Could you swim for NINE DAYS STRAIGHT?!

I'm going to make a pitch here, for one of my favorite charities... please give it a read and share it if you feel it's a worthy cause..  thanks.

Scientists documented an epic feat of endurance: a mother polar bear, forced to swim for over a week in nearly freezing water ... in desperate search of solid ice.

She was fitted with a satellite collar and swam nonstop for over nine days, covering a distance of 426 miles, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey published in Polar Biology.

Miraculously, she survived. But her year-old cub didn’t. It is the kind of heartbreaking story that scientists fear we will see more and more often in years to come, as global warming melts the sea ice habitat that polar bears need to survive.

As if that weren’t enough, the Shell oil company wants to drill for oil off the coast of the Arctic Refuge -- placing already-stressed polar bears at risk of a devastating oil spill.

Please make an online donation right now that will help the Natural Resource Defense Council wage and win its campaign to stop Shell from drilling in polar bear habitat. (Charity Navigator awards NRDC its 4-star top rating. Worth magazine named NRDC one of America's 100 best charities. And NRDC meets the highest standards of the Wise Giving Alliance of the Better Business Bureau.)

A blowout at one of Shell’s rigs could be catastrophic -- especially when pregnant polar bears move onshore to dig their dens and birth their cubs in the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge.

After last summer’s disaster in the Gulf, you’d think that our government would be demanding -- and Shell would be forced to provide -- the most realistic and far-reaching oil spill response plan in our nation’s history.

But Shell is still relying on an oil spill response plan that was written and approved BEFORE last summer’s catastrophic Gulf oil spill.

We must move swiftly if we are going to stave off this disaster by stopping Shell before it sinks its first drill bits into Arctic waters. Shell has spent billions of dollars to get to this point. It has even launched a national ad campaign, aimed at persuading Americans that the company is well prepared to prevent and clean up spills in the Arctic.

Your tax-deductible donation will ensure that NRDC can mobilize the public against Shell’s scheme ... go to federal court, if that becomes necessary, to block Shell from drilling ... and defend our environment in the most effective way possible.

Shell brings vast resources to this fight. Polar bears are already swimming for their lives. Let’s not wait for pictures of oil-covered bears before taking action to stop Shell.