September 5, 2012
For over a decade the USFWS has said no to Wyoming’s brutal wolf slaughter plan, designed to exterminate wolves without mercy, treating them as vermin, to be shot-on-sight in most of the state.
In 2009 the Obama administration delisted wolves in the Northern Rockies but Wyoming wolves were excluded because the USFWS would not accept their “wolf management/slaughter plan”. Wyoming wolves remained under the protection of the ESA.
In response to the delisting a legal challenge was mounted by environmental groups and on August 5, 2010 Judge Donald Molloy relisted wolves in the Northern Rockies. He stated the USFWS could not separate wolves by state for delisting. Either they strip wolves in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho of their ESA protections or they keep them all listed. Read his decision here.
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Judge orders protections reinstated for wolf
By MATT VOLZ, AP, Idaho Statesman, 08/05/10 [here]
A federal judge has ordered endangered species protections reinstated for the gray wolf in Montana and Idaho.
The federal government last year removed protections for wolves in those two states but not Wyoming. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy says in his ruling Thursday the government’s decision was a political solution and does not comply with the federal Endangered Species Act.
Molloy says the entire Rocky Mountain wolf population must be either listed or removed as an endangered species, but the protections can’t be separated by state. (Wildlife and People)
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But now, as Idaho and Montana are busy slaughtering wolves, while USFWS watches, the agency has decided Wyoming’s shoot-on-site wolf plan is just perfect after all. The approx. 270 wolves who live outside Yellowstone can now be used for target practice, killed anytime of the day or night, without a permit. They can be run over by snowmobiles or ATV’s, hung from a tree, torn apart, set on fire or anything a sick mind can come up with. That’s the fate of Wyoming wolves. The cruel irony is one of the excuses given for killing so many wolves is Wyoming hunters accused wolves of decimating elk herds in the state but that’s been proven to be false. It was recently reported that many of Wyoming’s elk herds have grown so large extra licenses will be handed out to hunters to kill more elk. The hypocrites and their lies have been exposed!
From the Wildlife News:
Wyoming elk herds have grown too large
Wyoming Game and Fish Department offers extra elk licenses
Now that Wyoming has gained the authority to manage wolves and will soon have a wolf hunt, the much lamented lack of elk due to those “insatiable packs of killing machines” — wolves — has suddenly turned around and there are said to be too many elk . . . just like that.
Brian Nesvik, chief of the wildlife division for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department says “in many areas of the state, those herds have simply grown too large.” Therefore, the state has made an emergency order providing for an extra, reduced-price cow elk and elk calf license in some of the areas with too many elk. In fact, Game and Fish is trying so hard to get more hunting in the larger elk herds that they are offering special elk hunts on private lands. They are even encouraging elk hunters to buy three elk tags in some parts of the state.
READ MORE:
http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2012/09/04/wyoming-elk-herds-have-grown-too-large/
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Wyoming Game and Fish Department offers extra elk licenses
September 03, 2012 10:00 am • By CHRISTINE PETERSON Star-Tribune staff writer
Graceful and majestic, elk are one of Wyoming’s icons. Large herds draw hunters, photographers and viewers from around the globe hoping to catch a glimpse of a bull’s huge rack and hear its roaring bugle.
But in many areas of the state, those herds have simply grown too large, said Brian Nesvik, chief of the wildlife division for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
Game and Fish officials have tried recently to encourage hunting in the larger herds, even offering special elk hunts on private lands monitored by biologists. Department officials are going one step further this hunting season. Hunters can now buy three elk licenses in some areas.
Until this year, Wyoming state statute mandated each hunter could only hold two elk licenses. The Wyoming Legislature gave Game and Fish the ability to control elk license numbers during its last session. Wildlife officials made an emergency order in August offering an extra reduced-price cow and calf license in some of those overpopulated areas, Nesvik said.
http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming-game-and-fish-department-offers-extra-elk-licenses/article_7e73f58d-ae37-526d-9715-67c2f43f2086.html?comment_form=true
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We know the excuses for killing wolves in Wyoming and other states for that matter, are a sham. There is no reason to slaughter wolves. The propaganda campaign waged by the livestock and hunting cabals is just that, propaganda. It’s Kabuki Theater played out to justify the unjustifiable.
So what’s changed at USFWS and their 180 turn on the long sought after Wyoming wolf killing plan? Absolutely nothing except the appointment of Dan Ashe as head of USFWS.
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This was reported by the Wildlife News on July 1, 2011
“Career professional in agency to assume duties immediately after a long series of Republican “holds” on his nomination
The Fish and Wildlife Service has been led since January 2009 Acting Director Rowan Gould.
“Holds” in the U.S. Senate on bills and nominations have become a kind of one-person filibuster. It is becoming difficult for any President to get anyone approved after his first round of major nominations. Ashe was held up not because of any controversy over his person, but over efforts by Republications to extract policy changes in exchange for allowing a vote.
As “Cody Coyote” wrote in a recent comment in this forum, one of the holds was by a Wyoming U.S. Senator John Barrasso trying to assure that the Service would delist the wolf in Wyoming.”
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Draw your own conclusions on why Ashe’s appointment was “held up”? Was it a quid pro quo to ensure Wyoming wolves would be delisted?
There is something very ugly going on @ USFWS concerning the delisting of gray wolves. Animals recently off the Endangered Species List are now being hunted, tortured, persecuted and slaughtered all with the approval of USFWS. Idaho and Montana have started their hunt/killing spree. Beginning October 1, 2012, Wyoming wolves lives will be worth nothing. I expect lawsuits to be filed against this horrific policy but that’s not the point. The fact USFWS would sign on to this after fighting it for years makes absolutely no sense. But nothing about ” wolf management” (a euphemism for wolf slaughter) passes the smell test. Everyday there is a new scheme to kill wolves. It’s never-ending. It’s mind numbing. It’s a repeat of the past. It’s sadistic.
Hard to believe this was all made possible by Obama, his rancher Interior Secretary and US Senate Democrats, who pushed through a delisting rider on the back of a must-pass budget bill. All those sanctimonious Democrats who bill themselves as “environmentally” friendly, had no problem throwing wolves in the Northern Rockies under the bus to help Senator Tester D-MT hold onto his Senate seat, as he panders to the wolf hating crowd back home in Montana.
Now the Great Lakes wolf population is under siege after they were unceremoniously delisted last year. Almost immediately Wisconsin and Minnesota came up with wolf hunt plans. Wisconsin wanted to chase wolves with dogs. Judge Peter C. Anderson put a stop to that, slapping a temporary injunction on the plan, preventing wolf hunters from using dogs. His ruling was in response to a legal challenge brought by several environmental groups under the premise that the state of Wisconsin was promoting dog fighting. Hopefully the judge’s injunction will stop the Wisconsin wolf hunts this season but the DNR is scrambling to make it happen anyway, minus the dogs.
Minnesota, the oh so pragmatic and fair state, is just as bad. For years their policy was a 5 years moratorium on wolf hunts if wolves were ever delisted in the state.
“Minnesota’s initial plans for the species included a five-year moratorium on a hunting season. However that provision was removed by the legislature.” (Twin Cities/Daily Planet)
But lo and behold the Minnesota legislature changed that pretty quickly last year when wolf delisting was imminent. So much for tolerant Minnesota. Turns out they’re not so tolerant.
Michigan Rep. Huuki-R recently introduced a wolf hunt bill into the state House of Representatives, it looks like wolves will be given no quarter any where they call home.
If we don’t speak out now and turn the tide we’ll lose wolves once again in the lower 48. I’m not sure how many ways I can say this. I’ve written over seven hundred posts, in the last three years, on this tragedy. What will it take for citizens to finally wake up and realize we’re losing the iconic wolf, the very symbol of wildness and freedom we claim to hold so dear? How incredibly lucky we are to have intact ecosystems in the Northern Rockies with all apex predators represented. It’s one of the last vestiges of wildness remaining in the lower 48, yet we’re willing to let it slip away because a tiny majority of hateful people have decided the West and our wildlife belong to them, to dispose of as they see fit? Wake up America, we’re losing our heritage!!! Are we willing to let the inmates run the asylum? Or will we finally unite for a common purpose to save the gray wolf from the grimmest of fates? You decide!
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Wolves in Wyoming Go from Endangered to Hunted
(NEW YORK) — Federal and state officials are celebrating the successful return of once-endangered wolves to Wyoming — by declaring open season on the animals.
Beginning Oct. 1, gray wolves will be removed from the rolls of the Endangered Species Act and classified as predators, allowing Wyoming hunters to shoot the animals on sight at any time, for any reason, in about 85 percent of the state.
“Our primary goal, and that of the states, is to ensure that gray wolf populations in the Northern Rocky Mountains remain healthy, giving future generations of Americans the chance to hear its howl echo across the area,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe in a prepared statement.
Environmental groups that have gone to court over previous measures to de-list the wolves plan to fight the most recent change in the law, said Connie Wilbert, a field organizer for the Wyoming chapter of the Sierra Club.
Once killed nearly to extinction, in 1978 all species of the gray wolf in the lower 48 states were declared endangered and protected from hunting under federal law.
In the years since they received federal protection, wolf populations have returned across the West. As their numbers swelled, ranchers complained the animals routinely killed their livestock and petitioned the government for permission to kill them.
Removing wolves from the list would give ranchers in much of the state the right to kill wolves on sight. In other areas, wolves will be designated “trophy game” and subject to hunting during seasons regulated by the state.
READ MORE:
http://www.masoncountydailynews.com/news/national-news/38301-wolves-in-wyoming-go-from-endangered-to-hunted
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Photo: Black wolf wallpaper
Posted in: Wolf Wars, Wyoming wolves, Animal cruelty, Howling for Justice
Tags: USFWS about-face, Wyoming wolves, shoot-on-sight, Minnesota wolves, Idaho wolves, Montana wolves, Wisconsin wolves, biodiversity, wolf wars, wolf slaughter, back to the brutal past
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