Gas leasing review could undercut protection for the Wyoming Range

With 126,000 new oil and gas wells projected to be built across our western public lands over the next 20 years, it's up to us to ensure that areas rich in wilderness and wildlife are protected.

The Wilderness Society has been working locally and with WildAlert members like you to curtail drilling plans in areas with special wildlife and wilderness values. The Wyoming Range is just such a place - click here to help protect it!

A rugged chain of mountains in the western part of the state, the Wyoming Range is prime habitat for moose, deer and elk. It's a beloved spot for blue-ribbon fishing and other recreation. This place is so special that Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso has introduced legislation to protect it from leasing.

But the Forest Service is considering whether to lease these public lands to oil and gas drilling before Congress can act to protect them. Please take action today and ask the agency to withdraw the proposed leases in the Wyoming Range.

Thank you!
Kathy Kilmer
The Wilderness Society

Urgent: Greater Yellowstone Wolves Delisted - Act Now!

It happened today - the Bush administration has just eliminated federal protections for hundreds of endangered wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies.

Please protest this decision now - it will only take a minute to send your message in support of protecting these wolves!

This decision leaves wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies at the mercy of outrageous state management plans that allow for the killing of as many as 1,200 wolves - 80% of all the region's wild wolves!

Idaho officials want to use aerial gunning to kill wolves in their state. Wyoming agencies have left the door open to the use of traps and poison to eliminate wolves. And officials in both states - and Montana - have proposed wolf hunts.

That's not responsible wildlife management. It's a recipe for disaster.

Please make your voice heard today and demand continued protections for wolves!

Thank you for your urgent action today!

WILDALERT: Drilling Project Threatens the Wyoming Range

The Wyoming Range is a hidden gem, but an oil and gas company has discovered it and is seeking permission to drill 136 gas wells in one of the largest roadless areas of Wyoming's namesake mountain range.

An industrial gas field in the Wyoming Range would displace crucial habitat for sensitive species, degrade migration corridors for big game travelling within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and disrupt an increasingly important recreation-based economy in Wyoming. Citizens have spoken up before and now we need you to do it again: The Wyoming Range is just too special to drill.

Click here to help protect the Wyoming Range from drilling.

A large natural gas field in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, home of the Wyoming Range, is simply a bad idea and would turn the area over to a single industrial use.

Public comments on this drilling proposal are being accepted until February 7. Please urge the Forest Service to protect the Wyoming Range. Click here to take quick, effective action.

Sincerely,
Kathy Kilmer
The Wilderness Society

Help protect Greater Yellowstone's last grizzly bears

The Bush administration is weighing a proposal that would allow
oil and gas development and off-road vehicle use in critical
grizzly bear habitat in Wyoming's Shoshone National Forest.

We need your immediate online action to protect grizzly bears
from this destructive activity. Please act quickly. The deadline
for public comments is Wednesday, March 28!

Go to http://www.savebiogems.org/bears/takeaction
right away and urge the Bush administration to adopt a revised
management plan for the Shoshone that protects the forest's
remaining wild expanses and declares it off-limits to
destructive oil and gas drilling.

The vast forests and alpine slopes of the Shoshone supply
abundant quantities of army cutworm moths and whitebark pine
seeds -- two of the most important foods for grizzlies in our
Yellowstone/Greater Rockies BioGem.

Pressure is mounting to expand oil and gas development and
off-road vehicle use in this key grizzly bear habitat. And
scientists predict that global warming will further shrink the
bear's habitats by pushing whitebark pine and moths to ever
higher elevations.

The tall mountains of the Shoshone forest are likely to sustain
healthy whitebark pine longer than other parts of Greater
Yellowstone and will be essential to the survival of the
region's imperiled grizzly bears.

Go to http://www.savebiogems.org/bears/takeaction
and tell the Bush administration to protect this vital grizzly
bear habitat from destructive development.

Thank you for defending America's grizzly bears, one of the last
wildlife icons of the West.

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

Help Save The Wolves!

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released its proposal to strip wolves of crucial Endangered Species Act protections in Idaho and parts of Wyoming. Both states are now preparing massive wolf eradication plans, and hundreds of wolves could be killed.

I was so outraged by this proposal that I sent a message to Dirk Kempthorne, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service. I hope you'll take some time to send a message, too.

It's easy. Just go to the website below to take action:

http://action.defenders.org/rockymountainoutrage2

Both Idaho and Wyoming have begun actively planning efforts to kill hundreds of wolves. As many as two-thirds of the wolves in Wyoming could be killed. And as many as 60 of Idaho's 71 wolf packs could be eradicated!

The government once nearly allowed our Northern Rocky Mountain wolves to be shot, harassed and poisoned into extinction. We can't let that happen again.

Please send Interior Secretary Kempthorne a message about the importance of protecting our wolves right now:

http://action.defenders.org/rockymountainoutrage2

These wolves are in trouble. I hope you'll help...
To take action on this issue, click on the link below:

https://secure2.convio.net/dow/site/Advocacy?s_oo=lH2o41P5QcYAajEWfAkD0Q..&id=629

If the text above does not appear as a link or it wraps across multiple lines, then copy and paste it into the address area of your browser.