World Wildlife Fund
One of the older and better known private-sector wildlife organizations is the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Established in 1961, it claims to be the largest international conservation organization in the world. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has affiliates on five continents. And although the panda appears on its logo, it deals with the preservation of all threatened wildlife.
The WWF is concerned with preserving not only species, but whole ecological systems, such as tropical rain forests. These ancient forests, home for half of all wildlife species and many plants and trees from which life-saving medicines are extracted, are threatened by commercial exploitation and environmental pollution. Grasslands, wetlands, and oceans are also being polluted and animals are becoming extinct throughout the world at an alarming rate.
By setting up scientific preservation projects all over the world, many species can be saved through protection of their habitat, acquisition of land, and preserving nature reserves. The WWF's long-range action plans bring together scientists, conservation groups, and other experts; together, they have been able to save or rescue from extinction the Arabian oryx, the peregrine falcon in America, and the Bengal tiger in India.
Defenders of Wildlife
Defenders of Wildlife has been in business since 1947 and is also headquartered in Washington, D.C. This group works primarily from a legislative and educational viewpoint to inform Congress of the need for environmental protection, especially regarding the use of public lands. They work to convince those in power at the Department of Interior to heed their call for less commercial development and more emphasis on preserving wild lands intact.
The Defenders of Wildlife has effectively fought to eliminate the use of strychnine above the ground because it threatened the existence of 15 already endangered species. The organization was also immediately on the scene at the Exxon oil spill in Alaska, analyzing its impact on the environment and reporting it to Congress. They could be considered the private-sector watchdog of the federal agencies.
Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund
The Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, headquartered in San Francisco, California, likes to consider itself the "law firm" of the environment. As such, they represent not only the major independent conservation organizations, such as the Defenders of Wildlife or Greenpeace, but also the smaller, less famous organizations. For almost twenty years, they have fought to have strict environmental protection laws first passed and then fully enforced. The struggle is often between major corporations or state and federal agencies and the independent environmental organizations.
They have sued the Exxon Corporation on behalf of Alaskan environmental groups to make sure that Exxon will bear its share of the clean-up operation of Prince William Sound as a result of the oil spill of 1989.
This organization will go after any corporation whose operations it feels are destroying the air, land, or water that wildlife need to survive. They pride themselves on halting mining in Alaska's national parks until they are assured that the environment will be conserved; of saving dolphins, fur seals, and sea birds by working for the prohibition of fishing with drift nets off the coast of Alaska; and on stopping timber sales in the Tongass National Forest.
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy has its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. Its approach to conserving wildlife is to actually buy up lands all over the country in order to set it aside for wildlife, thus preventing its use for shopping centers, industrial parks, or condominiums. The conservancy has been engaged in this effort for 39 years.
A land acquisition begins when the conservancy identifies the environmental value of a certain piece of land-it contains rare prairie grass, or is home to an endangered species, for example. Once the land is acquired, the conservancy manages it for conservation or turns it over to other responsible agencies or educational facilities. So far, they have preserved more than five million acres in the United States and Canada. On these lands are animal sanctuaries, swamps, and wildlife habitats. The Conservancy is an action-oriented organization that works to prevent the destruction of ecosystems and wildlife habitats and to stop the commercial takeover of public land before it happens.
The Environmental Defense Fund
The Environmental Defense Fund, with its main offices in New York City, is primarily concerned with the destruction of marine life due to massive amounts of garbage dumped into the oceans. Particularly harmful to aquatic life are plastic products, including fishing nets, pellets, packing bands, and bags. These plastics may also harm sea birds.
Lawyers and scientists work together with economists to eliminate harmful pesticides, to protect porpoises from tuna fishermen, and to come up with alternatives to dumping plastics into the oceans.
The Wilderness Society
The Wilderness Society has been a conservation group for more than fifty years. During that time, it has concentrated on the enforcement of laws regarding the protection of the forests, including laws regulating clear cutting, road building, and the selling of timber in our public forests, wilderness lands, wildlife refuges, and wilderness reserves.
The society, located in Washington, D.C., has specifically targeted the National Forest Service for its adverse logging policies. According to the society, the Forest Service should be responsible for managing the forests in order to conserve wildlife habitat, preserve watersheds, supply outdoor recreational facilities, and provide timber. The society believes that the Service concentrates too much on selling timber quickly and cheaply, thereby undermining its conservation role.
Whale Adoption Project
The Whale Adoption Project in North Falmouth, Massachusetts, urges people to adopt one of the humpback whales off the coast of Cape Cod. The project is part of the International Wildlife Coalition, which has members in England, Canada, and the United States. The coalition, parent organization to the adoption project, attacks wildlife abuse throughout the world.
The adoption fee for the whale is specifically used in the Coalition's struggle against those countries that are still killing whales, even though the International Whaling Commission has declared a moratorium on whale kills. The adoptive whales are part of ongoing research and investigation by the Cetacean Research Program at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies. These researchers are studying behavioral patterns, reproduction, movement, and migratory activities of the whales.
Wildlife Conservation International
Wildlife Conservation International (WCI) is a division of the New York Zoological Society that has taken on the task of saving the African elephant from extinction, largely from the threat of indiscriminate ivory poachers. Together with the World Wildlife Fund, they called for a worldwide ban on the ivory trade; shortly thereafter, President George Bush declared an official boycott on U.S. trade in ivory. Other nations soon followed.
In the past ten years, the African elephant population has declined by half to 600,000. WCI now is engaged in carefully monitoring elephant populations. They are also helping government agencies to acquire new land that will link up already existing parks and reserves, enabling elephants to roam more freely in their natural habitat.
African Wildlife Foundation
An organization similar to Wildlife Conservation International is the African Wildlife Foundation, located in Washington, D.C. This group's major goals are to eliminate the international ivory trade and more effectively and efficiently protect the elephants in African national parks.
Save-the-Dolphins
The Earth Island Institute's Save-the-Dolphins Project is headquartered in San Francisco, California. This project has struggled for five years to stop the killing of dolphins by tuna fishermen's drift nets. The campaign targeted a major tuna packing company. After a major public awareness program, consumer boycotts, and many months of hard work, Save-the-Dolphins obtained from the company a promise not to kill any more dolphins for tuna for any of their products, including pet food.
It all started when an undercover biologist filmed the dolphins drowning in the tuna nets. The project then launched a massive public information program, staged picket lines, sent thousands of mailgrams to tuna companies, and made legal challenges in court and testified before government agencies.
They are still trying to get other tuna companies to comply with the ban on dolphin kills. Their goal is to achieve a total ban by all processing companies.
To work for the Institute, you don't need a biology or zoology degree, although these would help you if you want to work on research projects in the field or write for the institute's publication, the Earth Island Journal. If you are thinking of changing your career, you might consider volunteering at a wildlife conservation, environmental protection, or animal rights organization. Your exposure to the issues and the people involved will help you to build up contacts, and your contacts are extremely important in nonprofit work.
Choosing Your Career in Wildlife Conservation and Management
Even if you are not physically working with the animals as a researcher, wildlife or aquatic biologist, or ornithologist, you can gain satisfaction in knowing that you are using your particular organizational, legal, journalistic, or administrative talents to work for the preservation of species, conservation of ecosystems, or restoration of wildlife habitats. You will be able to do that either for a governmental agency or in any one of the many nonprofit organizations dedicated to these purposes.
The choice between the two is fairly clear cut and will be entirely up to you. Government work may provide you with more stability and have more clearly defined requirements for education and eligibility. Since government jobs are funded through taxes, you will not have to be concerned with fundraising. But you will have to follow the policies of the particular administration in power, and those policies may include directives regarding land use, logging, habitat manipulation, and wildlife kills with which you disagree.
Nonprofit organizations are usually governed by a board of directors that will set policy for the group. But these nonprofit organizations are usually focused on a single issue or cluster of closely related issues. Therefore, when you work for an independent organization, you will know exactly which cause you will be working for. Among nonprofit organizations there will probably be less emphasis on educational eligibility and more emphasis on commitment to philosophy and issues.
Whether your job is government or private, field work or administrative, you will be working for the animals whose very existence may be in extreme jeopardy. Your job satisfaction should come from your knowledge that you have made a concrete contribution toward their survival.
