Deadline Looms for Protections for Polar Bears, Other Wildlife

[Ladywriter 7,783]

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.

Please send Interior Secretary Salazar and Commerce Secretary Gary

Locke a message right now urging them to reverse the Bush/Cheney

administration's last-minute assault on Endangered Species Act

protections for polar bears, wolves and other imperiled wildlife. Take action now:

http://action.defenders.org/site/R?i=cLFeBZ6TAA2ydWiW-RdY8g..

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.

Only 12 days remain to reverse the Bush/Cheney assault on Endangered

Species Act protections for our wildlife. Please send your message

right now! Please take action...

http://action.defenders.org/site/R?i=4daG3KSRXog4Q_VUPAZplw..

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.

Use your voice to restore protections for our vulnerable wildlife.

Encourage Secretaries Salazar and Locke to use the power that Congress gave them to protect the lives of our imperiled wildlife.

http://action.defenders.org/site/R?i=noHdcDXmkgmkGHmvOmuAOg..

For the Wild Ones,

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.