Friends,
Let me tell you about M1039.
He was a endangered Mexican wolf, in the prime of his life, when he stepped into a trapper’s steel-jawed trap. By the time they got to him, the leg had to amputated. A year later, without pack mates to help him hunt, he was missing and presumed dead.
With less than 40 wolves remaining in the wild, the loss of a single animal is a devastating setback in the effort to restore lobos to their historic range in the Southwest. But M1039 was not lost in vain.
The Southwest Environmental Center has joined with other groups in calling on federal and state officials to ban trapping in the Mexican Wolf Recovery Area. We are determined to make sure that not a single additional wolf suffers the same fate as M1039.
You can help us succeed by making a secure online donation right now.
We’re also working to restore fish and wildlife habitat along the Rio Grande—a river ecosystem greatly harmed by a century of cutting down trees along its banks, straightening its meanders, and turning its flows on and off each year like a faucet.
We’re in it for the longhaul, and we know it’s important to engage the community in this work. That’s why we have organized and helped pay for school field trips that have brought more than 1000 students down to the Rio Grande over the past year.
For some, like Miguel, a fifth grader who stayed behind to pepper us with questions about how the river used to look and the wildlife that once lived there, it may have been the beginning of a lifelong love of nature.
One of our greatest success stories is Otero Mesa. For the past eight years, we’ve successfully protected this extraordinary landscape from being carved up by oil and gas development.
One of the animals you can count on seeing on Otero Mesa is the pronghorn antelope, the second fastest land mammal on Earth, supremely adapted to a life of speed on the prairie.
So far, we’re winning the fight for Otero Mesa, thanks to a recent court ruling in our favor, but it’s only temporary. The clock is ticking. The grasslands, the pronghorn, the beauty—they’re only as safe as the next spike in natural gas prices, or the next election.
Your online contribution today will help us win permanent protection for this special place.
We need to raise $5000 in the next two weeks to keep the momentum going on these important issues. Will you help us? Please click here to make an online donation of $50, $100, or whatever you can afford. We will put it to good use immediately to protect the wildlife and wild places of the Southwest.
Thank you!
With much gratitude,
Kevin Bixby
Executive Director
Update--We're almost there!
We're getting close to our goal of raising $5000. So far, more than 50 of you have responded to our call by donating nearly $3500. This is money that is critically needed RIGHT NOW to keep the momentum going on our efforts to protect places like Otero Mesa, and endangered species like the Mexican wolf. If you haven’t donated yet, we need you! Please click here to make an online donation of $50, $100, or whatever you can afford. We will put it to good use immediately to protect the wildlife and wild places of the Southwest. If you have already donated, thank you!