Beaufort Sea region polar bears see 40% population loss

[DreamGypsy]

3. Here's a cheap way to help: A Stamp to Protect Wildlife...

The Save Vanishing Species stamp is now on sale at the U.S. Postal Service. The semipostal stamp is designed to raise money to help protect endangered wildlife, including tigers, rhinos and marine turtles.

The stamp features an Amur tiger cub and is the result of a 10-year effort begun and led by World Wildlife Fund, in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Postal Service and other international conservation organizations.

On September 19, 2014, President Obama signed the stamp reauthorization bill into law. The Multinational Species Conservation Funds Semipostal Stamp Reauthorization Act of 2013 passed in the House and Senate earlier this summer. The bill, championed in the Senate by Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and in the House by Representative Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), is a result of true bipartisan leadership and persistent effort to ensure the stamp continues to support U.S. government programs that save vanishing species. The program has sold over 25 million stamps, raising over $2.5 million dollars.

The stamp was initially made available for purchase from September 2011 through December 2013. The bill that President Obama signed last month makes it available for an additional four years, through 2017.

Huh? What's a semipostal stamp??? Going semipostal sounds like becoming angry and trying to kill your coworkers by hitting them repeatedly with a partially inflated balloon.

Here's how it works: the stamp costs 60 cents; current U.S. first class postage rate is 49 cents. For every stamp you buy 11 cents goes to go to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Multinational Species Conservation Funds, which supports efforts to protect wild populations of tigers, rhinos, elephants, great apes and marine turtles.

These efforts include:

work to help combat poaching
habitat protection
disease prevention
education for local communities about the value of conserving wildlife

This holiday season use a semipostal Multinational Species Conservation stamp on your thank you note to Aunt Martha and Uncle Eusebius for their thoughtful gift of a full length canvas camo nightie and/or purple burlap pajamas with an auto-locking fly and the Amur tiger gets 11 cents.