Please Do Not Tap On the Glass

I celebrated Earth Day on Saturday at the National Zoo by helping to clean up the banks of Rock Creek. We had a good crowd of volunteers and FONZ organized the clean up and gave us work gloves and plenty of ground to cover. There was only one mishap in our group and that was me – I fell while carrying a bag filled with bricks, ceramic pipe shards and a hubcap. OW!

Anyway, we filled three pick up truck beds with metal items, at least one pick up bed was filled with bagged trash, there were a lot of glass bottles, plastic bottles and bags, you name it and we found it. Unbelievable.

Here are some action alerts you can take part in to help save your Mother Earth from destruction:

America’s bears are facing a poaching plague. The reason? The lucrative black market for bear parts is on the rise.

But bipartisan legislation in Congress can help put an end to this disturbing trend.

Urge your Representative to sign on as a cosponsor to the Bear Protection Act (H.R. 5534) — a bill that would help save America’s bears.

Many bears are killed just for their gallbladders, which are used in traditional Asian medicines to treat a variety of illnesses. Although accepted alternatives exist in traditional medicines, demand for bear parts is soaring.

As Asian bear populations have fallen, poachers are turning to bears in the U.S. to satisfy a flourishing black market. Each year, 30,000 or more bears are killed illegally in the U.S.

Poachers target hibernating bears in their dens and even track radio-collared bears that are part of scientific studies. And law enforcement agents report grisly findings: bear carcasses left in the woods with only the gallbladder and other parts removed.

Representatives Raul Grijalva (AZ) and John Campbell (CA) have introduced legislation that will help bears by banning the trade in gallbladders at the federal level.

The Bear Protection Act will end a patchwork of state laws that creates an enforcement nightmare and allows the illegal killing of bears to continue.

Tell your Representative to become a cosponsor of this wildlife-saving legislation today.

To learn more about bear bile farming, visit the Animals Asia Foundation Web site.

Tuesday is Earth Day, and while millions of Americans will do what they can to enjoy and protect America’s natural treasures, there’s one man who should be doing a lot more: President Bush’s Secretary of the Interior, Dirk Kempthorne.

Take Action for Earth Day! Urge Congress to hold hearings on Secretary Kempthorne’s abysmal track record on protecting America’s wildlife.

But since being appointed almost two years ago, Secretary Kempthorne hasn’t listed a single new species under the Endangered Species Act — even though federal biologists warn that at least 280 native species could disappear forever without such protections.

Urge Congress to hold Secretary Kempthorne accountable for his failure to act for wildlife by holding Congressional hearings …

Jaguars: Despite the presence of jaguars in the United States and the existence of large swaths of prime jaguar habitat, Kempthorne’s department has refused to create a recovery plan for these endangered cats, claiming that this big cat is a “foreign” species.

But under this flawed argument, the U.S. would have had no obligation to protect bald eagles, wolves, grizzlies or other native species — so long as they existed somewhere outside the lower 48 states!

Polar Bears: Secretary Kempthorne has repeatedly delayed listing the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act and in February approved harmful offshore drilling in the Chukchi Sea — essential habitat for one of the two remaining U.S. polar bear populations.

Last fall, federal scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey reported that polar bears could be extinct in Alaska by 2050.

Other Species: Under Kempthorne, the Interior Department has even denied vital protections for wolverines, red knots and right whales — all species in serious decline and dangerously close to extinction.

Urge your Representative to hold Kempthorne accountable in Congressional hearings for not doing more to protect polar bears, jaguars and other wildlife.

Hey all you vegans! I’m selling T-shirts in a new CafePress Store to raise money for my other CafePress project Help Mary Save Coral. BUY! Tell all your friends!

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Filed under: bears, endangered species, wildlife conservation