29. Defenders of Wildlife
(Latest update 2001)
1101 14th Street, NW
Suite 1400
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 682-9400
Key Personnel (1994, except where noted, elected by member ballot)
Roger Schlickeisen, President
Alan Steinberg, Chairman
Staff—Wolf Reintroduction to Adirondacks
Steve Kendrot, Field Coordinator
Membership (1994)
95,000
Finances IRS 501(c)(3) status
Revenue: $6,649,478 (1994)
Grants in recent years include: Pew Charitable Trusts- $75,000 (1991), Brown Foundation-$10,000 (1991), David and Lucile Packard Foundation-$20,000 (1991), Forrest C. Lattner Foundation-$10,000 (1992), Town Creek Foundation $10,000, Monsanto-$6,000 (1992), General Electric-$5,000 (1993).
Coalition Involvements
Fund for Animals
Sierra Club
National Parks and Conservation Association
Goals
According to Adler’s Environmentalism at the Crossroads, also the source of the financial data and much other 1994 and prior corporate information in this section:
“Founded in 1947, Staff of 38. Defenders of Wildlife seeks to protect wild plants and animals through ‘investigation, education, litigation, and legislation.’ Interests include strengthening the Endangered Species Act, passing legislation to end the legal sale of wild-caught bird, prohibiting the use of plastic six-pack holders, and reintroducing wolves and other animals to their former habitat.” (p. 151)
Stated purpose: “To preserve biological diversity, prevent endangerment, protect key habitats linked by wildlife movement corridors, improve wildlife protection on public lands, and reduce marine entanglement and plastic pollution.” (Adler, p. 151)
Board of Directors (1994)
Rodger Schlickeisen, President
Alan Steinberg, Chairman, investor, Coral Gables, Fl.
Robert R. Larsen, Vice chair., pres. General Services Assocs.,
Southport, Conn.
Arthur C. Martinez, Treas., CEO Sears Merchandise Group, Chicago
Ruth S. Musgrave, Sec., director, Center for Wildlife Law, Univ.
New Mexico
Edward Asner, actor, Los Angeles
Ann Franks Boren, San Francisco
Jim Brandenburg, photographer & author, Minnesota
Thomas C. T. Brokaw, investor, Delaware
Grove T. Burnett, attorney, N. M.
Caroline Gabel, Wash., D.C.
Walter Kuhlmann, attorney, Boardman, Suhr, Curry & Feld, Wis.
Winsome Dunn McIntosh, trustee, McIntosh Foundation, Wash., D.C.
Katherine A. Meyer, attorney, Meyer & Glitzenstein, Wash.
D.C.
Brian B. O’Neill, attorney, Faegre & Benson, Minn.
Wayne Owens, former member of Congress, Salt Lake City
Lisa Peterfreund, program specialist, AARP
Alan Pilkington, Chicago
John Raimondi, sculptor, Fl.
William R. Stott, Jr., former president, Ripon College
Jeanne Whiting, Boulder
Charles F. Wurster, professor, marine sciences, SUNY, Stony Brook
Publications
Defenders (bimonthly magazine)
Wildlife Advocate (quarterly newspaper)
Wolf Action (activist newsletter)
Nature Network (quarterly newsletter)
Comments
(1) Wolf Reintroduction
Wolf reintroduction is the reason for the Defenders of Wildlife coming to the Adirondacks. Defenders has a major, active campaign to reintroduce wolves to the Adirondacks. Their advocacy devices range from a fraudulently conducted survey to a “study” underway. Other national organizations such as the Sierra Club, have joined in, along with the Adirondack Council and, pensively, the Residents Committee to Protect the Adirondacks. They are opposed by local officials, residents and landowners. Although DEC has promised to give top consideration to local viewpoints, the agency is said to be cooperating with the study now being conducted by Defenders.
Defenders successfully supported wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park, and vicinity and Central Idaho.
In 1996, People for the West reported that wolf reintroduction was proceeding in Idaho, even though the Idaho legislature rejected the federal wolf plan in 1995 and the Idaho Fish & Game was denying the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service a permit to release the wolves.
To garner support, Defenders created private Wolf Compensation Fund to reimburse ranchers who lose livestock to wolves. But it is difficult to prove the exact source of depredations.
Ranchers continue to suffer losses and remain opposed to the wolf reintroduction.
The preservationist groups fail to admit this, but, in the Adirondacks, the wolves would conflict with hunters for deer numbers that can survive the winters in the dense forest. Hunting would have to be greatly curtailed. But all of the preservationist groups are actually anti-hunting.
The preservationists publicly claim that wolves would increase tourism, but actually the tourism would decrease if hunters had no deer to hunt, because, in the Adirondacks, hunting creates tourism.
Furthermore, because the deer herd would not support wolves in the central Adirondacks, the wolves would migrate to the periphery, where the life-threatening interface with people, livestock and pets would be great.
Actually, the preservationist groups know that about 2,000 wolves are the number that their camp consistently desires for a “viable” reintroduced predator species, but, to make it sound less threatening, they speak of 100 or 200 wolves, which is only an initial introduction.
(2) Policy-making Litigation
Defenders joined with the Fund for Animals to sue the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to list more endangered species. They won a federal ruling that 400 more species had to be proposed for the Endangered Species list by 1996, with 900 shortly afterwards.
(2) An International NGO
According to Sheehan’s Global Greens, the Defenders
of Wildlife has been active internationally “to influence
overseas enforcement of such U.S. policies as the Marine Mammal
Protection Act and environmental standards for international trade.”
(p.3)
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