There were rumors, I didn’t want to believe them. I heard a quota of 400, which sounded horribly high. I would not let my mind wrap around how far things have fallen from a year ago. Idaho’s wolves are facing hell. I have no words tonight.
Idaho to offer looser wolf hunt rules
By JOHN MILLER & MATTHEW BROWN – Associated Press Published: Jun 30, 2011 at 5:26 PM MDT
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho wildlife managers will propose a wolf hunt without quotas in much of the state.
This article highlights the hypocrisy of blaming wolves for elk population fluctuations. Elk and wolves have co-existed together for millenia. The elk owes its fleetness of foot to the wolves’ tooth. For selfish humans to deny wolves their right to eat, is the ultimate in self centeredness.
Many human hunters kill elk and then blame wolves if elk numbers dip. They expect fish and game agencies to keep elk numbers elevated, making it easier to hunt them. Competing with the wolf is something they won’t tolerate. In turn wolves are persecuted and killed to accommodate a small group of people, decreasing wildlife advocates ability to view wild wolves. We need a major change in wildlife “management”. It makes no sense that a minority of hunters should be catered to over the rest of the population.
Wolves cull the weak, sick and old ungulates, that’s how they keep elk and deer herds healthy. It’s why we have predators. Wolves are opportunists and occasionally kill healthy animals but the norm is to go after the least difficult prey. What would you rather do, battle a bull elk in its prime or chase an old cow elk?
On the other hand, human hunters stalk trophy animals, the big bulls, the best of the herd. They can do this because of superior technology as in high-powered rifles with scopes. Hardly fair chase. Not even close. Wolves don’t possess guns or high-tech bows, they use their natural hunting skills they were born with. An uncanny sense of smell, legendary endurance, ground-eating speed, close cooperation with their packmates, all combined with their remarkable intelligence. Quite the package.
Wolves hunt to live. Most humans hunt for sport, the meat is secondary IMO. Hunting is an expensive exercise. You have to buy special clothing, expensive guns and ammo, tags and licenses, own a sound rig with four-wheel drive, you may have to take some time off from work, etc. It’s not a poor man’s sport.
Who does more damage to ungulate herd health, wolf or man? I think we know the answer.
A new study confirms what animal advocates have been saying all along: Don’t blame the wolves for killing elk. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game conducted studies on collared elk in 11 study areas, and examined the causes of death. According to the Times-News, “Though statewide numbers have dropped some, claims that wolves are wholly responsible for declining elk populations aren’t holding up . . . Biologists found that wolves killed significant numbers of collared elk in only one area.” What were the other causes of death? Severe weather, bears, cougars, and hunters. In two of the 11 study areas, hunters were the number one elk killers.
Here they are the beautiful, adorable Wolf People puppies at seven weeks. They are growing so fast.
Their mom and dad are mimi x baci (he’s pure arctic wolf).
You can see these adorable babies at Wolf People in Cocolalla, Idaho!!
From the Wolf People’s website:
“We are a Wolf Education Facility educating the public about the true nature of wolves and showing the loving side of these magnificent animals that we have come to know and love. This has been our passion since 1993!”
Can you see why wolves should never be hunted? Wolves are not game animals. They were not put on this earth to be tortured with traps, snares, rifles and arrows. Hunting destroys wolf families and causes immense suffering. It separates mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. Wolves live for their families, it is everything to them. Wolves are highly intelligent, social animals and should be treated as such.
Heavy hunting of wolves also destroys genetic diversity, discussed in part three. The narrator explains that these coastal wolves have more diversity in their genes than any other wolf population. She further states that “genetic diversity gives a species the ability to adapt to changing environments, including new climatic conditions and diseases. Genetic diversity is lost when a population is reduced to low numbers.” Another reason wolves should not be hunted.
There is so much we can learn from wolves if only the persecution and scapegoating would stop.
The coastal wolves of the Great Bear Rainforest are a true treasure, even more so because they’ve escaped many of the tortures other wolf populations have had to endure.
As the narrator so eloquently states:
“While most gray wolf populations were hunted to near extinction, here in the remote reaches of the Great Bear Rainforest the wolves escaped heavy persecution and maintain an ancient, unbroken link to their past.”
This excellent article, by Norm Bishop, appeared in New West last January.
What Good Are Wolves?
A growing body of scientific research shows wolves are key to the ecosystems of the Northern Rockies. Here’s a condensed version compiled by a long-time wolf advocate.
By Norman A. Bishop, Guest Writer, 1-04-11
In 1869, General Phil Sheridan said, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.” Others said, “The only good wolf is a dead wolf.”
Barry Lopez wrote of an American Pogrom, not only of Native Americans and wolves, but of the bison on which both depended. Between 1850 and 1890, 75 million bison were killed, mostly for their hides; perhaps 1 million or 2 million wolves.
“Before about 1878, cattlemen were more worried about Indians killing their cattle than they were about wolves. As the land filled up with other ranchers, as water rights became an issue, and as the Indians were removed to reservations, however, the wolf became, as related in Barry Lopez’s book, “Of Wolves and Men,” ‘an object of pathological hatred.’” Lopez continues: “The motive for wiping out wolves (as opposed to controlling them) proceeded from misunderstanding, from illusions of what constituted sport, from strident attachment to private property, from ignorance and irrational hatred.”
Here are the briefs submitted to the court by Alliance for the Wild Rockies, in support of their lawsuit, challenging the wolf delisting rider. If successful, it would find the rider, that was attached to a must pass budget bill, unconstitutional, which I believe it to be.
What the Senate did was egregious. They allowed gray wolves to be thrown under the bus by voting for the budget bill, hoping to please Senator Jon Tester, who is running a tight race against Denny Rehberg, for his Senate seat in 2012. In essence Rehberg and Tester are trying to out-wolf each other and capture the anti-wolf vote. They’re both running on the issue.
The Senate could easily have stripped the rider out of the budget bill or allowed an up or down vote on the rider, as they did for the other two riders included in the budget bill, Planned Parenthood and Obamacare. Senators voted up or down on both those riders and both were defeated but they left the wolf delisting rider in place, which allowed them to vote on the budget bill with the rider still attached.
I think it was sneaky and underhanded. In my opinion, the Senators didn’t want to “go on the record” and vote for the wolf delisting rider outright, so they tucked it away in the budget bill. The ESA was used and abused for political gain. For the first time, a species like the wolf, who has a long history of persecution and ultimately extermination in the West, was stripped of their ESA protections. If any species deserves ESA protection, it’s the gray wolf.
Only three Democrats voted against the budget bill: e.g., Leahy , Levin and Wyden. Bernie Sanders, (I-VT) voted against it as well. President Obama then signed the bill into law with the rider attached and lo and behold, wolves were stripped of their ESA protections by budget rider. That’s the whole sad, disgusting story. The day the Democrats sold out wolves for Jon Tester’s Senate seat. I think he’ll be defeated because he is never going to out-do Rehberg on wolves. The entire exercise of delisting wolves was for nothing.
Please visit AWR and give generously in support of this very important wolf litigation.
Just to remind everyone what this lawsuit it all about I included an opinion piece, which appeared in the Christian Science Monitor in April 2011, which succinctly details the delisting of the Northern Rockies gray wolf via budget rider. It explains why this action by Congress was so egregious and wrong.
The Senate’s reckless disregard for the ESA and the political delisting of wolves, prompted the mounting of a legal challenge by Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Clearwater and WildEarth Guardians, to seek to right the wrong done to wolves by the 112th Congress and the President.
True cost of budget deal will be paid in blood – of gray wolves
One of the most unfortunate riders of the recent budget deal is the decision to strip the gray wolf of the protections of the Endangered Species Act. Science has been subordinated to political instrumentalism, setting a dangerous precedent for the future.
Many words have been spent on the budget compromise struck between Republicans and Democrats in the 11th hour a couple weeks ago, narrowly avoiding a government shutdown. In the days since, details of this budget agreement have slowly emerged, but few actually know what it fully entails – and what it really means for Americans. Perhaps this is because Congress and the president appear to have had a similarly limited understanding of the nature and scope of the cuts they agreed upon.
Tags: Wolf delisting lawsuit, Judge Molloy, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Clearwater, WildEarth Guardians, Jon Tester, Denny Rehberg, gray wolves, ESA, budget bill
This disturbing Associated Press article, describes how Kalispell, Montana, known for its rugged beauty, filled with pristine lakes and streams, gateway to Glacier National Park, may become a hotbed of anti-government extremism.
Note the sign in the picture above. These were anti-wolf protesters outside The Russell Smith Federal Courthouse in Missoula, Montana last year. Is it any wonder wolves are being scapegoated and demonized in Montana?
Extremists finding fertile ground in Northwest US
By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, Associated Press – Wed Jun 22, 3:31 am ET
KALISPELL, Mont. – With its jagged peaks, glistening lakes and lush valleys, the Inland Northwest — stretching from eastern Washington to Montana’s Glacier National Park — is a stunningly beautiful and remote part of the country.
It also is a cradle for sometimes-violent anti-government activity — a reputation most recently rekindled by the search for David Burgert. The former Kalispell militia leader is accused of opening fire on sheriff’s deputies on a remote logging road in Lolo National Forest.
After a lull following the demise of the Idaho-based neo-Nazi Aryan Nations in 2000, anti-government and white supremacist groups and individuals may be reviving in the Inland Northwest. It’s a mostly white, mostly rural area with few job opportunities and a history of extreme activists.
Experts say the number of radical right groups is growing across the country because of the poor state of the economy, rising immigration and fears that President Barack Obama’s administration has an agenda to curtail individual liberties.
Bill Gibson wrote about this in his article, Cry,Wolf, appearing in the current Earth Island Journal. The pieces are coming together concerning anti-government feelings in the Flathead Valley.
The “Flathead” is home to wolves . They’ve lived in the North Fork of the Flathead since the late seventies, early eighties, when they dispersed on their own from Canada. They wouldn’t have made the trip without the protection of the ESA. Now that has been stripped from them and they are at the mercy of extremists who are using gray wolves as the poster child for their hate.
This is a grim time and every wolf advocate who cares about wolves needs to stand up and be heard. HFJ and WW has plans for a new pro-active way to show support for gray wolves that we will unveil next week.
Don’t let these extreme elements dictate how our wildlife and wild places are handled. It’s up to us, the grass-roots wolf movement, to speak out for wolves in their dark hour.
For the wolves, For the wild ones,
Nabeki
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Photo: Courtesy Missoulian
Posted in Wolf Wars
Tags: extremism, Flathead Valley, Glacier National Park, Hate groups, Montana, Montana Human Rights Network, Northwest Montana
“Free To Be A Wolf Killing American” discussesBill Gibson’s article, Cry, Wolf, which appears in the summer 2011 edition of the Earth Island Journal. I linked to the Journal on the right side column of the blog. Anyone who hasn’t read Cry, Wolf can click on the EIJ cover and it will take you right to it.
Mr. Goetzman, writing inWild Green, describes the premise of Bill’s article perfectly when he states:
The reintroduction of wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains has gotten caught up in a culture war, James William Gibson reports in Earth Island Journal—and the controversy is not even necessarily all about the wolves. It’s about the big, bad government keeping a good man down.
I’ve always been so moved by John Anderson’s song, Seminole Wind. It’s haunting and speaks to the destruction of the Everglades, home of the Seminoles.
But it’s so much more. It embodies how man has run rough shod over our land in the name of progress. It speaks of devaluing nature. When will we learn that our greatest gifts are the remaining wild places and wildlife, meant to treasure, not destroy?
Think of wolves when you listen, they are howling for justice!
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Seminole wind
(John Anderson)
Ever since the days of old Men would search for wealth untold They’d dig for silver and for gold And leave the empty holes And way down south in the Everglades Where the black water rolls and the saw grass waves The eagles fly and the otters play In the land of the Seminole.
So blow, blow Seminole wind Blow like you’re never gonna blow again I’m callin’ to you like a long lost friend But I don’t know who you are And blow, blow from the Okeechobee All the way up to Micanopy Blow ‘cross the home of the Seminoles The alligators and the garr.
Progress came and took its toll And in the name of flood control They made their plans and they drained the land Now the glades are goin’ dry And the last time I walked in the swamp I sat upon a cypress stump I listened close and I heard the ghost of Osceola cry.
So blow, blow Seminole wind Blow like you’re never gonna blow again I’m callin’ to you like a long lost friend But I don’t know who you are And blow, blow from the Okeechobee All the way up to Micanopy Blow ‘cross the home of the Seminoles The alligators and the garr.
Posted: Saturday, June 18, 2011 12:00 am | Updated: 4:55 pm, Fri Jun 17, 2011.
By Michael Garrity, guest columnist
The Bozeman Chronicle recently editorialized against the Alliance for the Wild Rockies for filing a lawsuit to stop helicopter hazing of Yellowstone grizzly bears. While the Chronicle certainly has the right to editorialize, its readers deserve a chance to weigh the issues for themselves after hearing both sides of the story.
The Chronicle called the Alliance “overzealous environmentalists hell bent on obstructing the effort” to “tolerate bison and wolves within its borders as valued and permanent parts of its wildlife spectrum.” Nothing could be further from the truth. To support its claims, the Chronicle cited a General Accounting Office report that found the Alliance challenges more Forest Service logging projects than any group in the nation. Significantly, the Chronicle failed to disclose that we win about 85 percent of those cases. Simply put, we file lawsuits – and win them – because the government is breaking the law. Clearly, our successful record protecting grizzly bears, lynx, elk, bull trout, wolves, and old-growth forests is what has drawn the ire of those who want to obstruct our efforts.
This blog is dedicated to the memory of Wolf 253, the beloved Yellowstone Druid wolf named Limpy, who was shot and killed in March 08, on the very day ESA protections were lifted for the gray wolf, by the then Bush Administration.
Boulder White Clouds Council
Exposing The Big Game
Footloose Montana
Friends of the Clearwater
Lockwood Animal Rescue Center
Louise du Toit
LUPUSLAETUS
Mercy For Animals
Northern Idaho Wolf Alliance (NIWA)
Predator Friendly®- Because Wildlife Matters
Project Coyote
Project: Wolf
The Nature Conservancy
The Ravensong Group
WildEarth Guardians
Wisconsin Wildlife Ethic-Vote Our Wildlife
Wolf And Wildlife Studies: Jay Mallonee (Independent Wolf Biologist)
Wolf Song of Alaska
Wolves in english ! Les loups en anglais !
WWP's Gray Wolf Page
Yellowstone To Yukon Conservation Initiative
