Setting Our Sights Even Higher in 2013

All year, while heated local, regional and national political rhetoric dominated the news and public discourse, WildEarth Guardians remained focused and true to our core values of compassion, courage, persistence, fierceness, innovation and vision. With these as our filter, we fought for clean air and water, to end the persecution and slaughter of wildlife to benefit agribusiness and sport-hunters, and to create protected landscapes where wildlife can roam and live free.

This year we gave wildlife a foot up by halting the trapping of wolverines in Montana, where fewer than 200 wolverines are believed to exist! We also challenged the "right" to conduct coyote slaughtering contests on state and federal lands in New Mexico. We won both times.

We also stood tall for for wolves in the Northern Rockies. We continued to fight for the gray wolf by testifying in Congress, rallying the public, and going to court to defend wolves, end the wolf hunts, return Endangered Species Act protections and demand new habitat for wolves in places like Rocky Mountain National Park. This fight is far from over and we aren't giving up.

In 2012 we continued to shine the light on the USDA's secretive wildlife killing agency. We exposed the corruption and wanton misuse of public funding by Wildlife Services, an agency that kills millions of animals each year in the name of agribusiness. Our lawsuit to expose and to defund this agency is working its way through the courts. And while public pressure and congressional scrutiny mounts, the agency scrambles to cobble together a defense for their horrific actions.

This year we strengthened oil and gas drilling rules. In April, as a result of a settlement agreement reached with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA adopted new fracking rules that will help protect Colorado's Front Range, the San Juan Basin and other regional communities by strengthening standards that will keep cancer-causing compounds out of the air, curb global warming pollution, and ensure that up-to-date emission controls are used across the country.

We also completed our largest restoration effort yet by planting over 170,000 willows, cottonwoods and other native forage trees along the Santa Fe, San Antonia, La Jencia, Rito Penas Negras and other degraded rivers in northern New Mexico – we are bringing rivers back to life.

And by September, the end of the second year of WildEarth Guardians historic settlement agreement with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Service had taken action on hundreds of imperiled plants and animals, issued final listing rules for 54 critically imperiled species and designated nearly 100,000 acres and more than 2,000 stream miles of critical habitat to support their recovery.

This is only the tip of the iceberg – we were successful in 2012 and are aiming our sights even higher in 2013.

To bring more of this work to fruition in 2013 we need to raise $80,000 before the end of the year. We need your support to continue making our vision a reality. Please consider giving making a donation today. http://wg.convio.net/site/Donation2?df_id=3140&3140.donation=form1

Thanks for being a Guardian and sustaining our vision for a more just and wild world.

With gratitude,