Dear Audubon Advocate,

Migratory waterfowl like this White-fronted Goose are dying by the tens of thousands at the Klamath Basin. Please send an email today asking for more water to be released into the Refuge. Photo by Gary Kramer/USFWS

More than 20,000 birds have already died in the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge (located on the Oregon-California border) as water levels reach dangerously low levels. The Refuge is widely considered the most important habitat for migratory waterfowl in the Lower 48, and yet the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has failed to provide adequate water to support the millions of birds arriving for spring migration. With more than two million birds forced to bunch together in the remaining wetlands, an outbreak of avian cholera has caused the massive die-off.

Please send an email to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. Ask him to direct the Bureau to send more water to the Refuge to avert a major disaster for birds.

The Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge is a national treasure. It was the nation’s first waterfowl refuge when it was established in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt. And its importance has never waned. Approximately 40 percent of the migratory waterfowl in the Pacific Flyway depend on this Refuge during spring and fall migrations. It hosts the largest concentration of wintering Bald Eagles south of Canada and harbors more than 80 species that are listed as sensitive, threatened or endangered.

We need to demonstrate overwhelming public support for helping the millions of birds that depend on a healthy Klamath Basin. Please send your email today.

Dear Audubon Advocate,

More than twenty years after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, the Pigeon Guillemot and many other species of birds and wildlife injured by the spill still struggle to recover. Please send an email today urging President Obama to stop planned drilling in the Arctic Ocean. Photo: Jason Crotty/Flickr Creative Commons

As you read this, Shell Oil’s rigs are making their way to the Arctic Ocean to start drilling, as soon as July. The ships are headed to Arctic waters where, twenty years after the Exxon Valdez, fish and wildlife species are still impacted by exposure to lingering oil.¹

The memory of the BP oil spill and its environmental devastation is still fresh in our minds, but despite these disasters, the oil industry now has its sights on the fragile Arctic Ocean.

Please tell President Obama to protect America’s Arctic Ocean!

The waters along Alaska’s northern coast provide vital habitat for polar bears, walruses, ice-dependent seals, endangered bowhead whales, and millions of migratory birds. The Arctic Ocean also is a phenomenally harsh environment. Broken ice covers the Arctic Ocean for much of the year. Storms with hurricane-force winds can whip up 20-foot seas. Temperatures drop to 40 below zero. It is dark half the year. The oil industry is not prepared to drill safely in the Arctic Ocean.

Retired Vice Admiral Roder Ruff, who helped prepare the Coast Guard’s review of the BP oil disaster, has described the U.S. ability to address a spill in icy conditions as “pretty abysmal.”² The United States Geological Survey, the scientific branch of the Department of the Interior, concluded that because of major scientific gaps about the ecology of the Arctic Ocean “it is difficult, if not impossible” to make informed science-based decisions about oil and gas development in America’s Arctic Ocean. More than 500 scientists recently joined in sending a letter to President Obama asking him to not allow oil drilling to proceed this summer.³ Drilling in the Arctic Ocean is unsafe, not supported by the science, and threatens millions of migratory birds.

Join over one million people who have already asked the President to protect America’s Arctic Ocean. Please send your email today.