Does this need rational explanation? I feel like maybe it should stand alone as a work of surrealist art.

OK, fine: So the Washington Nationals baseball team has a nightly Presidents Race among George (George Washington), Tom (Thomas Jefferson), Abe (Abraham Lincoln) and Teddy (Theodore Roosevelt). The gag is that Teddy never wins and is often thwarted near the finish line in comical ways.

According to Let Teddy Win, a “rivalry” had been brewing between the Nats’ presidents and their minor league affiliate Harrisburg Senators’ racing monkeys. So one of them – I’m not clear if this was Bingo, Bongo or Steve – took revenge on Tuesday night by giving Teddy a flying shoulder-block, costing him the win.

Teddy Roosevelt, National Wildlife Federation Conservation Hall of Famer, done in by wildlife.

Via Deadspin

Bulls establish rank in Yellowstone National Park, the home of the last wild U.S. bison.

The bison, or American buffalo, roamed the plains and woodlands of North America tens of thousands of years ago. It was a contemporary of saber-toothed cats, woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos but was a better survivor: the bison is the largest land animal in North America today, and once numbered in the millions (the exact figure is disputed, but likely approached 40 million animals on western grasslands).

Neither its size nor its numbers protected it.

Once guns arrived in North America, and a market opened for wild meat and hides, only decades elapsed before the bison all but vanished from its native range in the United States and Canada.

The woodland bison of eastern U.S. forests vanished by the early 19th century, and the plains bison was all but wiped out by 1884—in less than 20 years of intensive hunting.

Saving Bison

Some people, most notably hunters, wanted to save the bison. Outstanding among them was National Wildlife Federation Conservation Hall of Fame member Theodore Roosevelt, who as a young man joined with leading naturalist (and Conservation Hall of Fame inductee) George Bird Grinnell in an effort to save the last bison.

The year was 1887, and in the U.S. wild bison were restricted to fewer than 100 animals in Yellowstone National Park. Saving the iconic species was a huge challenge. No Endangered Species Act existed to protect the animals, and even the 1872 law that created the park failed to authorize protections for park resources. People still entered Yellowstone quasi-legally to cut firewood and to kill game for markets. Elk and bison were still being shot.

Under pressure from Roosevelt, Grinnell and their allies, Congress finally in 1894 enacted a law protecting the natural resources within Yellowstone National Park.

Protection alone did not suffice to recover the bison: decades passed before the herd began to recover. Nevertheless, today the Yellowstone animals remain perhaps the only genetically pure U.S. bison still alive, the last truly wild bison in the United States.

The years that went into making the park safe for wildlife has paid off for the American buffalo—its number there sometimes reaches as high as 4,000.

The Fight Goes On

National Wildlife Federation is involved in what might be called the next phase in restoring U.S. bison. The Federation is partnering with Indian tribes across the nation, with promising developments occurring right now for reintroduction of bison from Yellowstone in the Fort Belknap and Fort Peck reservations in Montana.

NWF  is also initiating a long-term plan to restore bison to the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge (CMR to aficionados) south of the reservations. The refuge may offer the last grassland large enough to allow the nomadic species to follow a normal pattern of life, moving in herds across a vast prairie.

The story of the bison reinforces at least three critical lessons in wildlife conservation:

1. Without legal protections, a rare or imperiled species is unlikely to survive
2. Despite tremendous efforts, recovering a depleted wildlife population may be the work of years and even decades—the destruction of a species moves with speed, but the biological pace of recovery in species that breed slowly cannot be hastened.
3. Suitable habitat is the key to species protection—without Yellowstone National Park the bison as a wild creature would almost certainly be extinct today.

Habitat at the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge and the two Indian reservations offers promise for the future of the American buffalo. Anyone who helps to restore this species is picking up the work that Theodore Roosevelt and his colleagues started more than 100 years ago and is marching in step with the generations of conservationists, hunters, wildlife enthusiasts and just plain bison fans who helped ensure that today we can see bison in native habit and not only in museums—an inheritance we too will want to leave to future generations.

Help bring bison back to their native prairie habitat. Give today and your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar!

The photo associated with this blog was donated by a competitor in the annual National Wildlife Photo Contest. If you are a nature photographer, you may want to participate this year in the 41st annual National Wildlife Photo Contest. In addition to cash awards, winning photos will appear in National Wildlife magazine and on the NWF website.

Leadership and hierarchies seem to come naturally to humans, helping to keep society in order, but what of other species?  Do they have leaders? How do they organize their social lives? Does a gorilla want a strong central government?  Does a bear?

Let’s take a look at few wild systems of government and social control:

Members of a wolf pack prowl the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park

Gray Wolves

Gray wolves live in packs of five to fifteen animals, though sometimes much larger depending on the abundance and size of prey. Packs usually are dominated by an alpha (top) male and female, which generally mate for life and are more likely than other wolves in the pack to raise young successfully, initiate hunts and eat the best food. Each pack usually has an omega wolf—the last one in the hierarchy—which has to kowtow to all others.

Bears

Their motto seems to be, “I don’t lead, and I don’t follow.” Adult bears tend to be solitary, except for females with cubs and during the brief mating season. Males will kill and eat cubs as they would any other living tidbit that suited their taste buds, which may help explain why mother bears often have hair-trigger tempers—they have to be willing to fight fiercely or risk losing their babies. Mothers lead their cubs to such things as food and water and to trees that the cubs can climb to avoid, for example, a hungry dad. Bears establish dominance hierarchies in areas where they feed in groups, as among Alaskan brown bears at seasonal salmon streams, and doubtless establish dominance in defending their territories.

African Elephants

A male, or bull, usually leaves the herd into which he was born during his teen years. He herds with other young males and, as he matures, joins them in shoving matches that help establish rank. Older, mature bulls may be solitary, hooking up with female herds only for mating. The real social life is among the females, which tend to remain in the herd in which they were born and to help raise one another’s young. The leader of such a herd is usually a female with a few decades of experience, capable of taking the frontline in defense of the herd and of leading it to food and water, especially in times of shortage.

Sperm Whales

Not much is known about these denizens of the deep, but their social structure seems much like that of African elephants. Males leave the groups into which they are born, join all-male herds, then return to female herds for mating. Like the elephants, the female herds seem to be made up of animals that grew up together and are led by an older female.

Mountain Gorilla

This species lives in groups of up to 20 individuals that may all be dominated by a single male, which at around 600 pounds is the largest of the apes. Maturing females usually leave the group they were born into and seek new associations where they can find a mate and avoid inbreeding. Males sometimes move off too, and a male may join up with other males or wander alone until he accumulates females and starts his own group. If a dominant male dies, his females will seek to join another group. When a male takes over a group, he may kill the offspring fathered by the previous male, making way for his own young. A dominant male may take the lead in going to feeding and resting areas and in defense, allowing the females to retreat from a threat while he holds the line with roars, chest beating and ground slapping.

African Lion

Once again, females form the social core, staying together in the groups or prides into which they were born. The females are usually related. When males are 2 to 4 years old, they are driven out of the pride and form coalitions, usually of related lions, that wander in search of a pride. When they find one, they may fight the one to three resident males that dominate it, chasing them off or killing them. The next order of business is the killing of all nursing cubs. Getting rid of them puts the females into breeding condition, allowing the newcomers to father their own offspring—until the next group of usurping lions comes along.

Bison

The American buffalo also is rather like the African elephant, with females herding Bison work out who is in charge among the Yellowstone National Park bison herd together with their young and bulls living alone or in male herds. Male calves stay with their mothers until about three years old. Bulls test each other with bellows and head-ramming fights. During breeding season, a bull will collect a harem from which he excludes other breeding bulls. Dominance in bison is age related: males and females born early in the breeding season tend to grow larger earlier, giving them an edge in establishing dominance as they mature.

Ants

More than 12,000 species of ant have been named, with perhaps another 10,000 yet to be found. With that many species, we’re likely to see a wide range of behaviors in ants. But the basic, hill-excavating, colonial ant most of us think of when we think of ants lives in a seemingly regimented but leaderless world. The queen does not really rule—she is a permanent brood hen, popping out eggs. The workers are all females, and nature—that often harsh taskmaster—has assigned different jobs to different workers. Some tend eggs, some feed the larvae, some take care of the queen, some search for food, and so on. Apparently there is no functioning leader—each ant follows its internal program, led primarily by innate impulses or instinct. In effect, the anthill is a world without leaders, and without freedom.

Females Rule in the Animal Kingdom

One might reasonably suspect that if most of the species mentioned here had a President’s Day of their own, the celebrated leaders would be all or almost all females. Males probably would be regarded as something akin to murderous Roman dictators like Nero or Caligula, while female leaders would be remembered for their skill at raising young and leading others to nourishment and safety. Madame President’s Day, as it were.

Learn about our conservation president, Theodore Roosevelt, a member of National Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Hall of Fame >>

A gray wolf in Yellowstone, where reintroduction of the species has been a stunning success. Photo by Floyd H. Bond

Political, social and cultural progress on conservation issues are often slow in arriving, but when seen from atop the arc of time, the progress conservationists have made on some issues is just amazing.

Below are comments that reflect how attitudes about one wildlife issue—U.S. gray wolf management—changed in barely a century.

The old ideas about the need to slaughter wolves are still with us and probably always will be, but the pendulum has swung in the other direction and perhaps will remain there if wildlife enthusiasts continue their vocal support of the animals and habitats that have made America.

Except where noted otherwise, the quotations below, including those that appeared originally in government reports, are from The War Against the Wolf: America’s Campaign to Exterminate the Wolf by Rick McIntyre. Composed mostly of quotations from myriad historic sources, the book provides an overview of how the wolf was “managed” from 1630 to 1995 in what is today the USA.

“The wolf is the arch type of ravin, the beast of waste and desolation….The wolfers, or professional wolf-hunters, who killed them by poisoning for the sake of their fur, and the cattlemen, who likewise killed them by poisoning because of their raids on the herds, have doubtless been the chief instruments in working their decimation on the plains.” – Theodore Roosevelt, 1902

“A sort of range law was adopted whereby no cowman would knowingly pass up a dead carcass without first inserting a goodly dose of strychnine, in hopes of eventually killing a wolf or two.” – Stanely P. Young, The Last of the Loners (New York City: The Macmillan Company, 1970).

“One morning after putting out the poison they picked up sixty-four wolves, and none of them over a mile and a half from camp. The proceeds from that winter’s hunt were over four thousand dollars.” – William Webb, citing two wolf hunters from mid 1800s, in Young, The Last of the Loners

“The wolf situation is one that will require intensive organized effort until the last animal is taken, not only in Texas and New Mexico, but in every state where they find suitable habitat….”– 1920 U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey annual report on predator control in the New Mexico District

“From October 6, 1915, to June 30, 1916, two special rangers were employed by advice of the United States Biological Survey for the purpose of exterminating carnivorous animals in [Yellowstone National Park]. They succeeded in shooting and trapping 83 coyotes, 12 wolves, and 4 mountain lions….Other park employees succeeded in killing 97 coyotes, making a total killed of 180.” – 1916 Yellowstone National Park annual report

“John Weaver, in his 1978 National Park Service report, The Wolves of Yellowstone, stated that a minimum of 136 wolves were killed in the park between 1914 and 1926. Eighty of those wolves were pups. Since many wolves killed by poison bait were never found, the true tally of kills is likely much higher. The last two wolves killed in the park’s predator control program died in October of 1926. After that date, wolves were occasionally reported in the park but did not appear to represent a viable breeding population.” – Rick McIntyre, War Against the Wolf

“With natural conditions outside the National Parks disappearing rapidly, we need these large areas maintained in their nearly original wild state. We must not exterminate any part of the wild life but guard it all carefully, for once destroyed we cannot bring it back.” – Milton Skinner, writing in his 1924 report, “The Predatory and Fur-Bearing Animals of the Yellowstone National Park”

“The National Park Service believes that predator animals have a real place in nature, and that all animal life should be kept inviolate within the parks.” – Horace Albright, director, National Park Service, in his 1931 “National Park Service’s Policy on Predatory Mammals,” in which he declared an end to systematic predator control in the national parks

[More than 60 years would pass before management under the Endangered Species Act led to the reintroduction of gray wolves into Yellowstone National Park in 1995, when 14 wolves were brought to the park from Alberta, Canada, held in acclimation pens for 10 weeks, and then released. In 1996, an additional 17 wolves were transplanted from British Columbia. At the end of 2009, at least 96 wolves in 14 packs, 1 non-pack group, and 2 loners occupied Yellowstone National Park. – Di Silvestro]

“When I am sixty-five, I plan to take my grandchildren to Yellowstone National Park. We will go out late at night under a full moon, and I will howl up a pack of wolves. Over a midnight snack, and perhaps a glass of fine red wine for Grandpa, I will tell my grandchildren about what it took to provide them with the opportunity for that experience, all the good people and friends that were involved, and all the funny and interesting stories that occurred before, during, and after my part had been played out. I’ll also remind them how their bloodline had some small part in restoring the immortal relationship between predator and prey in this special place. I’ll promise, God willing and if the creeks don’t rise, to spend a similar night with their children. I hope that they will always remember that night with fondness and pride.” – Ed Bangs, project leader for the environmental impact statement for wolf reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho, in his essay “Wolf Hysteria: Reintroducing Wolves to the West”

Related Links:

• National Wildlife Federation’s Gray Wolf Page
• National Wildlife magazine – A Top Dog Takes Over
• National Park Service – Wolves of Yellowstone
• Greater Yellowstone Science Learning Center
• Gray Wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains

If this were really a cartoon from the early 1900s, every single thing in the picture would be labeled, and there would be eight different captions.

Today we celebrate what would be the 152nd birthday of a man so mighty he made a pince-nez and a vest look tough.

Rough Rider, Trustbuster, Bull Moose Environmentalist: Teddy Roosevelt.

October 27th is also the 130th anniversary of Teddy’s marriage to Alice Hathaway Lee of Chestnut Hill, MA. Just a BIT more than 109 years ago today, TR was sworn in as the 26th President of the United States–and if you pull up Microsoft Calculator for a moment, you’ll find that he was 42 years old, making him the youngest (and probably most energetic) chief executive ever. So now is as good a time as any to remember the man Mark Twain called “the Tom Sawyer of the political world of the twentieth century.”

Of course, it ain’t just the date: we could dearly use more elected officials with TR’s leadership and vision, any month, any year. Let’s talk about what made him awesome, and why we should each figuratively* pull on our mustaches and U.S. Cavalry leggings every morning before we fight the good fight.

Born with a massive silver spoon in his mouth, Teddy spent much of his early life taking great pains to dislodge it and become his own man. He did that the same way he did everything else; jaw in advance**, fists at the ready, ever the stunted pugilist with a surfeit of guts.

It is chiefly for his outsize image as a by-his-bootstraps*** fighter and a lover of the “strenuous endeavor” that Teddy is adored and admired by people all over the political spectrum. He did do some things that make less sense now than they did back in the day, and he said some things that make me cringe, though they fit in the aughts. Since hagiographies of the man are abundant, it is important to remember this. Still, on stewardship of America’s natural resources, he was an amazingly progressive president—bolder, frankly, than many modern day members of Congress.

What did Teddy think of the natural world? Let’s quote liberally from Gramercy Park’s favorite son:

“Optimism is a good characteristic, but if carried to an excess, it becomes foolishness. We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so.”

-Seventh Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1907

Counterpoint: <George Will> Pfft, have you heard how much sweet, sweet oil there still is in the Arctic? Environmentalists are doomsayers and fantasists! I shall call them Cassandras, and look the term up after I’ve submitted my column! </George Will>

“We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted...So any nation which in its youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal whose labor could with difficulty find him the bare means of life.”

-”Arbor Day – A Message to the School-Children of the United States” April 15, 1907

Counterpoint: <Think Tank>We agree with George Will. America has enough oil to last us for several years. D’you hear us? SEVERAL YEARS! </Think Tank>

“Is there any law that will prevent me from declaring Pelican Island a Federal Bird Reservation?…Very well, then I so declare it!”

-Upon establishing the first of 51 national bird sanctuaries by executive order in March 1903.

Counterpoint: <random hyperventilating editorial writers> P-p-p-power GRAB!!! (all hide under the bed) </random hyperventilating editorial writers>

“When I hear of the destruction of a species I feel just as if the works of some great writer has perished; as if we had lost all instead of only part of Polybius or Livy.”

– Quoted in Frank M. Chapman’s Autobiography of a Bird-Lover, on the extinction of the passenger pigeon (Also quoted by NWF’s Roger DiSilvestro in his Meditations on Nature post last week)

Counterpoint: <Jim Inhofe> “You quit worshipping God and start worshipping the creation — the creeping things, the four-legged beasts, the birds and all that. That’s their (the environmentalists’) god. That’s what they worship.” </Jim Inhofe>

“Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.”

-A Book-Lover’s Holidays in the Open, 1916

Counterpoint: <Some lady quoted in a New York Times article> “Being a strong Christian…I cannot help but believe the Lord placed a lot of minerals in our country and it’s not there to destroy us.” </Some lady quoted in a New York Times article>

“The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.”

-Address to the Deep Waterway Convention, Memphis, TN, October 4, 1907 (in that one, by the way, TR goes on to say the nation must undertake the task of conserving natural resources “through Congress” and the federal government, among other bodies.)

Counterpoint: <Generic non-committal politician> Climate change is something we must address, but now is not the right time. Also, the free market may work it out on its own…there, is that sufficiently vague? </Generic non-committal politician>

“The United States at this moment occupies a lamentable position as being perhaps the chief offender among civilized nations in permitting the destruction and pollution of nature. Our whole modern civilization is at fault in the matter. But we in America are probably most at fault.”

-’Our Vanishing Wild Life’, The Outlook, January 1913. Quoted by Donald Davidson (Ed.) The Wisdom of Theodore Roosevelt (2003)

Counterpoint: <Generic non-committal politician> We shouldn’t so much as BUDGE on climate until China does. </Generic non-committal politician>

The man said lots of quotable things about conservation. In fact, several books’ worth.

It’s fairly well documented that TR had an abiding love for the outdoors, and a distinct distaste for those who sought to plunder our resources. That was a natural outgrowth of his experience in the wild. He was an adventurer as a young man, a contemplative animal lover as an old man, and an amateur naturalist all his life.

I have long felt that the next truly great conservationist president will probably be a lot like TR, partly because his way of doing things would so resoundingly counter modern attempts to paint environmentalists as soft, naive, or overly sentimental. TR was a rugged, principled man who wasn’t about to let our great wild things fade away. What’s wimpy about that?

In Part II of this post, we will explore Teddy’s conservation feats in some detail with a lot of help from Edmund Morris and Douglas Brinkley.

Most quotes courtesy of theodoreroosevelt.org.

—

*- Literally, in my case.

** – I have wanted to use the phrase “jaw in advance” ever since I first read it as a kid, in Ogden Nash’s baseball poem Line-Up For Yesterday. It described notoriously tough Chicago Cub Johnny Evers, AKA “The Crab.” I find it very evocative. Thanks for being patient.

**- To be fair, TR only SEEMED like a Horatio Alger protagonist because he was so reluctant to exploit the considerable advantages life handed him from the get-go. I think I admire that most of all; the guy had it made, and he chose a rougher path anyway.

Alaskan moonrise by Doug Kaufman

Here are some thoughts—bestowed on us by various scholars, sages, theorists, etc. down through the years—that comment on or raise questions about nature, animals, conservation and related topics. Some of these observations are inspirational; many are just perspectives from a particular view point that bespeak the ways in which people relate to what is sometimes called, with more truth than accuracy, the natural world.  They may give you a “hmmm” moment.

This collection is the first segment of a two-part installment of such thoughts.  Look for the second installment, which will feature quotations on animals, wild lands and reverence for nature, next week.  I’ve marked members of the NWF Conservation Hall of Fame with an asterisk and have linked their names to information about them.

Relating to Nature

Maui by Frank M. Virga

“If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere.” – Vincent Van Gogh, letter to his brother Theo

“To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature”

“I enjoyed the mountains, as I rode along. The views are magnificent—the valleys so beautiful, the scenery so peaceful.  What a glorious world Almighty God has given us.  How thankless and ungrateful we are, and how we labor to mar his gifts.” – Confederate general Robert E. Lee writing to his wife about his travels in West Virginia, quoted in Flora and Fauna of the Civil War by Kelby Ouchley

“What did it all mean . . . that there should be this beauty, so ever-varying, so soul-sufficing, so complete, and face to face with it these people who one and all would gladly have exchanged it for any one of a hundred other things…” – Edith Wharton

“It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.  Those qualities which bring you near to the one estrange you from the other.” – Henry David Thoreau*, Journal, April 11, 1852

“I love not man the less, but nature more.” – Lord Byron, “Apostrophe to the Ocean”

Michigan Wetland by Sara L. Herzog

Conservation

“Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.” - Aldo Leopold*, A Sand County Almanac

“If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.  As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down.” – Henry David Thoreau*

“A continent ages quickly once we come to it.” – Ernest Hemingway, The Green Hills of Africa

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.  Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen.  An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.” – Aldo Leopold*, A Sand County Almanac

“What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” – Henry David Thoreau*, letter to Harrison Blake, May 20, 1860

“There seems to be a tacit assumption that if grizzlies survive in Canada and Alaska, that is good enough.  It is not good enough for me. . . .  Relegating grizzlies to Alaska is about like relegating happiness to heaven; on may never get there.” -  Aldo Leopold*, A Sand County Almanac

“A pine cut down, a dead pine, is no more a pine than a dead carcass is a man.  Can he who has discovered only some of the values of whalebone and whale oil be said to have discovered the true use of the whale?  Can he who slays the elephant for his ivory be said to have ‘seen the elephant?’  These are petty and accidental uses; just as if a stronger race were to kill us in order to make buttons and flageolets of our bones; for everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use.  Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.” - Henry David Thoreau*, The Maine Woods

“When I hear of the destruction of a species I feel just as if the works of some great writer has perished; as if we had lost all instead of only part of Polybius or Livy.” – Theodore Roosevelt, quoted in Frank M. Chapman’s Autobiography of a Bird-Lover

“I will be the gladdest thing under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one.”
- Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Afternoon on a Hill”

“When the desires of men are curbed,
There will be peace,
And the world will settle down
Of its own accord.”
- Tao Teh Ching

Next week: Animals, Wild Lands and Reverence for Nature

In a press release about the Week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said:

“President Teddy Roosevelt established tiny Pelican Island in Florida in 1903 as the first National Wildlife Refuge. Roosevelt’s mission was clear: protect Pelican Island’s birds from poachers and plume hunters,” said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. “And with that simple promise of wildlife protection, the National Wildlife Refuge System was born. It is my hope that citizens across the country will take advantage of this weeklong celebration to experience wildlife in their natural habitats and play a firsthand role in conservation by participating in special events and programs, or simply observing and enjoying the great outdoors at a local refuge.”

See full release >>

Looking for a way to get outdoors this weekend? Check out NWF’s NatureFind search engine. If you have a zipcode, you can find great outdoor places (including wildlife refuges) near you!

Some years later, In 1934, and after the ad hoc addition of more refuges along with the passage of the Migratory Bird Conservation Act, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed a blue ribbon panel to study waterfowl needs nationwide.  The panel included conservationists Aldo Leopold, Thomas Beck and NWF’s principal founder Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling.  This trio lobbied vigorously for increased funding and support of a more systemic approach to wildlife conservation.  Wildlife was suffering from drought, severe over harvesting, and habitat loss.

Ding Darling was soon appointed to head of the new Bureau of Biological Survey and recruited J. Clark Salyer II to head up its fledgling refuge program. Salyer worked tirelessly for the next 31 years to build the national system and maintain its integrity.

On the 75th anniversary of Darling and Salyer working to expand the Refuge System, there is a profound new threat — global warming.  Sea level rise, the drying up of the Prairie wetlands, loss of native vegetation and shifts in bird migration patterns could alter wildlife management in the U.S. as never before.  The Fish and Wildlife Service recently issued a new climate change strategy which points out the importance of adaptation and mitigation going forward.

So, as we celebrate National Wildlife Refuge Week this year, we would do well to be looking at how climate change will challenge us to keep what was built over the past century from unravleing in this century.

Learn more about National Wildlife Week activities.

Frank Abderholden for the Lake County New-Sun reports:

“Hunters and anglers have played a key role in the conservation and restoration of numerous species and their natural habitats. They not only understand their pivotal role as stewards of the land, but also seek to pass on this honored tradition to future generations,” said President Barack Obama in his proclamation.

Today’s hunters and anglers bring this spirit to life in the forests and streams they visit. If not for America’s great hunters and anglers, like President Theodore Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold, our nation would not enjoy sound game management; a system of ethical, science-based game laws; and an extensive public lands estate on which to pursue the sports. On National Hunting and Fishing Day, we celebrate their contributions to our natural environment and our national heritage,” he said.”

See full article >>

Musical acts included Will.i.am. (of the Black Eyed Peas), Melissa Etheridge, Maroon 5, John Legend and Michael Franti. Speakers included former Vice President Al Gore, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, National Wildlife Federation President and CEO Larry Schweiger, and…comedian Paul Reiser. Yeah, I didn’t know the former Mad About You star was into the environment either.

Check out Jason Kempin’s photos.

It was a fantastic setting for a great event. The Gallery’s courtyard was lit up beautifully for the event and guests were free to roam the halls (I made sure to get a picture with conservation legend Teddy Roosevelt).

Organizers made sure every detail was as green as possible.

Some Green Features:

• 100% of the carbon footprint of the event was being offset with high quality carbon offsets from Native Energy. The offsets will support a portfolio of renewable energy technologies.
• The event’s menu was developed by Grand Cuisine and Chef Bradley Nairne, in consultation with renowned organic Chef Nora Pouillon, and included locally-sourced, organic and seasonal food.
• Waste from the event was be recycled, reused and composted by the Waste Neutral Group. No plastic bottles were available.

Washingtonian’s Capital Comment blog reviewed the event and gave it an impressive average of 4.25 stars! Hopefully we’ll get to do it all again in four years.