IT'S WORTH MORE THAN GOLD (OR HEROIN)

A rhino horn. Pound for pound it's worth more than gold or heroin. Unbelievable, right?

This is the grim reality of wildlife trafficking and why poachers will stop at nothing to kill elephants, tigers, and rhinos for their body parts.

Luckily, the Obama Administration's brand new National Strategy for Wildlife Trafficking is a comprehensive plan to stop the killing, stop the trafficking, and stop the demand for wildlife parts.

But strategy alone isn't going to save even the fiercest wild animals targeted by poachers. We need the funding to carry it out. But right now there's no federal funding directly dedicated to combating illegal wildlife trade in the President's budget request.

Tell your Members of Congress it's imperative that we secure funding to combat wildlife trafficking in this year's budget.

The President's budget request doesn't include any dedicated funding for programs such as USAID Biodiversity that protects some of the largest, most at-risk natural landscapes, or anti-poaching and trafficking programs at USAID and the U.S. State Department to implement the National Strategy on Combating Wildlife, which Congress established earlier this year. It's also important to maintain funding for the Global Environmental Facility which is creating a new program of work focused on combating wildlife poaching and trafficking.

These funds are absolutely critical to saving threatened wildlife, but it's inconsequential to the U.S. budget, representing just 0.0001% of all U.S. spending.

Isn't one ten-thousandth of a percent of all our spending worth the price of a future with these beautiful animals? You and I know it is.

Time is of the essence. Members of Congress only have a few more days to let congressional committees know what their funding priorities are, and then those committees finalize the amounts. Now, more than ever, we cannot afford to lose one dollar of this funding and, frankly, we're in competition with thousands of other funding priorities. Every single action counts.

We're fighting for a future with wild elephants, rhinos, tigers, and other endangered species. Write your Members of Congress and ask them to join us.

Thanks for all your help.

Sincerely,

John F. Calvelli
Executive Vice President for Public Affairs
Wildlife Conservation Society