Taking the case for wildlife all the way to the top

Over four days in May, Jennifer von Molnar, of Dingman’s Ferry, Pennsylvania, zigzagged the Capitol for meetings with representatives from both sides of the aisle to talk about the wildlife in Northeastern Pennsylvania and why it needs protecting. She was among 40 citizen advocates nationwide tapped by Defenders of Wildlife, an environmental group, to put their lives on hold in order to fight for the embattled Endangered Species Act.

Van Molnar caught Congressman Rob Bresnahan Jr. on his way out of his office, clearly a trout fisherman from the photos on his wall. She had coffee with Senator Dave McCormick, who assured her that he has six daughters holding him accountable, at a group breakfast for lobbyists and constituents. She had a half hour sit-down with a staffer of Senator John Fetterman’s – a monarch butterfly lover, it turns out.

She attended a presser in front of Capitol Hill, where House and Senate environmental champions spoke of the current administration’s unprecedented “scorched earth” campaign to open up wild lands to industry interests, and thanked the grassroots environmentalists.

Then von Molnar got back in her car with a bad cold as a souvenir, to drive home and get back to work as supervisor of the gardening department at Woodloch Pines Resort in Hawley, PA.

How’d you get tapped to be one of 40 citizen advocates nationwide to go to DC for this ‘advocacy fly-in’?

Defenders of Wildlife is the group that invited me to go down there. My husband and I have supported them over the years, and they’re great. So they had a call out and said we’re looking for people to come. Would you be interested in coming to lobby? I had to answer a few questions, and had a half hour phone interview, and they decided to bring me on down.

What motivated you to make the trip?

This is all about the Endangered Species Act. This new administration is really just trying to dismantle it in order to open up more land for drilling and logging and fracking. Since January, there have been over 25 attacks on the Endangered Species Act. They’re going at it from every angle. The Endangered Species Act is why we have bald eagles in Pennsylvania. We all love our wildlife, you know? If we can’t get along on this, what are we going to get along on?

Fill us in. What exactly is going on with the Endangered Species Act?

The ESA Amendments Act of 2025 is a shortsighted attempt to dismantle the Endangered Species Act in favor of industry interests. It would slow listings of imperiled species to a crawl while speeding up delistings of species that have not fully recovered. It would also eliminate current requirements for federal agencies to ensure that they do not take actions likely to destroy critical habitat for vulnerable species. The ESA Amendments Act has not made it to the Senate yet, although it is expected to.

What surprised you about lobbying?

The first thing that really struck me was how accessible congresspeople and senators really are. It was refreshing to know that our congressmen and senators want to hear from us – just from regular people, not professional lobbyists. They want to know what real people are thinking.

Honestly, that is surprising.

We had a hard time getting a meeting with Rob Bresnahan, he’s our Republican congressman of my eighth district. He was not giving me a meeting; gave us a really hard time trying to connect. And then we happened to be walking by his office, and we just kind of walked in and said, ‘Hi, I’ve been trying to get a meeting. Is there someone available to talk to us?’ And they actually gave us a meeting. [Then] I actually caught Bresnahan himself on the way out, which was a rare sighting, apparently, and he stopped and gave me a few minutes of his time. Although I would say I didn’t think he was thrilled to hear from me.

Did you do a lot of research before going down?

I did have some background that I just kind of knew from reading, but we did a couple of Zoom meetings where they filled us in on how the days would go, what our talking points are. I mean, I’ve never lobbied before. I didn’t really know what it entailed. So they gave us good knowledge of just sort of the steps: the introduction, this is why I’m here today, I’m your constituent, this is why this matters to me, I’m asking you to not support this bill.

You’ve always been a nature lover, but now you have another personal reason to fight for the environment. Talk about that.

Two years ago, I was diagnosed with my first autoimmune disease, which came out of nowhere. Shortly after I began losing all my hair. Now I’m, you know, completely bald. I have other autoimmune diseases because they do act as sort of a domino effect. And so my focus probably has gone more from the animals themselves to our health and wellbeing too. Autoimmune disease is triggered by a lot of environmental factors – heavy metals, air pollution, all these sort of things. We see these autoimmune diseases rising as our environment is getting worse. It’s pretty clear to me that it’s all connected.

Have your autoimmune issues made you more political?

I was [already] a political person. I would write my senators or email them if something really struck me. I don’t know what really made me more political. I think it’s hard not to be [right now]. I would say in the last 10 years, I’ve probably become much more political, yes, because I feel like it’s desperate times.

Of the endangered species in Pennsylvania, what’s your favorite?

Well, I recently learned about this little guy: the bog turtle. I like turtles, and this guy is [North America’s] smallest turtle. He only gets to be four inches long, and he can live up to 50 years.

Do you feel like you accomplished something?

I do think I educated some people. You know, our senators and congressmen have hundreds of things coming across their desk all the time, and for them to read every portion of a bill or understand every nuance of it is impossible. They have advisors for every subject: healthcare, education, environment. These are the people who feed the information up to them, but sometimes they miss things that are tucked into bills. So it’s up to us to pay attention and to say, ‘Hey, maybe you didn’t know that this is in here.’ Do I think I changed anyone’s mind? No. But I think I educated people a little bit, and maybe they’ll take a second look before they vote.

Would you do it again?

I would absolutely do it again. I think that it’s a very frustrating time for a lot of people. It’s just hard to feel helpless. It did give me a little bit of sense of control, that I was able to do something. As Americans, we’ve sort of become complacent to what our government does in general. We just kind of go along for the ride instead of stopping to write a letter or make a phone call. I get frustrated sometimes that people make TikTok videos and montages, spending hours doing that. If you wrote a little letter or made a phone call instead, it can make a big difference. Okay, you’re not always going to get your way, but at least you push through and say, ‘Hey, this is important to me.’

How can people make their opinions known, outside their own echo chamber?

Google your representative. Just find them and write them and advocate. They say one hand-written letter that comes across the desk of your congressperson is considered to represent 1,000 people’s opinions. So many people feel the same, but just don’t take the action.