Make your own Thanksgiving hand-turkey card to send to president Obama reminding him that now is the time to put in place strong limits on carbon pollution.  We can help make a Thanksgiving with one more thing to be grateful for–action to reduce carbon pollution that contributes to the changing climate that is harming wildlife.

Here is my card–how will you customize your hand-turkey?

This week, President Obama connected the dots between the increase in temperature, melting Arctic ice, and extraordinary number of large storms. He emphasized that climate change is real and that we have “an obligation to future generations to do something about it“.  Ask the President to match his words with action by sending him a fun holiday card.

Rio Grande Wilid Turkey puffing out his feathers. U.S. FWS photo by Robert Burton.

Original wild turkey distribution in North America (image via Wikimedia).

Turkeys are the largest member of the grouse family and they are the second largest wild bird in North America (after Trumpeter swans).  Males weigh 11-24 lbs and females 5-12 lbs. Like many sexually dimorphic species, males are selected for maximum sex appeal while females are more sensibly selected to be the right size to glean food from their environment and escape predators.  Males can get away with being larger than females as they leave all the rearing of the chicks (poults) to the hens and are not a part of family flocks.

A flock of wild turkey, captured by the author as they strolled by. NWF photo by Sterling Miller.

Where I live in western Montana, wild turkeys were introduced about 10 years ago in the upper Bitterroot Valley near Hamilton, Montana. I believe that wild turkeys did not originally occur in western Montana as I’ve found no reference to them in the Journals of Lewis and Clark. About 5 years after their introduction in the Upper Bitterroot Valley, we were excited to see them at our place about 50 miles south.  We’ve been seeing them regularly ever sense.  I took the pictures here last fall when a flock of 17 birds (including 2 adult hens and 15 poults) strolled by. This appeared to be a combined family as the normal clutch has 10-12 eggs. The open clearing and pasture lands created by humans where forests used to grow creates favorable habitat for wild turkeys.

Benjamin Franklin praised the wild turkey and dissed our national bird, the bald eagle, as being “a Bird of bad moral charcter….[who] does not get his living honestly.” I suppose this criticism stems from the fact that smaller birds attack eagles with impunity and eagles steal food from Osprey and other birds. Franklin contrasted the bald eagle with the turkey,

“…a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America….Though a little vain and silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”

No doubt Franklin’s perception of turkey’s as “vain” reflects the male bird’s strutting behavior during breeding season.  Courtship displays like this, however, are common in many birds and other animals and serve a vital purpose in allowing females to choose the best available mate to father their offspring.  Franklin, himself, was known to dress up to impress the ladies and this is no different in intent or function from what many wildlife species, including turkeys, do.

Today, the term “turkey” has come to mean different things including “a stupid, foolish, or inept person.” However, this definition must refer to domestic turkeys and not the the canny wild turkey.   While the turkey on your Thanksgiving table is very different from the wild turkey, this success story is one I encourage a share this holiday season.

What wild animal or plant are you thankful for this Thanksgiving? Let us know in the comments below!

Clearly my dad was terrible at football (NWF's Miles Grant)

Thanksgiving hadn’t always been this way. As a kid, my Thanksgiving didn’t center around sitting in front of the screen watching football – it centered around playing it. My dad was always happier out in the yard letting me “tackle” him than he was making small talk. When I went to relatives’ houses for the holiday, I’d beg my older cousins endlessly to come out and throw a ball around.

But as you get older, getting muddy on Thanksgiving is frowned upon. And once you’re a teenager, you’re expected to dazzle your older relatives with impressive feats of eating, which I was only happy to oblige.

Once I was in my 20s, my metabolism started slowing down but the eating didn’t, now followed by sitting around having a drink. Finally, it all caught up to me – and there I was, lying not in the grass but in a dark room.

So the next year, I had a two-part game plan for making sure I survived my Thanksgiving upright: Eat only until full, and get in a green hour. Once dessert was done, I asked my relatives if anyone wanted to go for a walk.

Not only did a couple of my older relatives say they’d join me, but a bunch of younger cousins said they’d come as well. I was surprised at first, but then remembered myself at their age – the last place I wanted to be was cooped up in the house.

We got back feeling energized, and the impacts go beyond mental health. While enormous Thanksgiving feasts can have major physical consequences, a 2006 study suggested you can erase some of the risk by getting out for a walk after the meal.

I’ll be spending this Thanksgiving with my friend and fellow blogger Every Day Father. With sunny, mild weather in the forecast, I have a feeling I’ll end up passed out once again this Thanksgiving – not in the depths of a food coma but from trying to keep up with a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old through nature walks and hours in the yard. My dad took plenty of dives in the backyard, and this year I’m thankful to be able to give some back.

Learn more about how to help the children in your family Be Out There, on Thanksgiving and all year round.

Sleeping Bear Dunes | Credit: Jennifer Janssen, NWF

“Before we eat,” the host will announce, “I’d like to go around the table and have everyone say what they are thankful for this year.”

The collective gulp is almost audible.

I know this to be true because I’ve been guilty in the past of subjecting my Thanksgiving Dinner guests to this unique form of torture.

The first person facing the question gets off easy.

“I’m thankful for my family,” he or she will say. Everyone will nod in agreement.

Others will express gratitude for having a job, devoted friends or an adoring pet.

Before long, hungry guests desperate for an answer that won’t offend friends or relatives are offering thanks for such trivial things as the weather.

Great Lakes Thanks for Thanksgiving

In anticipation of the Thanksgiving Dinner interrogation, I’m offering up a list of things I am thankful for in 2011. This list focuses on the Great Lakes because I live in the Great Lakes basin and I write about issues facing the lakes.

Besides, I’m pretty sure none of my relatives will beat me to the punch with any of these offerings. (Feel free to use any of these to shock or awe your friends and relatives).

With all due respect to family, friends and employers, here are three things I am thankful for in 2011.

• The Great Lakes and, more specifically, Lake Michigan.These wondrous lakes slake my thirst, offer countless recreational opportunities and provide respite from the grind of life.

• Ongoing efforts to restore the Great Lakes, which are yielding tremendous benefits. Congress and President Obama over the past two years have approved $775 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The GLRI, along with other Great Lakes programs, are cleaning up toxic hot spots, reducing polluted storm water runoff, restoring wetlands and bolstering fish and wildlife populations. One of the most dramatic examples is in Lake Ontario, where wild Atlantic salmon are spawning naturally again in rivers. The salmon, which are native to Lake Ontario and its tributaries, were sustained for years by hatcheries. The Wall Street Journal recently published a fine article about the lake’s Atlantic salmon recovery.

• A filthy coal-fired power plant near Chicago will be shut down in 2012, two years ahead of schedule. The Chicago Tribune reported that Dominion Resources would close its State Line Power Plant, which is visible from the Chicago Skyway, instead of making the huge investment needed to reduce air pollution at the facility. The power plant is one of the nation’s worst air polluters, according to the Tribune. Closing the facility will mean cleaner air for everyone downwind; it will also be another step toward reducing America’s reliance on fossil fuels that contribute to global warming and cause asthma and other lung ailments for millions of Americans. Clean air — it’s as American as Mom and apple pie.

So there you have it. I’m off to visit family for a day of food, fellowship and football.

Happy Thanksgiving!

NWF Executive Assistant Diana Kalaly makes calls to donors, expressing NWF's appreciation for their commitment to and interest in wildlife conservation.

I picture these NWF supporters as dedicated to protecting the natural world and to curbing the ecologically reckless excesses of human society. I imagine some of these benefactors living on limited fixed incomes but nevertheless determined to share their money with the cause of conservation. I think of such people every time my work requires me to spend NWF funds.

Until recently, I never had a chance to thank these contributors personally for their support. But this year, as Thanksgiving approaches, NWF offered staff the opportunity to phone individual donors directly and show our appreciation for their generosity.

Saying Thank You

As part of this process I phoned 30 people. Most of my contact with these folks came in the form of their answering machines, but the individuals with whom I actually talked seemed surprised that NWF would take the time to thank donors personally. From my perspective, I would suggest that it is a pity we can contact only a small fraction of the thousands of people who make the Federation’s work possible.

I talked with other staff who also made calls. Pat Raitt, NWF associate vice-president for development, said he was impressed with the enthusiasm he encountered when he reached donors. “One said, ‘Well, just so you know, we’re sending in a check this year, too,’” Raitt recalls. Another told him that she made NWF the beneficiary on her life insurance and “wanted to be sure we know it.”

Mark Wexler, editor of National Wildlife magazine, found that donors appreciated the calls. One told him that she gives to a number of groups, but NWF was the first to make a thank-you call. Another said, “It’s nice to get a call like this, where there is no motive other than to say thank you.”

Staff also enjoyed the nature of these calls. Garrit Voggesser, director of tribal lands in NWF’s Boulder, Colorado, office, said he was pleased with the opportunity to reach donors and supporters this way. “The holidays make a good time to pause in our work and thank these people for helping us get that work done,” he says.

One of the most moving calls was made by Diana Kalaly, an NWF executive assistant who is Hungarian by birth, when she reached a donor who is a 103-year-old doctor with a Hungarian surname. “After my quick thank you,” Diana told me, “he said: ‘This is wonderful, if you are just calling to say thank you. But if you are calling for more money, I usually wait until the second half of December to see how much money I have left after the holidays.’ I quickly reassured him that I was just calling to say thank you. He thanked me for pronouncing his name correctly, and guess what? It turns out he is Hungarian. From there we had a great conversation in Hungarian, and he said he thought it was very important to protect wildlife and he thanked me for the call. What are the odds of this happening?” 

Individual Members

I found that the calls helped me to get a better understanding of our donors and of their commitment to the NWF cause. Some radiated a personality that gave you a sense of why they were NWF partners. My favorite was a South Carolinian who declared via answering machine, “I’m out looking for the sun. I’ll get back to you if I find it.”

To the extent that the sun is a metaphor for better days, you might say that all of us who work for or support NWF are seeking a brighter future for wildlife, people and the planet. Consequently, the Federation observes Thanksgiving this year as a special moment in which staff can say thanks to all our partners in conservation for enabling our search for sunlight.

Donor Opportunities

Do you want to help conserve wildlife and wild places? NWF has just launched a new online portal called “Choose Your Cause.” Just click on the cause you care about most and enjoy inspiring stories from folks on the ground who are working tirelessly to protect the wildlife and wild places we all love.

Fish and Wildlife Service

1. Origin of the Name

The bird really is named after the nation of Turkey.  Early European visitors to the Americas saw the creature and it reminded them of a bird familiar to them back home known as a “Turkey bird.”  It seems that the African guinea fowl made it to Europe in the Middle Ages via Turkey and the similarity to the American bird gave rise to the same name being applied.

2. Other Turkey Tags

Adult male turkeys are called toms and females are called hens. Very young birds are poults and adolescents are called jakes.

3. Patriotic Heads

The wild turkey’s bald head can change color in seconds with excitement or emotion. The birds’ heads can be red, (pink) white or blue.

4. Loud and Fast

Turkeys’ gobbles can be heard a mile or more away and they are fast on their feet with a top running speed of about 25 miles per hour or about the same as a human track star.

5. Quick from the Nest

A young poult is up, out of the nest and walking around searching for food within an incredibly rapid 24 hours.  Turkeys have been known to lay as many as 18 eggs in a clutch so maybe a fast exit is simply to beat the crowd.

6. Arboreal

Wild turkeys sleep in trees.  The birds are usually seen walking so many people are surprised they even fly.  Though they only fly for short distances, they are speedy and hit about 55 miles per hour when going full tilt.

7. Courting

Tom turkeys show courting behaviors much like the peacock with displays of their tails.  Males also use other of their birdlike “junk” to attract hens including a bright snood on top of their beaks and a wiggling wattle under their beaks.

8.  Five Subspecies

Wild turkeys include Eastern, Osceola, Rio Grande, Merriam’s and Gould’s subspecies. There are subtle plumage differences and different ranges that distinguish the birds.

9. A Turkey Group

A group of turkeys — has many awesome and unusual descriptive nouns, including a “crop”, “dole”, “gang”, “posse”, and “raffle.”

10. Viva Mexico

Domesticated turkeys took a circuitous route to America’s dinner tables.  Wild turkeys were first domesticated in Mexico and then exported to Europe only to come back here later.

11. Presidential Pardons

It is said that the first presidential pardon ever given was by Harry Truman in 1947 and it was given to a turkey.  It spurred an annual tradition of allowing two turkeys (one for the Prez and one for the Veep) to be spared each Thanksgiving. In looking into where these spared birds end up, it turns out that some have been taken to Frying Pan Farm Park in northern Virginia and more recently they have gone to Washington’s Mount Vernon.  The domesticated birds are not in terrific health so the spared birds usually die of natural causes in a year or so.   A domesticated bird weighs 25 or more pounds when fully grown but one bird in the UK was weighed in at 86 pounds (about the size of a large German shepherd). It seems turkeys have particularly weak hearts.  A farm near an air station saw their birds drop over when a sonic boom from a passing jet reached them.

12. Back from the Brink

America’s turkeys almost went extinct in 1930 from loss of forest habitat and over hunting.  Recovery efforts, including those by NWF and the Wild Turkey Federation, have been successful over the past 80 years and there are now an estimated 7 million wild turkeys in North and Central America.

As you celebrate Thanksgiving this year and have either turkey or even tofurkey (for non meat eaters), reflect on the rich traditions and interesting attributes of turkeys, their interactions with people, efforts to save them and keep an eye peeled for wattle and snood.

Do you want to help conserve wildlife and wild places? NWF has just launched a new online feature called “Choose Your Cause.” Just click on the cause you care about most and enjoy inspiring stories from folks on-the-ground who are working tirelessly to protect the wildlife and wild places we all love.

Photolibrary.com

Well, it’s that time of year again! Thanksgiving is just around the corner. It’s time for raking leaves (and jumping in them), sipping spiced cider, and enjoying all the wonderful changes of the season.

In honor of my favorite holiday (yes, I prefer to eat than get presents), we’ve provided a list of wild crafts and activities your kids will “fall” over — all in the spirit of Thanksgiving.

Get outside with your kids and work up an appetite!

1. Make a Thanksgiving Centerpiece

Go for a walk and pick up pieces of Fall as you go – beautifully colored leaves, acorns, small pine cones and more. Bring them home and make this easy craft.

2. Make a Snack-o-Lantern

Turn your leftover pumpkins into feeders for backyard visitors such as squirrels, chipmunks and birds. Learn how.

3. Make Pumpkin Prints

Your kids will love making colorful pumpkin prints using nature’s paint brush – a carrot!

4. Make Thanksgiving Place Cards

Get the family involved! These place cards are easy and beautiful to decorate your Thanksgiving table.

Photolibrary.com

5. Pick Apples and Make Autumn Applesauce

Or if you aren’t near an apple orchard, find a local farmers market and pick out some ripe delicious apples to turn into easy autumn apple sauce!

6. Make Delicious Pumpkin Cookies

You’ll bring a smile to your child’s face — and to several dozen cookies — when you make this treat together.

Try these out and let us know what you think! Or share your favorite fall activities with us.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Explore more ideas and inspirations for outdoor play at www.beoutthere.org.

This isn't my family. For one thing, Cousin Sammy actually has a massive face tattoo.

It’s almost Thanksgiving, when a nation’s thoughts turn to gratitude and familial concord. And low, low prices on consumer electronics, but whatever.

Coming at the tail end of another tough year, many of us sorely need this day as an excuse to stop dwelling on how much everything stinks. Let’s start there, with a twist.

The premise: what will our descendants be thankful for a few decades down the line? You know, in keeping with the theme of the day—think of your family, a generation or two hence. They’re sitting around the table, waiting to dig in to a hearty meal of turkey and stuffing (or protein-isolate paste and starch orbs, if that’s what’s popular for Space Thanksgiving). Mom prods each person at the table to name something they’re really grateful for. What do they say?

Outgoing Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) may wonder something similar. At a House Science Subcommittee hearing on the science of climate change last week, he broke with climate deniers and obstructionists in his party in a fairly major way, invoking the wellbeing of generations yet unborn—or at least yet un-voting-age:

I’m very excited to be here Mr. Chairman, because this is on the record. And it’s a wonderful thing about Congressional hearings — they’re on the record. Kim Beazley who’s Australia’s ambassador to the United States tells me that when he runs into a climate skeptic, he says to them, “Make sure to say that very publicly, because I want our grandchildren to read what you said and what I said. And so, we’re on the record, and our grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, are going to read. And so some are here suggesting to those children that here’s a deal: Your child is sick — this is what Tom Friedman gave me this great analogy yesterday — Your child is sick. 98 doctors say treat him this way. Two say no, this other way is the way to go. I’ll go with the two. You’re taking a big risk with those kids. Because 98 of the doctors say, “Do this thing,” two say, “Do the other.” So, it’s on the record.

(Watch the video of his calm, collected, non-insane testimony here. Seriously, there’s no WAY I would have been that composed. I would have been more like this.)

Rep. Inglis, by the way, already lost his primary to a tea party candidate, so he presumably feels no compunctions about turning back the reactionary anti-science dogma of the GOP’s ascendant fringe. Before 2010, the last time he received less than 60% of the vote in a congressional primary or election was 1992. Alas, he has now been pushed out—and to hear him tell it, nutty climate denialism is largely to blame.

DC address or no, I like Inglis’ narrative flourish. The next time you’re tired of hunting down the appropriate links—and there are lots and lots of links—to debunk nonsensical crockumentaries* and plagiarized ‘dissenter’ reports, take a break. Use this, the biggest, heaviest, most irrefutable of all rhetorical cudgels instead: “Fine, have it your way. We’ll do nothing. Just make sure you talk about it publicly and loudly, so your grandchildren and great grandchildren know who was responsible.”

(I know it doesn’t pack quite the pedantic punch of other global warming defense methods, but it would give even the most dyed-in-the-wool Big Oil All-Star pause. I hope. Think of the children!)

In some future November, will we have brought to bear a great, triumphant move toward sustainability? Will we be well on our way in the hard slog to change behavior and turn back climate change? Put another way, will our descendants give thanks for clean water, working weather and good health; or bemoan the ancestral shortsightedness that prioritized partisan bickering and posturing over the future of the planet?

* copyright 2010 Greenberg Wordplay ‘N’ Pontification, LLC

What’s your post-Thanksgiving dinner ritual? Do you try to get the kids outside to blow off some steam, shuffle through fallen leaves or gather pine cones for holiday decorations?

We try to do all three while celebrating at my parents’ home.  Walking around the country place where my six siblings and I grew up, I marvel each Thanksgiving at my dad’s stewardship of the land.  There’s the pond that his grandkids now like to explore, the organic garden plot, the windbreak of towering pines we planted as seedlings.

Thanksgiving might be the perfect time to thank the natural world by doing a “giving back” family project. You might brainstorm with your kids and come up with something that speaks to everyone’s interests.  The project might be one time (planting a native shrub), seasonal (ensuring a winter water source for backyard birds) or longer (regularly picking up trash in a local park or along a trail).

Celebrating that giving-back spirit is Earth Heroes: Champions of Wild Animals (Earth Heroes Series) (Dawn, 2010, ages 8 and up), the third and final book in the nonfiction Earth Heroes series.  Wife-and-husband team Carol and Bruce Malnor have authored dynamic portraits of eight wildlife advocates.

Your whole family will enjoy learning about chimp ambassador Jane Goodall, ant expert Edward O. Wilson and wolf conservationist Ronald Lawrence.  These carefully researched mini-biographies are fascinating—and show how an interest sparked in childhood often flames into lifework.

One of the most intriguing portraits is of personable Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling (1876-1962), who as a teen loved working on his uncle’s Michigan farm and watching ducks on the millpond.  He grew up to be a cartoonist, conservationist, duck painter and co-founder and first president of the General Wildlife Federation (now the National Wildlife Federation).

Period photos and black-and-white artwork by Anisa Claire Hovemann add visual details.  Hovemann manages to capture vividly both the realistic appearance and the lively spirit of the ducks, bison, elephants and other wildlife that so entranced these naturalists and scientists.

The Pilgrims’ first thanksgiving celebration (which lasted three days) probably took place in mid October 1621, after an unexpectedly bountiful harvest. The newcomers invited local Indians—who had given them a lot of useful advice on farming—to join them. According to various sources, the Pilgrims enjoyed a wide range of wild animal foods collected from forest, meadow and sea. Those species continued as staple foods in America for at least another 250 years. But how do the creatures on which the Pilgrims dined fare today?

A wild turkey almost glows with bronze iridescence in this photo by Sonya L. Shaw.

Let’s take a look at eight types of wild creatures the Pilgrims ate:

Turkey

A large bird of woods and plain, the turkey was common across much of the area we know today as the United States. The Pilgrims and their Indian allies probably had access to roosts where dozens, even scores, of turkeys bunched up at night. Easy prey for arrow or bullet. Too easy, because within the next 300 years the turkey was nearly wiped out across much of the United States. Massive efforts were undertaken in the 1930s and onward to restore wild turkey populations, which today are common in most states and legal to hunt in season.

Heath Hen

This grouse was so common in the Plymouth area that the birds in later years became a staple diet for servants, being easy to get and cheap. Given that the birds flocked in open areas—scrubby heath barrens—they almost certainly were the species sometimes called partridges in accounts of the Pilgrim celebration. Heavily hunted throughout the colonial period and in the 19th century, and subject to habitat loss, the bird was extinct on the mainland by no later than 1870. The last of them disappeared on Martha’s Vineyard in 1932.

Waterfowl

Ducks, geese and swans were all on the Pilgrims’ table. The birds suffered greatly during the uncontrolled market-hunting years of the 1800s. One species, the Labrador duck, became extinct in the mid 1870s, probably because of egg collecting (it wasn’t favored for its unpalatable meat) and loss of the clam beds in which it found winter food. Drought in the early 1900s hurt waterfowl across the nation. But conservationists in the 1930s set to work helping the birds recover, often with the leadership of J.N. “Ding” Darling, the founder of the National Wildlife Federation. Today, waterfowl populations are carefully managed and hunting is controlled. Waterfowl numbers still have ups and downs, but they are unlikely to join the heath hen in oblivion.

Bald Eagle

Yes, the Pilgrims apparently served eagle during the celebration. In the mid 1900s, the use of pesticides nearly put the bald eagle and many of its relatives, from peregrines to condors, out of business. In the Lower 48 States, fewer than 500 bald eagle pairs survived in 1960. Now, almost 10,000 pairs live in the Lower 48, thanks to regulation of DDT and other pesticides, as well as a ban that NWF helped initiate on lead shot, which poisoned the birds when they scavenged waterfowl shot and lost by hunters.

Lobsters

Lobster populations as a rule remain safe, and the animals are still common on American dinner plates. These crustaceans are carefully managed by both state and federal agencies, and restrictions are based on increasingly refined data.

Atlantic Cod

Caught off New England, the fish that was so common and commercially important that it gave its name to a Massachusetts cape has not done so well. In the 1990s, the catch of cod was sinking fast because of overharvest by the fishing industry. Today, federal regulations are helping to restore the battered cod populations, though numbers are still down. However, catch data suggest that improvements are on the way, though the species still suffers the effects of overfishing.

Eel

These slippery, slender fish were once common in New England rivers, where they matured before returning to the Sargasso Sea in the middle of the Atlantic, a warm-water area where eels breed and hatch. Overfishing and damming of streams has greatly reduced eel populations in the Northeast. In 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service turned down a petition to protect eels under the Endangered Species Act.

White-Tailed Deer

Venison was also on the 1621 menu. In the 1800s, deer in many states were nearly wiped out by uncontrolled hunting for meat and hides and by loss of habitat as forests were cut. But in the 1900s, wildlife managers began developing more scientific methods for monitoring and managing deer, which began to rebound as forests grew back. Today, deer may be as populous as they were in 1621.

Bonus Species

It’s not a meat species, being a tree, but let’s look at one last item on the Pilgrims’ plates—chestnuts. When the first colonists arrived in North America, the American chestnut tree ranged across New England and much of the region east of the Mississippi, with the exception of most of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and the southeastern coastal states.

About 25 percent of all trees in the Appalachia Mountains were American Chestnuts, which grew up to 150 feet tall. They provided food for myriad animals as well as for humans. In 1904, chestnut trees in what is now the Bronx Zoo began dying. The cause: a bark fungus inadvertently bought into the United States on Asian chestnut trees.

The Asian trees could withstand the fungus, but the American trees could not. Perhaps 3 billion American chestnut trees died as a result. Today, probably fewer than 100 large chestnut trees survive in the species’ original range. Trees still sprout from old root systems, but these trees rarely grow more than 20 feet tall before the bark fungus kills them. Efforts are under way to recover the species and return it to its former range.

Do you want to help conserve wildlife and wild places? NWF has just launched a new online feature called “Choose Your Cause.” Just click on the cause you care about most  and enjoy inspiring stories and photos from folks on-the-ground who are working tirelessly to protect the wildlife and wild places we all love.