Happy Earth Day, everybody! Today is that annual celebration when environmental leaders take the podium and implore us to stop poking holes in the planet, chopping down its trees and polluting its waters. These are important messages to be sure. To solve our greatest challenges, we need to continually ask...

Yesterday marked the release of the National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy, a ground-breaking plan for helping wildlife withstand and respond to the impacts of climate change. Defenders is proud to have helped ensure that this plan came about: Our efforts in 2008 to create and advance a...

Anniversaries are often a time for balloons and confetti. Sometimes, though, it takes an anniversary to remind us of a bigger picture and more important message. On March 29, we will mark the 15th anniversary of the initial release of Mexican gray wolves from captivity into the wilds of the...

President Obama has made it clear that he's setting his sights on climate change in his second term. In his State of the Union address, he said that "for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change." He went on to acknowledge...

If you saw the headline "Warming imperils wolverines" last week and all you could think of was Hugh Jackman, don't worry -- you're not alone. Most Americans are much more familiar with the X-Men superhero than the largest land-dwelling member of the weasel family. Yet, like their Hollywood...

When skeptics of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) ask me, as a professional biologist, what "good" is some obscure endangered mollusk, amphibian or plant, I often think back on the great words of the 19th century poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who once said, "What is a weed? A plant whose...

Shhhhh. Can you hear it? I can too. It's the sound of silence.

Little was spoken about the environment by either presidential candidate in a campaign dominated by the economy. No real debate on issues including: climate change, which is already impacting our wildlife and natural ecosystems we all...

"Historic." "Unprecedented." "Frankenstorm." All these words were used to describe Hurricane Sandy before she hit the East Coast. Unfortunately, Sandy lived up to those predictions: The devastation in New York, New Jersey and several other states was astounding. The storm took 55 lives in the U.S., and initial...

Like most good fairytales, the story of the gray wolf is truly captivating. Only this fairytale may turn out to have a tragic ending.

When President Clinton appointed me as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1997, there were about 200 wolves in the Northern Rockies. It...

Does it feel like there are more large-scale storms, floods, and wildfires than there used to be? You wouldn't be alone if you felt that way, and you wouldn't be wrong. No fewer than 14 weather disasters caused damages exceeding $1 billion each in the United States in 2011, breaking...

The American bison has always been a powerful symbol of our nation's history. It has graced our currency, served as mascot and flown on our flags. That iconic image is a haunting reminder of what we've lost -- not only the massive bison herds that once stampeded across the Great...

From wildfires and drought to flooding and tornados, 2011 has been a record-setting year for extreme weather events. The economic pain to American communities unprepared for such radical shifts in natural weather systems has been tremendous. Already, drought in the south has cost the country $10 billion. And...

It's Halloween and Congress is eyeing some downright scary cuts to vital wildlife conservation programs as part of its budget cutting frenzy. But while these programs may seem like easy targets for cuts, there is a lot more to the story.

Hundreds of thousands of people have jobs because the...

Why save a lizard? Who cares about some little fly? What difference does it make if we kill off a few unwanted prairie dogs?

These are fair questions. At a time when nine percent of Americans are unemployed, another seven percent are marginally employed or working only part-time,...

The ashes of my good friend Mollie Beattie rode the winds before settling slowly beneath the surface of the crystal blue mountain lake in the heart of the Brooks Range in northern Alaska. A few tears were shed among the close friends and family members gathered along the shore, but...

When I began my career almost 30 years ago, peregrine falcons were in dire straits. For decades, these graceful birds of prey had been slowly poisoned by the widespread use of the harmful pesticide DDT, which altered their internal chemistry and made their egg shells thinner. As result, fewer eggs...

It's like a bad trivia game. "On this day in history ..." Except today we're not talking about a record-setting homerun or the birth of a world-famous writer, and no prize will be awarded to a correct response. That's because today marks not an anniversary, but a memorial, of something...

We've been hearing a lot from our leaders in Congress of late about the tough choices needed to get America's budget cut down to size. It's a compelling message and many House members have done a pretty convincing job of looking pained while proposing budget cuts in their Continuing Resolution...

My son Carson is eleven years old. And though at times he may think he's a grown up, he still has many years ahead of him before he's an adult. Like most parents, I want my child to have the same opportunities I had growing up -- which is why...

It's been six hard months for the Gulf region. And the tar balls that continue to wash up on the former white sandy beaches serve as a constant reminder that coastal communities are still struggling to regain economic footing, wildlife losses are climbing higher and higher and we still don't...