Alaska's Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, a globally important bird area, is now safe from a proposed road that would have cut through the heart of the refuge.
Last year we asked you to help protect Montana’s premier National Wildlife Refuge, and many of you did just that — calling on the Fish and Wildlife Service to finalize its 15-year Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) and expand proposed wilderness.
As Congress debates funding for conservation programs this week, wilderness lovers should know that some members have launched an unprecedented assault on our wild places and natural resources.
Congress’ Great Outdoors Giveaway continued this week with the Aug. 2 passage of a debt-ceiling deal that will make it significantly more difficult for the government to invest in conservation funding over the next ten years.
WASHINGTON - Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) will reintroduce a bill in the Senate today to designate the iconic Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness. This legislation is being introduced at the beginning of a new Congress and incoming administration committed to developing a comprehensive energy strategy while preserving our nation’s public lands legacy.
WASHINGTON — The Wilderness Society (TWS) today criticized the Bush Administration for its hasty release of a flawed new U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wilderness stewardship policy for the National Wildlife Refuge System. Major deficiencies of the new policy, issued yesterday, are that it fails to take into account the issue of climate change in managing the 21 million acres of designated Wilderness within the nation’s 540 wildlife refuges, and that it exempts all refuge lands in Alaska from requirements for wilderness reviews.
America’s National Wildlife Refuges — 549 of them, scattered throughout the 50 states and U.S. territories — are best known for the wildlife they protect: thousands of species of animals, birds, reptiles, fish, wildflowers, and trees. What’s less well known is that many refuges also offer a glimpse into America’s past — encompassing the story of our land beginning with the native people who lived here long before the first European settlers, and continuing through the major events of our nation’s history.
With gas prices creeping higher and the economy at a low ebb, planning a summer vacation close to home is on the minds of many American families. Luckily, if your idea of a great getaway is to experience the best of our nation’s treasured wild lands, the National Wildlife Refuge System will allow you to stay close to home.
I spent last weekend birding the coastline of New Jersey. My partner in crime was Seth Cutright, a hawk counter at Sandy Hook Bird Observatory, just across the pond from New York City. After a hectic morning in which the air was alive with American kestrels and Northern harriers, the slowness of the afternoon prompted Seth’s generous supervisor to give him the rest of the day off.
Seth and I did not waste a minute — off to Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge (a.k.a. Brigantine, or simply Brig, to locals) we went.
