America Celebrates Endangered Species Day
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 05.18.07
Photo credit: National Audubon Society
We'd wish you a Happy Endangered Species Day, but we find nothing terribly celebratory about the Bush administration's corruption of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), with Interior Department officials fecklessly rewriting ESA regulations to fit political whimsies—in opposition to recommendations made by wildlife biologists, to boot.
While hope springs from the resignation of shamed former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Julie MacDonald—a senior Bush political appointee with a civil-engineering background and zero biology experience—the misuse of science at the Interior predates her arrival in 2004, says Dr. Francesca Grifo, director of the Union of Concerned Science's Scientific Integrity Program.
And global warming is being nobody's friend; one million species are potentially headed for that great Wildlife Reserve in the Sky by 2050, according to a 2004 study, which makes it even more urgent for us to act now, both as individuals and as a collective.
Write to your representatives and give generously to non-profits fighting the good fight, such as the National Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club.You can also check out the Endangered Species Day events happening in your neck of the woods. :: Stop Extinction
i love animals but i need to know how to save the ones that are i danger!!