I grew up in New York City but spent my summers canoeing and hiking in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire and Canada. I went to law school with the intention of working in the environmental movement and have been with NRDC since 1998--first in NRDC's Los Angeles office and later in Columbus, Ohio. My primary focus is on wildlife conservation. Among other things, I've worked with NRDC to protect whales from Naval sonar, California condors from lead poisoning, and polar bears from global warming.
Posted April 18, 2012 by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Recently, an aerial survey of polar bears in Canada’s western Hudson Bay seemed to show that the Bay’s bear population has remained stable since 2004, despite predictions of steep declines as the result of climate change. Predictably, some jumped...continued→
Posted April 7, 2012 by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
A mysterious disease that swept through populations of seals in the Canadian, Russian and American Arctic last year and was associated with high levels of mortality, may have spread to one of the seals’ principal predators. Scientists with the...continued→
Posted April 4, 2012 by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Here at NRDC we’ve made no secret of the fact that we think that wolves are fully recovered in the upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan) and no longer need Endangered Species Act protections. In fact, NRDC wrote a...continued→
Posted April 3, 2012 by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Here's your monthly dose of good news stories in wildlife conservation: A wolf pack may have finally formed in Utah. Wildlife officials are searching the area east of Springville after four "wolf-like canids" were spotted by federal Wildlife Services agents,...continued→
Posted March 20, 2012 by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Last week, a federal appeals court rejected a Hail Mary lawsuit by conservationists, who had challenged the constitutionality of Congress’ forcible removal of wolves from the endangered species list. In the meantime, wolves are being killed by the hundreds...continued→
Posted March 8, 2012 by Andrew Wetzler in Health and the Environment
Sygenta, a Swiss-based multinational corporation, is really feeling the heat over their pesticide atrazine these days. And for good reason, the scientific evidence of atrazine’s wide-spread health effects continues to mount and the Environmental Protection Agency is currently reviewing atrazine status under federal...continued→
Posted March 3, 2012 by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Ready for some good news? I sure am. Particularly when it's about conserving the wild things that share this planet with us. From one of the biggest cats in world to the world's smallest chameleon--which has only just been found--check...continued→
Posted February 25, 2012 by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
This week Ken Cole at The Wildlife News made an important connection: last year Wildlife Services (a federal agency we’ve written a lot about here at Switchboard) had to truncate its coyote-killing operations due to budget cuts, but the...continued→
Posted January 9, 2012 by Andrew Wetzler in Health and the Environment, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Environment 360 reports: "A new study says that a warming climate is having a more profound effect on the world’s mountain vegetation than previously believed and that some alpine meadows could vanish altogether within a few decades." What many people fail to...continued→
Posted January 6, 2012 by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Here's your fix of good wildlife news from last month. Enjoy! Pronghorns are back in Washington. The Yakima Nation, in cooperation with Safari Club volunteers (hey, credit where it's due) released 100 Nevada pronghorn on Yakima lands. After an initial period...continued→
Posted January 1, 2012 by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Happy New Year everyone! To start 2012 off right, here are some good news stories from the last month of 2011. Four Pacific fishers have been released into the northern Sierra Nevada mountains. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "the four...continued→
Posted December 22, 2011 by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places, U.S. Law and Policy
Yesterday was a good day for wolves and for national wolf conservation policy. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it was removing gray wolf populations in the upper Midwest from the federal list of endangered and threatened...continued→
Posted December 15, 2011 by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Well, it's that time of year again. I make a list...I check it twice...and then I get a pit in my stomach. I love being with my family over the Holidays but what with Hanukkah and Christmas (not to mention...continued→
Posted December 1, 2011 by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
This month's theme is definitely "the return," with lots of good news to be had illustrating that if we give animals room to roam they will return to suitable habitat, often traveling a lot farther and moving a lot faster...continued→
Posted November 29, 2011 by Andrew Wetzler in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
With every passing year the evidence of atrazine's harmful environmental and human health effects grows stronger. Now a new study, summarizing over a decade of research, has further confirmed some truly scary stuff about atrazine, the most commonly detected pesticide...continued→
Switchboard is the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nation’s most effective environmental group. For more about our work, including in-depth policy documents, action alerts and ways you can contribute, visit NRDC.org.
