Your Calls and Emails Needed Now
by [email protected]
This is an action alert that couldn't wait until our
Alert for Action! is sent out
Monday.
An important vote is coming up before the U.S. House of
Representatives
this week. The "Bass-DeFazio Amendment" to the House Agriculture
Appropriations bill may be acted on as early as Tuesday, May 25. The
amendment would cut $7 million from USDA's "Wildlife Services" budget --
formerly known as Animal Damage Control -- to stop the agency's
slaughter
of wildlife which is done to increase the profits of cattle ranchers in
the western
states. Wildlife Services kills more than 100,000 animals each year,
including
foxes, bobcats, prairire dogs, bears, mountain lions, and coyotes using
our
federal tax dollars. Their methods of operation include aerial shoots
from
planes and helicopters, poisoning, explosives placed in dens, clubbing,
leg-hold traps, and neck snares. Often, at the request of a rancher,
Wildlife
Services agents will go into an area and eliminate predators before the
rancher
brings his cattle to graze. This happens not only on private land, but
also
public lands, our federal lands, National Forests and other lands which
are
leased to the ranchers at prices far below market value.
Last year, this amendment was initially passed but the
ranching lobby forced
a re-vote taken the following day and the amendment was narrowly
defeated.
Last year Congress almost stopped this cruel program which is a welfare
program for wealthy ranchers. This year we have a good chance of
stopping
this slaughter of wildlife if we let our congressmen and women know how
we
feel.
THERE ISN'T MUCH TIME.
CALL your U.S. Representative and urge him/her to
SUPPORT the
"Bass-DeFazio Amendment" to the House Agriculture Appropriations bill.
SEND a fax or email to your Representative. Tell your
friends about this
issue and have them call and email too. You can usually find your
Represen-
tative's phone number in the U.S. Government section of your phone book.
You can go to the following site to find your Representative's phone and
email
address....
Write Your Representative - Lookup Representative
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
For more information and sample letters, go to this
site...
Tell Your U.S. Representative to Cut Funding for Lethal Predator Control
http://www.fund.org/alerts/adc.html
Go on to Pigeons:
Amiable Urbanites
Return to 23 May 1999 Issue
Return to Newsletters
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