Rod MacIver, fine watercolorist and editor of the on-line journal, “Heron Dance”, created this painting of a wolf in snow, who could be mourning this latest tragedy, as do I.  How can our government, our politicians slaughter in our name?

Wolves are the weavers of wildness.

Without wolves, nationally, the phrase “Wilderness Areas” is a tragic joke.

Without wolves, in our beleaguered New Jersey, NJ WILD will be forever oxymoron.

As I have done, in the Princeton University Chapel, and at the Dodge Poetry Festival, and at St. John the Divine, with the Paul Winter Consort, I want to howl with this wolf in the snow, mourning this latest tragedy:

Can anyone tell me how this can be?  Bush is gone but his cruelties remain? 

Please use this hot link to register your outrage at this destruction of our brothers, the wolves, so essential to Yellowstone, to Earth itself!

Carolyn Foote Edelmann of NJ WILD

I remain absolutely FURIOUS that wolf slaughter can happen on President Obama’s watch. 

Nonetheless, there is something good about polar bears at the end of this.  EVEN SO, write your congresspersons, senators, and new president, responding to wolf murder. 

 © Copyright 2009, Defenders of Wildlife

 POLAR BEAR NEWS:

BREAKING NEWS!

And let’s give credit where credit is due: I encourage you to send a message right now to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar — to thank him for doing the right thing for the sake of polar bear survival.

But please don’t think this battle is over.

Between now and March 2010, when the next CITES treaty talks take place, we will have to expand our campaign to make sure that other key nations line up with America’s pro-polar-bear position.

So much is at stake: hundreds of polar bears are still being hunted as trophies, and their body parts traded, each year. Canada, which is home to two-thirds of the world’s polar bears and includes some of the world’s most important polar bear habitat, still allows both trophy hunting and commercial trade.

If the polar bear is to survive, we must end these destructive practices by upgrading polar bear protection under CITES.

Around the world, NRDC has been taking a leading role on this issue. Our team recently traveled to Geneva to discuss polar bear conservation with the CITES Standing Committee, and also reached out to allies in Norway, Russia and the European Union as we build international momentum for increasing protection.

Over the next few months I’ll be writing to you again with news and updates — and asking you to take action to help protect polar bears from trophy hunting and trafficking.

But make no mistake: the Obama Administration’s endorsement of tougher polar bear protection was absolutely critical, and I don’t believe it would have happened without more than 50,000 NRDC Members and online activists making your voices heard — loud and clear.

So give yourself credit, and send a note of thanks to Ken Salazar, too, for standing up for polar bears. Tomorrow, the fight continues, but for today you and I have something to celebrate!

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

O.K., normally I write to NJ WILD readers about beauty and poetry, about peace and restoration/revivivication.

Every once in awhile I simply boil over and this is one of them.  The spurious president is going out with a bang not a whimper, and the bang dooms wolves.  Can YOU SIT BACK and let this happen unopposed?

Our President-to-be is quoted as seeing Genesis as a mandate for STEWARDSHIP.  He is determined to keep reminding the world, not just his own followers, not just Americans, that we are BORROWING THIS PLANET FROM OUR CHILDREN AND OUR CHILDREN’S CHILDREN.

WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO DO TO PRESERVE OUR WILD BROTHERS?

a furious Carolyn

Jasmine, of the Lakota Wolves of New Jersey, gazes with her riveting eyes, deep into the eyes of her human brothers and sisters…

Dear Carolyn Foote, We warned you it could happen soon — and it has. In a cruel parting shot before leaving office, the Bush Administration has stripped wolves in Idaho and Montana of their Endangered Species protection — leaving them at the mercy of two states that are gunning for them. Hundreds of wolves are effectively on death row. As soon as the hunting seasons begin and “Open Fire” orders are issued, state officials and hunters will fan out through Greater Yellowstone and Central Idaho in search of an animal that should be on the Endangered Species list. NRDC is racing to court to stop this slaughter before it can begin. As you know, this is the second time that the Bush Administration has removed federal protections from wolves in the Northern Rockies. Last spring, more than 110 wolves were brutally killed in as many days. The wolf-killing rampage only stopped after NRDC and 11 other conservation groups prevailed in federal court — thanks to your support! We must win again — because the plight of wolves has never been more dire. Yellowstone’s wolf population has already declined, as wolf pups die of a yet-to-be-determined disease. The bottom line is: Greater Yellowstone’s wolves urgently need and deserve federal protection. And thanks to your steadfast support, they will have NRDC attorneys — America’s toughest wildlife advocates — fighting for them. I will be sure to share any new developments with you as this case progresses. Thank you for caring so deeply about the plight of wolves — and standing with us in their defense. Sincerely, Frances Beinecke President Natural Resources Defense Council P.S. If you want to help NRDC win another life-saving reprieve for wolves, please make an emergency donation now. We’ve been able to save wolves from years of relentless attacks by the Bush Administration only because of your steadfast support at critical moments like this.