection from wolves in 88% of the state. Locals have organized weekend eradication “wolf hunts” to kill any wolf that they find. One group tracked a wolf for 35 miles on snowmobiles before shooting it dead.[1]

You contribution will help us…

• Fight for our wolves in court;
• Confront flawed state wolf policies with science and common sense;
• Help ranchers reduce conflicts with wolves using non-lethal methods;
• Debunk the myths and misinformation about wolves through on-the-ground education and outreach; and
• Much, much more...

Will you make a tax-deductible emergency donation right now to help?

We can win the battle to save our wolves. But we can’t do it without your help.

Sincerely, Rodger Schlickeisen President Defenders of Wildlife

P.S. You can make your tax-deductible contribution online now via our secure website or you can call 1-800-385-9712 to make your contribution by phone.

Halt the Assault!

For Earth Day...

HALT the Assault on the Environment

Inflicted by the Bush Regime:

• Suppression of Science
• Denial of Overwhelming Evidence Confirming Threat of Climate Change
• Spurred Poaching Pandemic of Gray Wolves, Coyote, Deer, Seals and Other Native Animals
• Scrapped Fire Management Plans for Southwestern National Forests
• Pushing Private Development Threatening National Parks
• Defying Federal Court Decision to Protect National Forests from Logging
• Surveillance and Spying on Greenpeace Activists
• Failure to Protect more than 280 Species at Risk of Becoming Endangered or Extinct
• Radiating the Planet with Depleted Uranium
• Unregulated Drilling at National Parks and Forests
• Underfunding the EPA to Support War for Empire

It may sound like a horrific sci-fi movie? It isn't. It's reality under the Bush regime!

And it's going to get worse as the Bush regime is now planning last-minute giveaways to its corporate allies which will eliminate protections for the planet, and all those who inhabit it. Your Government has been running roughshod over agencies, scientists, lawyers and activists who share your values of environmental sustainability.

This EARTH DAY do something profound for the planet. Join and fund the movement determined to bring the whole package to a halt, and protect what we love - our families, our friends, our fellow creatures, and our planet!

Donate online or send by mail. World Can't Wait 305 W. Broadway #185 New York NY 10013. See website for tax deductible info.

Every donation of $25 or more will receive a copy of the DVD The Bush Record, featuring:

Destruction of the Global Environment: 1. Denial and Distortion of Scientific Consensus and Findings on Global Warming. 2. Obstructionism on International Efforts to curb the emissions of greenhouse gases. It has withdrawn from any international efforts that would impose binding restrictions, however minimal. It has done this with full knowledge of the catastrophic effects of global warming and the disproportionate U.S. share of world greenhouse gas emissions, the leading cause of global warming.

Become an official World Can't Wait member

Drive Out the Bush Regime

Repudiate the Entire Bush Program

The Earth Can't Wait!