Don't Let the Feds Betray Fishers for the Lumber Industry
- by: Center for Biological Diversity
- recipient: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Director Dan Ashe and Ren Lohoefener,USFWS Regional Director, Pacific Southwest Region
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is turning its back on yet another imperiled species.
Caving to pressure from the timber industry, the Service has just withdrawn proposed protection for West Coast fishers -- shy, plush-furred forest creatures that live in California, Oregon and Washington. This flies in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that the survival of these rare members of the weasel family is threatened by logging, toxic chemicals used by marijuana growers, and other factors.
West Coast fishers are just the latest species in what has become a troubling trend of the Service bowing to politically powerful industries and walking away from species facing extinction.
Fishers once roamed from British Columbia to Southern California, but intense logging and trapping pressure has driven them to edge of extinction. Now only a few thousand remain.
Tell the Service to give West Coast fishers a chance at survival through the full protection of the Endangered Species Act.
Dear Director Ashe and Regional Director Lohoefener,
I'm writing today to urge you not to abandon West Coast fishers, dooming them to extinction.
[Your comment will be added here]
West Coast fishers were proposed for protection under the Endangered Species Act in October, but now your agency is bowing yet again to another big industry that sees America's native wildlife as little more than an impediment to bigger profit margins. Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that the survival of West Coast fishers is threatened by logging and other factors, and yet the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service appears determined to do nothing to prevent their extinction.
Your agency is tasked with protecting our most imperiled plants and animals, but too often the Service has turned its back on vulnerable species. From red wolves in North Carolina to fishers on the West Coast, the Service is failing to meet its mandate. You have the power to fix this today -- give West Coast fisher the federal protection they desperately need.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
