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"The Vampire Diaries" star Ian Somerhalder is passionate about protecting animals, and this time, his focus has zeroed in on the Yellowstone grizzly bears.
The actor said that the bears were once teetering on the brink of extinction, and they have only started to recover now. This is why he believes that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is wrong to propose the removal of their federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.
It is "premature and comes at a time where only 700 of these iconic bears are known to exist in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and shockingly only 1,400 to 1,700 bears in the entire lower 48 states," he wrote in a letter to USFWS director Dan Ashe. "We stand with The Humane Society of the United States in urging you to keep grizzly bears protected."
Somerhalder said that grizzly bears are iconic species that represent the country's last remaining wild spaces. He shudders at the thought of killing these bears just for hunters to "stuff them for display and bragging rights," and he blames them for threatening their existence.
"Yellowstone grizzly bears still need our help. They continue to face critical challenges such as habitat loss and climate change. Removing protections for Yellowstone grizzlies now will leave the population with little hope of recovery," he said.
Earlier, Somerhalder spoke up in behalf of wild African elephants, after he partnered with the organization called WildAid for its Year of the Elephant campaign.
Data obtained by WildAid revealed that approximately 33,000 elephants are killed every year for their ivory. If nothing is done to stop this, then elephants might become extinct within seven years.
"It's WildAid's goal. It's all of our goal to make this the year of the elephant, where more elephants are born than killed by poachers," he told CNN. "I think people would really feel differently about when they think about taking this tusk and what it means to kill these beautiful animals."
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Source: http://www.fashionnstyle.com/articles/84290/20160429/ian-somerhalder-writes-to-obama-administration-about-yellowstones-grizzly-bears.htm
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