Andrew Wetzler is a senior attorney and Director of the Endangered Species Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Andrew has worked extensively with NRDC's marine mammal protection project and the lands program, focusing on endangered species policy and wildlife conservation. Among other things, Andrew has worked to protect whales from naval sonar, California condors from lead poisoning and polar bears from global warming. Andrew is based in Chicago and is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law. He blogs on NRDC's Switchboard.

Blog Entries by Andrew Wetzler

Wildlife Services: The Most Important Wildlife Agency You've Never Heard Of

Posted December 4, 2009 | 01:03 PM (EST)


Visit NRDCs Switchboard BlogMost people don't know that the U.S. Government is in the business (and I mean that literally, in some cases) of killing wildlife.  In 2008, the U.S. government killed more than 124,000 predators such as coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, foxes...

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Giving Credit Where It's Due (And Pointing Out When It's Not)

Posted October 29, 2009 | 04:20 PM (EST)


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The last couple of weeks have been good ones for the polar bear, with the Obama Administration proposing both the designation of over 200,000 square miles of critical habitat the bear and increased international restrictions on polar...

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In An Important Step, U.S. Designates Polar Bear Critical Habitat

2 Comments | Posted October 22, 2009 | 03:12 PM (EST)


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It’s been a good couple of weeks for polar bears.  First, the Department of the Interior announced that it would propose tighter international regulations of polar bear trophy hunting and trade under international law and, today, the Department of...

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The U.S. Takes the Lead in Restricting Polar Bear Hunting and International Trade

2 Comments | Posted October 16, 2009 | 05:15 PM (EST)


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Big, big news out of Washington, D.C. today on the topic of polar bear conservation.  The United States, responding to NRDC, our allies, and more than 50,000 NRDC members, announced that it would propose placing the polar bear...

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EPA Decides to Take a New Look at Atrazine

2 Comments | Posted October 8, 2009 | 12:58 PM (EST)


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Good news: today the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it will initiate a review of the health and environmental effects of atrazine, one of the most widely used pesticides in the United States. 

The review will take about...

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That Glass is Pretty Full: Why Yesterday's Wolf Ruling is (Mostly) Good News

Posted September 10, 2009 | 07:15 PM (EST)


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Big news in the ongoing fight over wolves in the Northern Rockies -- as you may know, a coalition of groups is trying to stop the wolf hunts that were set in Idaho and Montana after the animals were...

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Problem for Polar Bears: A Disappointing Ruling from Department of Interior

7 Comments | Posted May 8, 2009 | 05:19 PM (EST)


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In another disappointing turn of events, today Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar effectively endorsed the Bush Administration's policy of excluding the effects of global warming pollution on polar bears from consideration under the Endangered Species Act.  The Secretary...

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I'm Not a Lawyer, but I Play One on TV

Posted February 24, 2009 | 05:25 PM (EST)


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Dr. Mathew Cronin had an opinion piece in yesterday's Seward Phoenix on the Endangered Species Act that's pretty thin gruel (hat tip: PLF on ESA).  Mostly, it amounts to a policy argument that the law...

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Wolves get a temporary reprieve

Posted January 21, 2009 | 11:37 AM (EST)


Yesterday, just after he became President, Barrack Obama ordered all federal agencies to withdraw any regulations proposed by the Bush Administration that had not yet been officially published or gone into effect. President Obama's order is similar to one issued by President Bush when he entered the White...

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Bush Administration to Strip Wolves of Federal Protection... Except for Wyoming

Posted January 14, 2009 | 04:52 PM (EST)


The Bush Administration has announced that it will remove protections under the Endangered Species Act from wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains. Today's decision comes just months after a previous attempt to delist the Northern Rocky Mountain population was struck down by a federal court. The Natural Resources...

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Unintended Consequences

Posted December 29, 2008 | 02:23 PM (EST)


When the Bush Administration decided that it absolutely positively was not going to use the Endangered Species Act to address global warming -- and it damned sure wasn't going to let anyone else use it that way -- someone in the bowels of the Administration came up with a clever...

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