Stop Congress from gutting the Endangered Species Act!
- by: Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund
- recipient: U.S. Representatives
The Ivory-billed Woodpecker was one of the first species listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Long feared extinct, the bird clung to life in habitat protected in hopes of its recovery, and just last month the conservation community was rewarded with confirmed evidence of the bird's survival in the forested swamps of Arkansas.
But a new bill introduced by Representative Dennis Cardoza (D-CA) - the misnamed Critical Habitat Enhancement Act of 2005 - would eliminate crucial protections for habitat that endangered species like the ivory-billed woodpecker need to both survive and recover.
The Cardoza bill abandons a fundamental goal of the Endangered Species Act - recovery of endangered species. Under this bill, we would lose the very protections that brought both the bald eagle and the Peregrine falcon back from the brink of extinction, and that allowed us to never lose hope for the Ivory-billed woodpecker.
Critical habitat is just that - it is habitat that is essential to both the survival and recovery of an endangered species. But the Cardoza bill aims to gut the meaning and definition of critical habitat. If we can no longer protect critical habitat, then we can no longer protect species themselves. By stripping wildlife habitat of critical protection, the Cardoza bill is essentially leaving our wildlife homeless, and dooming our most imperiled species to extinction.
Take action today - tell Congress to protect the Endangered Species Act! Sign this petition to send a letter to your Representative, and urge her/him to vote NO on H.R. 1299.
But a new bill introduced by Representative Dennis Cardoza (D-CA) - the misnamed Critical Habitat Enhancement Act of 2005 - would eliminate crucial protections for habitat that endangered species like the ivory-billed woodpecker need to both survive and recover.
The Cardoza bill abandons a fundamental goal of the Endangered Species Act - recovery of endangered species. Under this bill, we would lose the very protections that brought both the bald eagle and the Peregrine falcon back from the brink of extinction, and that allowed us to never lose hope for the Ivory-billed woodpecker.
Critical habitat is just that - it is habitat that is essential to both the survival and recovery of an endangered species. But the Cardoza bill aims to gut the meaning and definition of critical habitat. If we can no longer protect critical habitat, then we can no longer protect species themselves. By stripping wildlife habitat of critical protection, the Cardoza bill is essentially leaving our wildlife homeless, and dooming our most imperiled species to extinction.
Take action today - tell Congress to protect the Endangered Species Act! Sign this petition to send a letter to your Representative, and urge her/him to vote NO on H.R. 1299.
Dear Representative,
I am writing to urge you to vote "no" on H.R. 1299, the Critical Habitat Enhancement Act of 2005. This bill, introduced by Representative Dennis Cardoza, would undermine protections for the very places that imperiled plants and animals need to survive and recover.
Instead of meaningful reform, H.R. 1299 would effectively eliminate one of the Endangered Species Act's central habitat protections the designation and protection of "critical habitat" and replace it with absolutely nothing.
The Cardoza bill abandons the primary recovery goal of the Endangered Species Act by weakening the definition of critical habitat. Instead of preserving and strengthening the Act's current goal of species conservation and recovery, the Cardoza bill changes the definition of critical habitat to that which is essential to merely preventing total extinction.
By stripping wildlife habitat of critical protection, the Cardoza bill is essentially leaving our wildlife homeless, and dooming our most imperiled species to extinction.
Please uphold the Endangered Species Act and its crucial goal of species recovery - vote "no" on H.R. 1299, the Critical Habitat Enhancement Act of 2005.
Thank you,
[Your name]
Sign PetitionSign PetitionI am writing to urge you to vote "no" on H.R. 1299, the Critical Habitat Enhancement Act of 2005. This bill, introduced by Representative Dennis Cardoza, would undermine protections for the very places that imperiled plants and animals need to survive and recover.
Instead of meaningful reform, H.R. 1299 would effectively eliminate one of the Endangered Species Act's central habitat protections the designation and protection of "critical habitat" and replace it with absolutely nothing.
The Cardoza bill abandons the primary recovery goal of the Endangered Species Act by weakening the definition of critical habitat. Instead of preserving and strengthening the Act's current goal of species conservation and recovery, the Cardoza bill changes the definition of critical habitat to that which is essential to merely preventing total extinction.
By stripping wildlife habitat of critical protection, the Cardoza bill is essentially leaving our wildlife homeless, and dooming our most imperiled species to extinction.
Please uphold the Endangered Species Act and its crucial goal of species recovery - vote "no" on H.R. 1299, the Critical Habitat Enhancement Act of 2005.
Thank you,
[Your name]
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