Press Releases
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March 24, 2011
It’s been 22 years since the world watched one of the worst environmental disasters of our time unfold in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Now, even as tens of thousands of gallons of oil from that disaster still linger just below the surface of Prince William Sound’s beaches, the oil industry is pushing to drill in Alaska’s Arctic waters without the technology or know-how to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic’s extreme, icy conditions.
March 22, 2011
Although the American West holds enough renewable energy potential to fully power the entire United States, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar today announced at a press conference that he intends to open the door for 2.35 billion tons of new coal mining in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.
March 18, 2011
MISSOULA, Mont. (March 18, 2011) -- Ten conservation groups reached a legal settlement today with the Department of the Interior regarding wolf recovery and management in the Northern Rockies. The settlement was filed for approval with a U.S. Federal District Court in Montana. If approved by the court, the agreement would remove Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in Idaho and Montana and return management authority to those states, while retaining full protection in Washington, Oregon, Wyoming and Utah. It will also require Department of the Interior to withdraw a controversial policy memo used to justify not protecting imperiled species throughout their entire range.
March 16, 2011
WASHINGTON (March 16, 2011) – Rep. Joe Baca of San Bernardino County, Calif., introduced a bill (H.R. 1042) on March 11 that would set an arbitrary expiration date of 15 years for protecting rare, hard-to-study endangered species. Baca uses the scarcity of one species, the Delhi Sands flower-loving fly, as an excuse for rewriting parts of the Endangered Species Act.
March 11, 2011
BOZEMAN, Mont. (March 11, 2011) – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery 2010 Interagency Annual Report today, which includes the latest wolf population estimates as well as a summary of annual livestock losses to wolves.
March 8, 2011
The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has decided to take no action in response to the state’s proposal to kill wolves in on Unimak Island, a unit of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The following is a statement from Defenders of Wildlife Alaska Representative Theresa Fiorino in response to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision.
March 7, 2011
As congressional debate keeps the federal government funded for two weeks at a time, a coalition of conservation organizations is calling on the U.S. Senate to resist the assault on public health and economic growth passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and turn its attention toward adopting a far-sighted vision for investing in public lands and natural resources in fiscal year 2012.
March 7, 2011
A diverse coalition of Alaska Native, tourism industry, and environmental organizations celebrated a decision by a federal district judge in Anchorage on Friday, March 4, which reinstates roadless rule protections for the Tongass National Forest, America’s great temperate rainforest.
March 4, 2011
WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 4, 2011) – In the latest effort to strip federal endangered species protections from gray wolves in the Northern Rockies, a Continuing Budget Resolution to fund federal government operations for the remainder of the fiscal year was unveiled in the Senate today. The provision directs the Secretary of the Interior to reissue the 2009 delisting rule, which was struck down in 2010 by a federal district court, and would insulate the reissued rule from further judicial review.
March 2, 2011
Defenders of Wildlife is excited and honored to be chosen as a winner in the Environment & Wildlife category of the Members Project program from American Express.