Issues of Interest...

National Audubon Action

National Audubon is involved in many action campaigns that depend on the support of concerned citizens.

For a look at their many conseravtion efforts please check out Audubon Issues & Actions

U.S. MOVES FORWARD WITH MASSIVE WAIVER OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND OTHER LAWS ON BORDER FENCE

Statement of John Flicker, President, National Audubon Society

New York, NY, April 1, 2008 - "This is no April fool's joke, unfortunately it's real. The DHS decision to abandon U.S. laws to construct a border fence will jeopardize the economy, quality of life and beauty of south Texas. They are insisting that we close our eyes and minds to the risks to unique wildlife and ecosystems, as well as the communities that depend on them.

"The administration is effectively putting America on notice that it will ignore even the gravest concerns about the border wall. The DHS waiver is breathtaking in its scope. It waives nearly all legal requirements that would apply to anyone else. This decision will cost America dearly, especially when the benefits of the misguided border fence remain uncertain.

"The administration and Congress need to abandon this unprecedented and extreme course before it is too late."

MORE INFORMATION

Today, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was bypassing environmental and land-management laws to build hundreds of miles of border fence between the United States and Mexico.

Conservation groups have said the current design amounts to an impenetrable concrete wall that would prevent wildlife from migrating and fragment habitat. Among the 30-some laws being waived are the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

Florida Refuges in Danger

NASA, in an act of extreme short-sightedness, is proposing expanding it launch complex onto 200 acres of what is now Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore. Many WAS members have had the great opportunity to visit and enjoy these lovely areas and your help is needed to protest this devastating attack on 2 national treasures.

Check here for more background information to help you compose your letters of protest.

Contact Info

From Audubon Action

After five long years, Congress has finally reached an agreement on the Water Resources Development Act of 2007 (WRDA), providing unprecedented funding to restore some of America's most sensitive and valuable ecosystems. WRDA would help to restore many of the country's great ecosystems, including the Everglades, the Great Lakes, coastal Louisiana, and the Mississippi River. But, the President has just vetoed this legislation.

Please write to your Senators and Representative and ask them to override the veto to enact this crucial legislation.

In the five years it has taken to pass WRDA, the Everglades, Coastal Louisiana, the Mississippi River, and the Great Lakes have continued to degrade, waiting for critical funding. The legislation agreed to by the House and Senate would, among other things:

• Help the Everglades by restoring more than 150,000 acres of wetlands and significant estuarine habitat and mitigating harmful federal drainage projects.
• Restore 105,000 acres of habitat along the Mississippi River and p rotect 35,000 acres of floodplain habitat in five states along the river, benefiting more than 300 bird species, 100 fish species, and improving habitat along more than 800 miles of river, including a complex of federal refuges receiving more than 3 million visitors annually.
• Reverse the devastating pattern of land loss, protecting important habitat for birds, fish, and other wildlife in coastal Louisiana, where coastal wetlands are eroding at an alarming rate.
• Upgrade and make permanent the barriers to invasive exotic species in the Great Lakes, which are destroying native wildlife populations and habitat.
• Restore Rio Salado Oeste in Phoenix, Arizona, bringing back neotropical migrants, waterbirds, and native Sonoran wildlife to a river that had been choked off by upstream reservoir projects.

We are counting on Congress to fund these, and other, vital restoration projects.
Please send a letter now to your members of Congress, and urge them to restore America's natural treasures.

 

From our Conservation Chair

• The East Coast Greenway-Alliance is working to establish a traffic-free multi-user trail system linking cities and towns from Maine to Florida. Part of this system already exists within the Philadelphia region, that being Schuylkill River Trail. The Trail already follows the River from Center City Philadelphia to Valley Forge. It is planned to have the existing trail extend north to Reading and south to link with a trail planned for the Delaware River front from the Navy Yard to the Bucks County Line. For further information on this worthwhile project visit the East Coast Greenway-Alliance web site

  The Delaware Bay supports one of the most important shore bird migration sites in North America. The reason is the Bay's population of horseshoe crabs which use the beaches of the lower Bay as an egg laying site. This great mass of eggs support thousands of semipalmatted sandpipers, sanderlings, ruddy turnstones and red knots as they travel north from South America to their breeding ground in the Arctic. The populations of all of these species have dropped dramatically to low levels due to the over-harvesting of horseshoe crabs most of which is used for welk (conch) bait. States laws limiting this harvest passed by both New Jersey and Delaware were recently overturned by a District Federal Court ruling. Until this recent ruling the numbers of both shorebirds and horseshoe crab were showing slight increases. For further information contact The New Jersey Audubon Society.

  The Federal Government has restarted plans to open the Teshekpuk Lake area of Alaska's northern slope National Petroleum Reserve to oil and gas drilling. Teshekpuk Lake is an important site for breeding birds especially the yellow-billed loon. It is feared that development of the Teshekpuk will disturb breed patterns of the loon and other high arctic species. For further information contact the National Audubon Society.

If you need further details please email or call 215-508 -1075.
Bob Berghaier
Wyncote Audubon Society Conservation

Carpenter's Woods in Danger

A recent article in the Chestnut Hill LOCAL points out rising concern about one of the premier birding areas in the City - Carpenter's Woods in Mt. Airy.

Human abuse, invasive species and soil erosion are destroying the woods and ultimately driving out the birds that depend on it.

Local groups and individuals are currently working to devise a way to save the park.

To read the complete article.

Lobby For Albatross-friendly Fishing Techniques

The broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough is the latest public figure to back saving the albatross. Sir David has given his backing to an RSPB and BirdLife International project which trains fishermen in albatross- friendly fishing techniques. He is joined by organisers of the Volvo Ocean Race .

An estimated 100,000 albatrosses die each year on hooks of longline fishing boats; most species face extinction. Marine animals such as turtles are also snared accidentally on the hooks of longline vessels which are hunting for tuna, marlin and other large fish. They trail lines can be 130km (80 miles) long, with hooks every few metres. The birds swoop down to pick up bait from the hooks, become snared, and drown.

"Albatrosses have survived in the harshest marine environments for 50 million years, more than 100 times longer than our own species," said Sir David, vice-president of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). "However, these magnificent birds are unable to cope with man-made threats, such as longline fishing."

Facing extinction :
So dire is the situation that 19 of the 21 albatross species are facing extinction. Yet what Sir David terms "this needless slaughter" can be avoided by the use of fishing methods which do not harm the birds. These include fishing at night, weighting the lines so they stay below the surface, and trailing streamers which float in the air above the lines, scaring the birds away.

Through their programme Operation Ocean Task Force, BirdLife International and its UK partner the RSPB hope to place trained personnel aboard longline fishing boats to teach fishermen these simple techniques. They say that the fishermen benefit too, as less of their bait is wasted. The programme has not as yet placed any personnel aboard a vessel.

The charities are setting up a website, www.savethealbatross.net to raise funds.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4314094.stm

Published: 2005/10/07 00:15:08 GMT
© BBC MMV

Updated: September 18, 2007