Defenders of Wildlife Blog

A healthy eastern hellbender at San Francisco State University. (www.joelsartore.com)

Last Monday we posted the first of Joel Sartore’s blog series detailing his visits to zoos all over the country as he uses his unique brand of photography to bring attention to the at risk animals living there for his Biodiversity Project. The goal of the Biodiversity Project is simple: to show what’s at stake and to get people to care while there’s still time to save these species.

Dispatch #9 – Phase Out

Excerpt: It’s a gray, cloudy day at the Miller Park Zoo in Bloomington, Illinois. It’s early, with no cars in the parking lot. They won’t open for another hour or so. Even then they’ll have few visitors. The place is as quiet as a church at midnight. And though you’d never know it, they’re keeping quite a sad secret here.

When any animal in the world zoo population slips below 50 individuals, tough choices—life and death choices—have to be made. Can we get more of the species from the wild to bolster the genetics going forward? If so, is this a showy enough species that the public will pay to come and see it?

For three species in this building, the answer is no.

Dispatch #10 – On to Baltimore

Dispatch #11 – Meet Mr. Big

Dispatch #12 – The Rehabbers

Dispatch #13 – Coming Home

Photo Gallery

Jamie Rappaport Clark takes the helm as president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife. Clark has been with Defenders for seven years as the executive vice president.

As a woman, mother, wildlife biologist, advocate and former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Clark brings a wealth of expertise and passion to Defenders.

“My whole life, I have felt a moral obligation to conserve wildlife and our natural resources. This is not a job to me, this is my life’s mission and a pursuit of what I love to do,” Clark said.

Clark followed her lifelong passion and chose a career in wildlife biology. In her early years, she released peregrine falcons into the wild as part of a successful recovery effort — so successful, in fact, that 20 years later she had the honor of removing them from the list of endangered species as director.

Clark came to Defenders after a 20-year career with the federal government, mostly with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1997, President Bill Clinton appointed her as director of the service, a post she held until 2001. During her tenure as director, she oversaw the addition of 27 new refuges and two million acres to the National Wildlife Refuge System, and she presided over the recovery of key endangered species such as the bald eagle, gray wolf and the Aleutian Canada goose.

My whole life, I have felt a moral obligation to conserve wildlife and our natural resources. This is not a job to me, this is my life’s mission and a pursuit of what I love to do.

Clark’s tenure as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was also marked by the adoption of innovative policies to encourage landowners to voluntarily conserve wildlife, including the safe harbor program and expanded habitat and candidate conservation programs. Under her leadership, the Fish and Wildlife Service worked with Congress to pass the landmark National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997, which established wildlife conservation as the primary purpose of all wildlife refuges.

As executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife for the past seven years, Clark provided added credibility to the organization with her years of on the ground expertise and as a leader of a national wildlife agency. She is recognized as a leading expert on endangered wildlife.

Her passion for wildlife is shared by her family. Jim Clark, her husband of 22 years, was a national wildlife refuge manager and is presently an award-winning nature photographer and author. Her 12-year-old son, Carson, named after the renowned environmental writer Rachel Carson, is also an award-winning nature photographer and author of a series of children’s books featuring “Buddy the Beaver.”

Clark holds a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Towson State University in Towson, Maryland, where she also did post-graduate work in environmental planning. She holds a master’s degree in wildlife ecology from the University of Maryland.

A green winged teal, one of the ducks threatened by the spill. Photo courtesy of Tom Munson, US Fish and Game

By October, large numbers of migratory birds will flock south to the Gulf of Mexico after a summer spent in Canada’s Boreal Forest. Ready to spend the winter in Louisiana marshes - typically rich with food -  these ducks have no idea what’s in store for them when they touch down. What impacts will a vastly different Gulf region have on these birds?

Dr. Jeff Wells, senior scientist for the Boreal Songbird Initiative, an organization dedicated to outreach and education about the importance of the Boreal Forest region to North America’s birds, other wildlife and the global environment, addresses this very question in a new article, “Gulf oil spill puts million of Canada’s migratory birds at risk.”

“The Gulf Coast, especially the Mississippi River Delta, is vitally important for many wetland bird species. The marshes, beaches and tidal flats provide ideal nesting and migratory stopover habitat for millions of waterfowl, seabirds, shorebirds and other waterbirds. These habitats also house the fish, mollusks and other marine life of the Gulf of Mexico, which make up the food supply for these birds. Scientists worry that the impact on some of the smaller food sources like plankton could have a far-reaching ripple effect on the entire food chain.”

Click here to read the full article and learn more about what awaits Canada’s migratory birds upon their return to the Gulf of Mexico.

Posted by Krista Schlyer, a photographer for Enviro-pic.org and member of the International League of Conservation Photographers.

Eimhear Marvel slept in a beanbag on the floor of the boat as her dad, Captain Peace Marvel, and I bounced across the choppy Gulf out of Venice, LA, Saturday afternoon. Eimhear (pronounced ‘emer’) is a strawberry-blond youngster who decided to accompany Peace and I on a trip to assess the extent to which oil from the April explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig had reached the Chandeleur Islands.  But Eimhear had reasons of her own for being there. Two of her favorite animals were often to be seen on boat rides with her father, and she wanted to get a chance to see some dolphins and sea turtles.

I hoped we would, but I feared that catching sight of wildlife would mean seeing them covered in oil, or washed up on the beaches of Breton National Wildlife Refuge. Peace had seen a struggling young sea turtle only days before, coated in oil from the BP spill. It was both my purpose and my nightmare to photograph the impact of the oil spill on wildlife. And it only made it worse that Eimhear might see it too. Continue Reading

Posted by Krista Schlyer, a photographer for Enviro-pic.org and member of the International League of Conservation Photographers.

From the sky, the Earth’s water courses harken the human circulatory system. The resemblance is both troubling and appropriate as they serve much the same purpose: they carry liquids and nutrients to vital systems in both bodies, but they can also carry poisons. When a human being ingests poison, some is absorbed in the stomach, and much is distributed to the vital organs by the blood vessels. For the Earth, the constant motion of water through its passageways can take oil and chemical dispersants to its most vulnerable and essential systems.

Last night, a flight over some of the coastal wetlands and barrier islands of the Gulf of Mexico brought home the terror of this reality. I was flying on an assignment for Defenders of Wildlife. The organization is trying to assess the current damage of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and to get a sense of the magnitude of the threat it poses to wildlife and habitat resources. Continue Reading

Posted by Krista Schlyer, a photographer for Enviro-pic.org and member of the International League of Conservation Photographers.

There are moments in life when you see something so beautiful you actually mourn the passing of time, knowing as the seconds tick by and the sun sinks that the vision will dissolve forever.

Dunes on the Gulf coast (Krista Schlyer)

Upon the brilliant white sands of the Gulf Islands National Seashore last night I had one of those moments. It was day two of my Gulf Coast tour with Defenders of Wildlife’s Executive Vice President Jamie Rappaport Clark and Vice President of Communications Cindy Hoffman. We wanted to visit this national park to understand better what awaits the mess of oil and toxic chemicals now loitering in the Gulf from the April disaster that has to date unleashed millions of gallons of oil into the waters of this region. Continue Reading