Dear Alan, The Bush administration wants to sacrifice more than one million acres of outstanding wildlife habitat and archeological sites in northwest Colorado to destructive oil and gas drilling and off-road vehicle use.
We need your immediate action to block this proposal, which would cause irreparable damage to fragile wildlands including the world-renowned Vermillion Basin, home to one of the most spectacular collections of ancient petroglyphs in the country. Please go to http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction and tell the Bush administration to protect our natural and cultural heritage by banning harmful drilling and off-road vehicle use in the Vermillion Basin and all other wilderness-quality lands in this region. People from all over the world seek out the Vermillion Basin and nearby Little Snake wildlands for outdoor recreation, wildlife-viewing and its natural beauty. The Little Snake area provides habitat for elk, pronghorn, mule deer, coyotes and white-tailed prairie dogs. The waters of this region sustain the endangered Colorado River Pikeminnow and the Colorado River cutthroat trout. Greater sage grouse, golden eagles and peregrine falcons also take refuge there. Yet the Bush administration has proposed stripping existing wildlife protections from these lands and opening virtually the entire area to drilling and off-road vehicles. This scheme also fails to protect the region's irreplaceable historical and archeological treasures. Please go to http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction and urge the administration to safeguard these sensitive wildlands for future generations. Thank you for helping to protect the natural and cultural values of our last western wildlands. Sincerely, Frances Beinecke President Natural Resources Defense Council . . . We appreciate the opportunity to communicate with you and other NRDC BioGems Defenders, but if you would prefer not to receive BioGems updates or hear from BioGems activists in the field, you can reply to this email message with "remove" or "unsubscribe" in the subject line. To update your information, including your email or mailing address, visit your subscription management page at http://www.nrdconline.org/biogemscenter/smp.tcl?nkey=wgx7d6i4yb6ww38&;
