“It seems the oil giant thinks it can intimidate us with threats so that it can push through dangerous new drilling in the fragile Arctic ecosystem.
Please stand with the Center and help us defeat this obnoxious, anti-free-speech lawsuit.
A generous Center supporter has agreed to match all emergency donations if we can raise $50,000.
Shell Oil is suing the Center because we’ve stopped every offshore drilling proposal in the Arctic since 2007. Shell knows we’re effective, so it’s trying to take us out with its preemptive attack.
But we’re not leaving. We’re fighting back, and we need your generous support today.
The Shell game is all about intimidation and shutting down free speech. Please, help us take a stand against Shell’s strong-arm tactics with a gift to our Emergency Legal Defense Fund to save the Arctic.”
Sarah Palin and Gov. Sean Parnell’s lawsuit to delist Beluga Whales from endangered species list was defeated. The Center for Biological Diversity and several other environmental groups got the lawsuit thrown out of Federal Court.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— A federal judge…rejected the state of Alaska’s 2010 lawsuit that tried to strip Endangered Species Act protections for Cook Inlet beluga whales. The whales were listed as an endangered species in 2008. In today’s decision, the judge said that the best available science supports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s determination that Cook Inlet beluga whales are in danger of extinction. While hunting was initially considered the cause of the significant decline of belugas in the Inlet, the population has continued to decline after hunting ceased in 1999.
The Alaska Center for the Environment, the Center for Biological Diversity, Cook Inletkeeper, Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the North Gulf Oceanic Society, represented by Trustees for Alaska, intervened in the lawsuit to defend the beluga listing against the state’s attack.
Once numbering 1,300, the Cook Inlet beluga population currently has only 300 to 400 individuals. This diminished population faces many threats. Cook Inlet, which borders the city of Anchorage, is the most populated and fastest-growing watershed in Alaska, and it is subject to significant offshore oil and gas development in beluga habitat. Additionally, the proposed billion-dollar Knik Arm Bridge will directly affect the belugas, and port expansion and a proposed giant coal mine and coal-export dock would also destroy key beluga habitat.
“The Cook Inlet beluga whale is one of Alaska’s most iconic wild animals, and we need to do all we can to prevent its extinction,” said Karla Dutton, Alaska director for Defenders of Wildlife. “A healthy beluga population in Cook Inlet is essential to the health of the inlet itself and the people and wildlife who depend on it. We’re gratified that the court sided with the scientists and kept in place the vital protections these whales need.”
Once banned, Idaho now allows unlimited wolf hunting. The cost for a license to hunt wolves is 11 bucks. The Obama administration removed wolves from the Endangered Species List in April, 2011. Above, Idaho Fish and Game Department map shows that the entire state is open season.
“Hunters Have Killed More than 180 Wolves in the Northern Rockies Without Federal Protection, Bloodbath is Underway
A bloodbath is underway in the northern Rocky Mountains as hunters there relentlessly target wolf packs in the region.
In April, Congress removed gray wolves in the northern Rockies from Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection. Since then, Idaho and Montana have sold nearly 37,000 wolf tags for fall hunts. As of November 11, some 114 wolves had been shot in Idaho, and 67 in Montana. Idaho plans to continue hunting through the winter of 2012, and will allow the state’s estimated 700 to 1,000 wolves to be reduced to no more than 150. If hunters and trappers fail to destroy enough, state officials promise to launch airborne search and destroy operations. Montana officials recently extended wolf season from the end of December to January 31, 2012 in hopes of killing 220 of their estimated 556 to 645 wolves. In Wyoming, Governor Matt Mead recently signed an agreement with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that will protect a remnant population of 100 to 150 to survive near Yellowstone National Park, but allow wolves to be classified as vermin and shot-on-sight in 80 percent of the state; hunts could begin there next spring.
The recent anti-wolf campaign represents an extraordinary cultural and political victory by the far-right wing in the Rocky Mountains. A loose coalition of some ranchers, hunters, and anti-government zealots demonized the gray wolves reintroduced to Montana and Idaho from Canada in the mid 1990s by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. They cast the animals as huge, aggressive, disease-ridden monsters bent on ravaging livestock, elk, deer, and even people. Wolves became symbolic representations of the hated federal government (see my story, “Cry, Wolf” in the Summer 2011 issue of EIJ ). In time, both the mainstream Republican and Democratic Parties came to accept this vision of demonic wolves invading from Canada.
In April, 2011, Senator John Tester, Democrat of Montana, facing a tough 2012 reelection challenge from Republican Congressman Denny Rehberg, led a campaign among fellow Democrats to remove gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act using a federal budget bill rider, while Idaho’s Congressman Mike Simpson did the same among House Republicans. The rider passed with little dissent, marking the first time a species has been removed from the protections of the Endangered Species Act by Congress.”
The fall issue of Endangered Earth, the Center for Biological Diversity’s print newsletter for members, is now available to you online. The cover story is the Center’s groundbreaking 7 Billion and Counting campaign, whose flagship media project, our Endangered Species Condoms, jump-started a national conversation about overpopulation this October just as the world’s human numbers hit the 7 billion mark — including a lengthy, prominent feature in The New York Times.
The Times article said the Center is “virtually alone” in breaking the taboo against talking about the overpopulation crisis “by directly tying population growth to environmental problems through efforts like giving away condoms in colorful packages depicting endangered animals.” This year, our path-breaking campaign distributed 100,000 free Endangered Species Condoms through 1,200 eager volunteers, who handed them out in all 50 states.
Also in this issue, read about:
The fight to save wolves: a Center petition to protect Alaska’s rare, black Alexander Archipelago wolf; our appeal to stop the killing of Oregon’s first wolf family in decades; and our fending off of more assaults on wolves by Congress.
How our landmark 757-species agreement, reached this summer, is rapidly pushing hundreds of animals and plants toward Endangered Species Act protection, including Florida sandhill cranes, Ozark hellbenders, Miami blue butterflies and Alabama map turtles.
The “extinction rider” we and our allies defeated in Congress and our ongoing work to defend the Endangered Species Act against ill-informed political attacks.
The controversy over the damaging, 1,700-mile Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which has sparked large, high-profile peaceful protests outside the White House and a suit by the Center to stop construction on the pipeline.
Click here to download a PDF of the fall 2011 issue.
“Landmark Agreement Moves 757 Species Toward Federal Protection
(T)he Center for Biological Diversity struck a historic legal settlement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, requiring the agency to make initial or final decisions on whether to add hundreds of imperiled plants and animals to the endangered species list by 2018. The Endangered Species Act is America’s strongest environmental law and surest way to save species threatened with extinction.
The settlement caps a decade-long effort by the Center’s scientists, attorneys and activists to safeguard 1,000 of America’s most imperiled, least protected species including the walrus, wolverine, Mexican grey wolf, fisher, New England cottontail rabbit, three species of sage grouse, scarlet Hawaiian honeycreeper, California golden trout, Miami blue butterfly, Rio Grande cutthroat trout, 403 southeastern river-dependent species, 42 Great Basin springsnails and 32 Pacific Northwest mollusks.
The Center’s wrote scientific petitions and/or filed lawsuits to win federal protection for each of the 757 species.
What is "Climate Adaptation"? Adaptation is not about carbon, greenhouse gases, or energy. It's about lowering risks from environmental impacts caused by climate change. Adaptation is the sweet-spot between environmental policy, climate science, land-use, and engineering. When the sea-level rises, we build wall or move the buildings. We build levees to protect homes from floods; manage forests to prevent wildfires and droughts; build smarter, stronger infrastructure for long-term economic resilience; and prepare public health officials for increased rates of pests and diseases from rising temperatures. So, adaptation is less Al Gore "save the planet" and more Bob the Builder "fix all the things!".
