Unexpected Wild Places at Risk From Oil Drilling
When we think of sensitive ecosystems at risk from oil and gas drilling, the Great Lakes probably aren't high on the list. But NWF's Great Lakes Natural Resource Center^® has been working hard to protect the lakes from "directional" drilling, in which a well is drilled vertically onshore and then angled underneath the water.

Despite strong opposition from NWF and other environmental and citizens groups, Michigan officials recently lifted a four-year-old moratorium on leases for drilling under the lakes, paving the way for up to 30 new wells to be drilled along the coastlines of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Congress responded in November by enacting a federal ban that prohibits the states from allowing further directional drilling for two years while the Army Corps of Engineers studies its environmental impact.

NWF will now try to persuade the Michigan legislature to reinforce the congressional action by restoring the state moratorium, originally imposed in 1997 because of public concern about the risks of drilling. At that time, Michigan already had permitted ten oil and gas wells to be directionally drilled beneath Lake Michigan and three under Lake Huron. Seven of those thirteen still are operating.

NWF maintains that no drilling should take place until the state implements all recommendations made by a scientific panel for reducing the negative impacts of drilling. "It is shortsighted to risk a treasure such as the Great Lakes without solid evidence that the quantity of oil or gas to be recovered would actually benefit the public," says Tim Eder, director of NWF's Great Lakes center. "And it is irresponsible to increase production of fossil fuels without a national energy plan that would encourage conservation, energy efficiency and greater use of renewable resources."

To learn more about this issue, log onto www.nwf.org/greatlakes.

U.S. Reintroduces Black-Footed Ferrets to Mexico
On October 2, 2001, U.S. and Mexican wildlife officials successfully released 39 captive-born black-footed ferrets in Chihuahua, Mexico, the first wave of a reintroduction expected to number 100 animals. (Plans for the historic cross-border rescue effort were first reported in the September/October 2001 issue.)

Biologists believe the site offers an excellent opportunity to reestablish a self-sustaining population of the endangered ferrets because it is home to the largest North American colony of disease-free black-tailed prairie dogs, the ferrets' chief food source.

Since the 1980s, when a small wild colony was discovered in Wyoming, NWF has played a key role in efforts to rescue the ferrets from the brink of extinction and a captive-breeding program was established. Since 1996, NWF has served on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Black-Footed Ferret Recovery Implementation Team.

Recently, NWF staffers helped break ground for a new National Black-Footed Ferret Conservation Center near Fort Collins, Colorado.

Mercury Unsafe in Milwaukee Rain, New Study Finds
Rain falling from the skies over Milwaukee contains levels of mercury more than ten times higher than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers "safe" for the Great Lakes and other waterways, a new report reveals. The study was commissioned by NWF and co-sponsored by one of its affiliates, the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation.

NWF ordered the samplings and presented the findings as support for a proposed new mercury reduction rule in Wisconsin that--if passed--would be the strictest in the nation. It calls for a 90 percent reduction in mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by 2015. NWF is pressing for a phaseout of mercury emissions from all significant sources by 2020.

Power plant air pollution is the source of much of the mercury in rain, which ends up in lakes and streams, contaminating fish that people and wildlife eat.

Federal Fire Plan May Threaten Rare Sage Grouse
A proposed federal plan that calls for intentionally igniting fires on western public lands to reduce the risk of larger wildfires could devastate the already declining sage grouse population, warn NWF and one of its affiliates, the Nevada Wildlife Federation.

In Montana and the Dakotas alone, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is proposing to identify more than 8 million acres where fires could be intentionally set.

Such a policy would needlessly destroy millions of acres of already dwindling sage-steppe habitat that supports sage grouse and other grassland species, such as pronghorn, mule deer and golden eagles.

According to the Nevada Wildlife Federation, its state has adopted a better approach: restoring grouse habitat by removing evergreen trees like piñon juniper and using very limited fire and mechanical methods in ways that will control the spread of cheatgrass, an exotic species that often crowds out wildlife and sagebrush following fires.

Microsoft Grant Will Aid NWF's Conservation Work Microsoft Corporation has awarded NWF more than $600,000 worth of software, which will help improve data management, provide access to the latest electronic collaboration tools and enhance NWF's popular Web site, www.nwf.org.

The software also will aid in the development of NWF's new distance learning program, Wildlife University, which offers environmental education to schools, colleges and anyone with a web browser. Microsoft awarded the gift as part of its Technology Leadership Grant Program, which makes major software donations to national nonprofit organizations.

Program Profile
Working Together for Wolf Recovery
Some 200 experts and ordinary citizens gathered in New Hampshire recently for a conference on restoring wolves to the Northern Forest, organized by NWF's Northeast Wolf Recovery Program and NWF affiliates in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

And from Connecticut to Colorado, more than 1,600 people have attended educational programs in conjunction with showings of NWF's giant-screen film Wolves, where they have learned the ecological importance of restoring these predators to the Northeast and the southern Rockies.

These are just the latest manifestations of NWF's wolf recovery work, which dates back nearly 30 years. In the 1970s, NWF led the fight to secure Endangered Species Act protections for the wolf and later was instrumental in the decade-long campaign to return wolves to their historic habitat in Yellowstone. When 14 wolves from Canada were released there in 1995, NWF staffer Tom Dougherty was the only conservation community representative invited to be present.

NWF logged another major victory in 2000, helping to overturn in federal appeals court a lower court ruling that would have evicted the reintroduced wolves from Yellowstone. NWF also has:

• Successfully fought anti-wolf legislation in Maine and Vermont.

• Assembled wolf kits containing pelts, skulls, videos and classroom activities, which it sends to teachers nationwide.

• Launched a wolves listserv through which people can receive the monthly e-Wolf News and participate in wolf discussion groups.

Affiliate Spotlight
Tours Celebrate North Carolina Resources
Fopllwing the theory that people who have experienced the state's wildlife and natural wonders firsthand will more actively want to protect them, the North Carolina Wildlife Federation (NCWF) has sponsored more than 75 field trips over the past six years.

Some 800 NCWF members and friends have participated in Natural Resource Expeditions, designed to provide affordable ecotourism opportunities throughout the state. They range from an outdoor skills workshop or a bird-banding program at a national wildlife refuge to a two-day sea kayaking and camping adventure trip at Bear Island along the Atlantic coast.

The latest additions to the schedule of outdoor programs are river walks that emphasize the health, history and wildlife of North Carolina's rivers. NCWF's goal is to eventually host a walk through each of the state's 17 river basins.

Grass-Roots Activists: Taking a Stand
Program Grants Kids' Outdoor Dreams
Providing once-in-a-lifetime outdoor experiences for youngsters with life-threatening illnesses is the goal of a new program called Catch-A-Dream. A project of the Mississippi Wildlife Federation (one of NWF's affiliates), the Mississippi State University Extension Service and the Mississippi 4-H Club Foundation, Catch-A-Dream works with a variety of donors, outdoor enthusiasts and outfitters to grant special wishes. The first beneficiary was 13-year-old Richard Dickson of Leakesville, Mississippi, who with his family recently enjoyed a hunting trip at Lee Haven Plantation in western Alabama.

Catch-A-Dream is open to seriously ill children nationwide. For more information on submitting a wish, contact the Catch-A-Dream office at 662-325-3174 or visit its Web site, www.catchadream.org.

Habitat Offers Kids Peace Through Nature
Master's thesis research on building resiliency in children convinced Vermont educator Doris Sage that connecting with nature is a key factor in learning to deal with life's ebbs and flows. After taking NWF's Habitat Stewards^TM training, Sage worked with children at the Shelburne Community School to create three courtyard gardens that are readily visible from classrooms and a walkway. Two of the gardens, planted with flowers and shrubs that attract butterflies and birds, are whimsically designed in the shape of a violin and two eighth notes. The third, a vegetable garden, features a tepee covered with climbing vines and 12-foot-high sunflowers.

Following September's terrorist attacks, Sage says she observed more teachers taking classes out to the gardens for poetry writing or art projects. "Children can find peace in nature," she adds. "Seeing plants move with the wind, for example, can help them understand how they also need to flow with life."

Philadelphia Center Renews Nesting Habitat
With the help of a grant from NWF's Keep the Wild Alive^TM Program, the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia has restored habitat on three acres of its grounds where Kentucky warblers and other songbirds once nested.

More than 100 college students, members of the center's birding club and other volunteers replanted a variety of native shrubs and erected an eight-foot fence to prevent deer from browsing on the new vegetation. Kentucky warblers had not nested on the site since 1998 because deer had destroyed most of the habitat required by the ground-nesting birds.

The revegetated section already has attracted the Louisiana water thrush, a species never before seen in the area. The center hopes that other ground-nesting species, such as quail, pheasant and eastern meadowlark, will follow.