WildEarth Guardians

WildEarth Guardians is across the country from New Jersey, but they have a mission that we can certainly identify with in NJ. Its mission is to protect and restore wildlife, wild rivers, and wild places in the American West. They have four programs focusing on wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and climate and energy and are headquartered in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The species they protect may sound a bit more exotic than some of our Garden State species:

• Black-footed ferret
• Black-tailed prairie dog
• Canada lynx
• Gunnison's prairie dog
• Jaguarundi
• Mexican gray wolf
• New Mexico meadow jumping mouse
• Ocelot
• Utah prairie dog
• White-sided jackrabbit
• Wolverine

That wolverine is a candidate for endangered listing (North American subspecies Gulo gulo luscus).

The more we learn about wolverines, the more we find to admire. These reclusive loners were celebrated by Native Americans as powerful, all-terrain, all-season masters of the frozen North. Also called “mountain devil” and “carcajou” (French for “evil spirit”), wolverines, according to some, make the Tasmanian devil look like a sissy. Wolverines, perfectly adapted to their high-elevation habitats, will traverse miles and miles of deep snow and rough terrain in search of food. They can kill prey many times their size and will fearlessly defend food against much larger competitors. While this ultimate survivalist is more than capable of providing for itself, it has no defense against climate change. Global warming is reducing its habitat and now threatens to extirpate wolverines in the United States south of the Canadian border.