May 16th is Endangered Species Day!

Endangered Species Day raises awareness about the threats to endangered species including climate change - and the success stories in species recovery.


Watch the Endangered Species Day PSA

How You Can Help
Here are ten things you can do at home to help endangered species.

Take The Pledge
Take the National Wildlife Federation’s pledge to help save endangered species. There’s even a special version for kids!

Events
There are more than 60 events going on around the county to celebrate this event.
Find out about events in your area.


This message brought to you by David Mizejewski our awesome naturalist!

Today the Dept. of Interior announced it would list the polar bear as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. Sounds great, right?

Unfortunately, the decision came with administrative guidance -- better known as strings attached. Despite its own admission that the polar bear is threatened by global warming, the Bush administration insists the ruling can't be used to limit greenhouse gas emissions. And even though the Minerals Management Service says oil and gas leases in Alaska's Chukchi Sea come with a 33-51% chance of a major oil spill, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne claims the polar bear's threatened status shouldn't be allowed to interfere with fossil fuel drilling in their backyard.

So if the Bush administration won't go far enough to protect the polar bear, what can we do? As the National Wildlife Federation's Karla Raettig told CBS News today, Congress needs to pass the Climate Security Act:

You can read more National Wildlife Federation reaction to the ruling in our Newsroom.

As for the oil and gas leases, Grist's Kate Sheppard reports, "On Wednesday afternoon, Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) filed the Polar Bear Seas Protection Act, a bill that would direct the National Research Council to study the impacts of climate change and of oil and gas exploration on species in Alaska's Chukchi and Beaufort seas."

Learn more about global warming's threats to wildlife and contact your senator in the National Wildlife Federation's Climate Action Center!

Will Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) vote for the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act when it comes to the Senate floor? Sounds a lot more likely:

The presumptive GOP nominee didn't say for sure that he would vote for the bill, authored by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.), both of whom have campaigned actively for him. But McCain said they were coming closer to satisfying his concerns about the bill. The measure, slated for a vote in early June, does not boast the same generous subsidies for nuclear power as previous bills.

"I'm pleased in negotiations and discussion with Senator Lieberman that there will be a far more important nuclear component of this legislation that's going to be coming to the floor," McCain said in a news conference at Jersey City's Liberty Science Center. "I hope that it will be passed, and I hope that the entire Congress will join in supporting it and the president of the United States would sign it."

It'll be interesting to see if the support of Sen. Lieberman and Sen. McCain helps lead Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to back the Climate Security Act. The three work closely on other issues like Iraq.

Have you checked out the National Wildlife Federation's new Climate Action Center? Lots of cool videos and easy links to contact your member of Congress. Check it out!

California's outdoors industry -- wildlife watching, hunting and fishing -- is an $8.2 billion a year business. That's roughly equivalent to the GDP of Cambodia.

So imagine the shockwaves sent by the state's first salmon shutdown:

Salmon fishing was banned along the West Coast for the first time in 160 years Thursday, a decision that is expected to have a devastating economic impact on fishermen, dozens of businesses, tourism and boating.

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez immediately declared a commercial fishery disaster, opening the door for Congress to appropriate money for anyone who will be economically harmed.

Unfortunately, the forecast for salmon doesn't get much better from there, according to a new report released Thursday by the National Wildlife Federation and Planning and Conservation League Foundation. With their habitat already decimated by dams, climate change now threatens to warm the salmon's remaining cold water spawning grounds.

So what can be done to reverse the trend?

• Develop comprehensive and aggressive greenhouse gas reduction policies that steadily cut global warming pollution 2 percent per year to meet an 80 percent reduction goal by mid-century that scientists say is necessary to avoid the most damaging effects of climate change;


• Include all major sources of global warming pollution: electric power companies, factories, and the transportation sector (the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California);


• Ensure polluters pay to pollute, with some of the revenue generated dedicated to fund programs to protect California's critical natural resources, invest in clean technology and mitigate impacts on low-income communities;


• Create a new water management regime for California that benefits people, fish and wildlife; and


• Help wildlife survive impacts now considered inevitable due to past and current global warming pollution.

"Most of California's ecosystems are already fragile, having withstood years of pressure from human activities. Without decisive action, global warming could push them over the edge," said the Planning and Conservation League Foundation's Matt Vander Sluis. "The single most important conservation action we can take is to quickly reverse the growth of global warming pollution."