WASHINGTON,DC (RUSHPRNEWS) AUGUST 13, 2008–A federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to restore endangered species protections for gray wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the northern Rockies until the full case can be heard in court.

NRDC, Earthjustice and other groups requested the preliminary injunction in order to stop the slaughter of wolves that ensued after the Bush administration stripped them of federal protection in March. In the months leading up to the court’s ruling, more than 110 wolves were killed in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming — about one per day.

Meanwhile, NRDC interns stationed at an information booth inside Yellowstone this summer collected more than 200 signatures per day from visitors who were eager to show their support for creating a long-term recovery plan for wolves. Please make your own voice heard on behalf of wolf recovery by going to the website of our partner organization, the NRDC Action Fund.

Urge the Interior Department to ensure a healthy future for wolves in the northern Rockies.

BOREAL FORESTLANDS PROTECTED
In the largest conservation deal in Canada’s history, the Ontario government has agreed to work with Canadian First Nations to protect 225,000 square kilometers of intact boreal forestlands — an area twice the size of England. This sweeping expanse — an irreplaceable nesting ground for North America’s birds — includes the entire Ontario portion of our Heart of the Boreal BioGem, which also spans Manitoba. This historic victory is due in part to BioGems Defenders like you, who have flooded provincial officials with messages in recent years urging them to safeguard Canada’s pristine boreal forest from destructive hydropower development, logging and mining. We will continue to work with Ontario officials, First Nations and our other partners to turn the province’s groundbreaking commitment into reality.

TAKING A STAND FOR BIOGEMS
As you know, NRDC’s 1.2 million Members and online activists play a critical role in waging our BioGems battles — from taking online action and attending public hearings to providing crucial financial support. NRDC Members who live in BioGem areas have even helped us win some our most important legal fights by testifying in court to the dangers that pollution and other industrial threats pose to local wildlands, wildlife and communities. Last May, testimony from Members in the Yellowstone/Greater Rockies BioGem helped persuade a federal judge to strike down a rule that exempted oil and gas projects from clean water requirements, thereby protecting thousands of streams across the West from hazardous contamination. To find out more about becoming an NRDC Member, click here.

ENDANGERED WHALE WATCH
NRDC is headed back to court to force the Bush administration to issue a final decision on whether it will protect the beluga whales of Alaska’s Cook Inlet as an endangered species. The administration proposed listing the Cook Inlet beluga whale under the Endangered Species Act in April 2006, in response to a formal petition filed by NRDC and our partner groups. Since 1994, this genetically distinct whale population has shrunk by nearly 80 percent due to mounting industrialization and pollution in its sole habitat. Only about 375 survive today. We’ll keep you posted on this important fight.

 

SEE AND HEAR: WILD PATAGONIA
Want a glimpse of what’s at stake in our fight to protect Chilean Patagonia from a massive hydroelectric dam project? Check out our new audio slideshow, narrated by NRDC’s Allie Silverman, for a tour of some of this remote region’s most beautiful — and endangered — wild spectacles.

BOOKS VS. TREES
Each year in this country, consumers discard a staggering volume of books, newspapers and magazines — many after just a single read and some made from trees dating back hundreds of years. In the latest issue of This Green Life, our free monthly online journal of green living, Sheryl Eisenberg weighs the pros and cons of electronic book readers against those of the traditional print book.