• by Les Luchter , 7 hours ago

Ending over 50 years of protection under the Endangered Species Act, the Trump Administration on Friday opened wild habitats to drilling and mining, as reported in The New York Times. That action prompted an immediate promise of a lawsuit from Defenders of Wildlife, a nonprofit whose achievements over its 79-year history have included playing a major role in saving America’s national symbol -- the bald eagle -- from extinction.

Meanwhile, just blocks from the White House, Defenders of Wildlife since mid-June has been marking America’s 250^th birthday with a seven-story-tall wrap on its headquarters building topped by a bald eagle and declaring, “Out in the wild, there is no left or right.”

“There’s only right and wrong,” that thought continues in a :60 America 250 video, part of a larger awareness campaign called “We Are Closer Than You Think” that’s been running for nearly a year.

“In our love for wildlife, we are closer than you think to one another,” Laura Sheehan, Defenders of Wildlife’s senior vice president of external affairs, explains to Marketing Daily. “But we are also closer than you think to losing our cherished wildlife forever.” 

The recent Trump Administration actions “underscore the need for what we’re doing,” Sheehan says. “If anything, it makes the campaign even more important. We need to continue to hammer home the fact that wildlife protection is a shared value for all Americans.”

“When we’re out in nature, we’re not thinking about politics or partisan ideas,” she continues. “We’re thinking about evaluating our wildlife and our wild places, and celebrating our love for being out in it, enjoying it, and soaking it all in.

“We know from our polling over many, many years that at least 84% of the population -- a bipartisan group -- absolutely supports the Endangered Species Act.”

The group’s awareness/education campaign not only seeks to reach people across the political spectrum, Sheehan notes, but is attempting to “broaden the tent and bring more people into wildlife advocacy” by targeting such groups as:  “nature lovers, who love to be outside when they’re hiking, trekking, riding bikes, cross-country skiing, you name it” and pet lovers who :might not necessarily have made the connection to a love of wildlife and nature.”

In addition to bringing more people into wildlife protection advocacy, the campaign seeks to make that protection into “a national priority,” she says.

The wrap will remain on the headquarters building through year’s end, Sheehan reveals, to be replaced come 2027 with another wrap to “celebrate 80 years of protecting American wildlife.”

Content for the America 250 and "We Are Closer Than You Think" campaigns, which includes both paid ads and PSAs -- all created and placed by the Moore agency -- are running on such media as connected TV, radio, out-of-home, print via Outside magazine, and digital including Outside.com, people.com and Warner Bros. properties.

Social media influencers/brand ambassadors are also involved, such as Vermont forester and author of “How to Love a Forest” Ethan Tapper and Pacific Northwest naturalist and “The Nature Educator” Rachael Tancock.

The America 250 campaign has also included a “Shaped by the Wild” photo contest, resulting in some 1,605 entries over three months.  The winning shot was of a Humpback whale calf.