Polar Bear Victory: Court Upholds Protection, Confirms Global Warming Threat
Polar bears will keep their hard-won federal protections. On Friday the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed efforts by the state of Alaska, polar bear trophy hunters and others to strip polar bears of their Endangered Species Act protection. It upheld the government’s 2008 decision — responding to a Center for Biological Diversity petition and litigation — to protect the Arctic bears as threatened throughout their range.
The appeals court ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to protect the bear due to the melting of Arctic sea ice was well supported in every regard. The court also noted the listing decision was, if anything, underprotective of polar bears, rather than overprotective as the state of Alaska had claimed. Global warming is robbing polar bears of the sea ice they need to survive. Left unchecked, two-thirds of the world’s polar bears, including all in Alaska, could be gone by 2050.
”If we’re going to save polar bears, the Obama administration needs to move swiftly to cut greenhouse pollution,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center’s Climate Law Institute.
Also in breaking news today, the international community lost an opportunity to ban the trade in polar bear parts — especially rugs — when Canada successfully opposed a U.S.-backed ban under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to keep the animals from being commercially hunted. Check next week’s edition for more details.
Read more here or read the article in the Los Angeles Times.
Keystone XL Moves Closer to Approval — Take Action
The Obama administration has released an ”environmental impact statement” on the Keystone XL project — moving this dirty, disastrous oil pipeline one step closer to approval. Keystone XL would cross the heart of the Midwest and deliver oil from Canada’s tar sands all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, where much of it would be exported to other countries. Along the way the pipeline would cut through rivers, streams and prime wildlife habitat — including habitat for at least 20 rare and vanishing species, including whooping cranes and pallid sturgeon.
The planned pipeline would ship, every day, up to 35 million gallons of the dirtiest oil on the planet to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Keystone XL will move us closer to climate catastrophe, threaten our land and water with spills and encourage further strip mining — bringing destruction of a boreal forest the size of Florida.
Read more in GlobalPost, then take action to tell the administration to reject Keystone XL.
Gray wolves are struggling to recover in the Pacific Northwest, California, southern Rocky Mountains and Northeast — but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is drafting a proposal to delist them in these states.
To “delist” means to remove the protections of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). This would be a death sentence for wolves.
More than 1,200 wolves in the Rocky Mountains and the Great Lakes region have been massacred since they lost ESA protection in 2011, when the species was removed from the list by political fiat instead of science.
Wolves across these states are slaughtered by bowhunters, gunned down by “recreational” hunters, tortured by trappers in steel-jaw foothold traps and snares, and subjected to brutal “management” methods, including aerial gunning. The same fate awaits wolves in other regions who are barely hanging on. Delisting would subject them to the same massacre we’re seeing in the Rocky Mountain states and the Great Lakes states where they’ve already lost protection.
Click here to tell USFWS to keep gray wolves protected under the ESA. Tell them delisting is premature, because wolf populations have not yet recovered, and because the prejudices and misconceptions that led to their near elimination across the continent are still present.
Stop Cruelty at UCSF.
The University of California-San Francisco has a long history of abusing animals imprisoned in laboratories. Urge the National Institutes of Health to STOP funding the university’s cruel experiments on animals. TAKE ACTION!
Cruelty to Ducks EXPOSED
A PETA investigation found that ducks spend weeks in bleak metal cages not much bigger than their own bodies before Hot’s Kitchen sells their diseased livers. LEARN MORE.
How Republicans Plan To Rig The Next Presidential Election!
Sequester Cuts Threaten National Parks
By now, I’m sure you know just how serious the situation is for our national parks due to the sequester cuts which will go into effect later today. I know you are as concerned as we are about this. Below is an NPCA press release with more information. Please help us do everything we can in the days ahead to protect our national parks from these damaging cuts.
ASPCA Pet of the Week: Spike
Spike hasn’t met you yet, but he already loves you—we promise. Rescued by our Humane Law Enforcement in 2011, he’s got a uniquely hoarse bark that makes him all the more lovable. Please come give this wonderful guy a chance.
Sustainable Sundays: Keystone XL Moves Closer to Approval — Take Action, Cruelty to Ducks EXPOSED, Sequester Cuts Threaten National Parks, Polar Bear Victory: Court Upholds Protection, Confirms Global Warming Threat, Tell U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service To Protect Wolves, Stop Cruelty at UCSF., How Republicans Plan To Rig The Next Presidential Election and meet Spike, the ASPCA Pet of the Week!
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Director (The “Iron Man” series), actor (“Swingers”, and many VO gigs), writer (“Swingers”, “Made”), he does a little bit of everything, and he does it REALLY well!
