Save the Wolves

[SuzeQuze]

The Bush administration wants to kill endangered wolves to appease a handful of high-powered constituents. Even though any wolves that endanger a rancher or livestock can be legally killed by that rancher the Bushies still want to use our tax dollars to kill wolves. Unbe-effing-lievable.

From the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

Thanks to donations from 8,830 supporters, our new wolf-saving ad will appear in today's New York Times (Friday), where it will be read by more than one million Americans and all over Capitol Hill.

We're in the Times at a critical moment. The Open Fire order could come any day now. Hundreds of wolves in the Northern Rockies could be exterminated while they are still on the Endangered Species List.

It's not too late for your own gift to make a big difference. By donating today, you can help run our ad again and build even more widespread opposition to the administration's senseless attack on wolves.

Read the ad and make a donation that will keep it running.

We're going to make sure the administration feels overwhelming pressure from the American people -- and from Congress -- to call off the guns.

Thank you so much for your generosity in responding to the plight of hundreds of wolves. I'll be sure to keep you updated on this campaign in the critical weeks ahead.

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
NRDC Action Fund

Text from the ad in the Time is pasted below:



The reintroduction of the gray wolf into Yellowstone National Park and surrounding wild lands, where they had once been wiped out, is one of the greatest success stories of the Endangered Species Act. *And our tax dollars helped make it happen. Today, some 1,500 of these magnificent, endangered animals roam the Northern Rockies, where they have played a key role in reviving both the region’s environment and its tourist-based economy.

Unbelievably, the Bush Administration, bowing to pressure from Wyoming and a relatively few vocal ranchers and elk hunters, has just issued a new rule that allows the mass killing of gray wolves. Instead of doing its job to protect animals on the Endangered Species List, this administration is preparing to slaughter them. Even worse, it plans to issue a second rule that would strip wolves of federal protection altogether.

Using our tax dollars, the federal government would trap, hunt and gun down entire packs of wolves -- even from airplanes. Under either rule, hundreds of wolves could be killed. It’s madness.

Here are the facts: *While some hunters complain about wolves killing elk -- their natural prey -- elk populations are at all-time highs across the Northern Rockies. And ranchers on private land already have the right to kill wolves that harass their livestock. No matter. The Bush Administration is determined to allow the killing of wolves -- and to reverse an environmental success story paid for by the American people -- just to satisfy politically powerful constituencies.

There’s still time to call off the guns. That’s where you come in. Go to CallOffTheGuns.org and tell your U.S. Representative to oppose the Bush wolf-killing rule. *Let’s give America’s wolves a chance.

Paid for by supporters of the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund.

www.CallOffTheGuns.org