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Weekly News Roundup- November 15, 2013
What’s happening at National Wildlife Federation this week?
- Orcas are Calling for Your Help! Help orcas and speak out against dirty coal.
- A New Lease on Life: Endangered ferrets find refuge on southern Colorado ranch.
- Moose are Ticked Off! Read the blog about the correlation between climate change, ticks and moose mortality.
Nov 14-Today, leading national and local conservation and restoration organizations – Environmental Defense Fund, National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation, Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation – released the following joint statement:
“We applaud the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), in partnership with Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, for dedicating $67.9 million to seven key barrier island and river diversion projects, including $40.4 million for the Mid-Barataria Diversion project. The Barataria Basin has one of the highest rates of land loss in the world, and this large-scale wetland restoration project is crucial to reversing that trend.
“The mid-sized Mid-Barataria sediment diversion is a key component of Louisiana’s 2012 Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast. The master plan is a blueprint for restoring the Mississippi River Delta and Louisiana’s coast and contains a suite of coastal restoration and protection projects. Our organizations support the full suite of restoration projects in that plan, of which the Mid-Barataria Diversion is a critical piece.
Report: Climate Change Leaving America’s Big Game Nowhere to Run
Nov 13- Rising temperatures, deeper droughts and more extreme weather events fueled by manmade climate change are making survival more challenging for America’s treasured big game wildlife from coast to coast, according to a new report from the National Wildlife Federation. Nowhere to Run: Big Game Wildlife in a Warming World details how climate change is already putting many species of big game at risk, creating an uncertain future for big game and the outdoor economy that depends on them.
“The recovery of big game species is one of America’s wildlife conservation success stories, made possible in large part by sustained investment by generations of sportsmen,” said Dr. Doug Inkley, senior scientist at the National Wildlife Federation. “But today, a changing climate threatens to rewrite that success story.”
Wildfire, floods and extreme weather events like heat waves, droughts and heavy rainfall, are becoming more frequent and more severe. Unprecedented changes in habitat are having far-reaching consequences for big game and for sportsmen and women, affecting, for example, the timing of hunting seasons and the distribution and survival of animals.
“We’re already seeing changes where we hunt big game – reduced snowpack, dying forests, shifting migration patterns,” said Todd Tanner, founder and chairman of Conservation Hawks. “We have to let our elected officials know that we need solutions and we need them now. We’re running out of time.”
Listen to NWF’S Moose Awareness Radio Ads: Listen here for the New Hampshire ad and the Maine/Michigan/Minnesota/Montana ad.
And now here are highlights from NWF in the news:
Associated Press: Gulf states get first $113M from oil spill pleas
“The Barataria Basin has one of the highest rates of land loss in the world, and this large-scale wetland restoration project is crucial to reversing that trend,” the Environmental Defense Fund, National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation, Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation said in a joint statement.
Associated Press: Conservationists warn climate change threatens Minnesota big game from moose to deer to bears
“Moose are the poster child of climate change and Minnesota is demonstrating that,” the study’s author, Doug Inkley, senior scientist with the federation, told The Associated Press.
NBC News: The secret environmental cost of US ethanol policy
“They could not have designed a better approach to not detect land conversion,” said Ben Larson, an agricultural expert for the National Wildlife Federation.
Washington Post: AP Investigation: Obama’s green energy drive comes with an unadvertised environmental cost
The consequences are so severe that environmentalists and many scientists have now rejected corn-based ethanol as bad environmental policy. But the Obama administration stands by it, highlighting its benefits to the farming industry rather than any negative impact
Maine Public Broadcasting Network: Big Game and Climate Change
What are the potential effects of climate change on big game and other wildlife? A just released report details the effects of a warming world on big game wildlife.
Minnesota Public Radio: To help the moose, wildlife group sets climate change agenda
“Rising temperatures, deeper droughts and more extreme weather events fueled by manmade climate change are making survival more challenging for America’s treasured big game wildlife from coast to coast,” the report says
NPR: More Deer Lead to Increased Urban Hunters
It’s white tailed deer season for millions of hunters across the country. Most will tromp into fields and forests stalking their prey. But others will set up in cities and suburbs. Urban hunts are spreading across the country as a way to control the animal’s booming population. But not everyone’s happy having camouflaged hunters perched on tree stands in their neighborhoods.
NewsMagazine Network: Chesterfield Elementary students put ‘green’ lessons to work at school
Service learning is a big piece of being recognized as a National School of Character, a designation the school earned on Sept. 16 – the same day it was officially recognized as a National Wildlife Federation Certified Schoolyard Habitats Site.
