Here’s adorable Agiwa and Tuffy, two little pups born at Wolf People!
Visit Wolf People and you’ll have a chance to see these little guys in all their cuteness overload. (-:
Photo: Courtesy of Wolf People
Posted in: gray wolf, biodiversity
Tags: wolf pups, Wolf People, wolf education, Idaho
August 2009, Lookout Pack Howling in the Methow Valley
Just a few short years ago wildlife advocates were celebrating the return of canis lupus to Washington state, after a seventy year absence. The Lookout Pack was formed, they made the Methow Valley their home. The wolf had come back to Washington!!
But something went terribly wrong. In 2008 a woman attempted to FedEx a dripping, bloody box containing a wolf pelt. Last year the alpha female of the Lookout Pack disappeared.
Now some members of a Washington state family have been indicted, by a federal grand jury, for poaching endangered wolves!!
Members of a Methow Valley ranching family have been charged in federal court in the killing of several endangered gray wolves and the attempt to illegally mail at least one of the pelts to Canada in a bloody box.
By Craig Welch
Seattle Times environment reporter
Originally published June 8, 2011 at 8:54 PM | Page modified June 9, 2011 at 6:24 AM
Members of a Methow Valley ranching family have been charged in the killing of several endangered gray wolves and the attempt to illegally mail at least one of the pelts to Canada in a bloody box.
A federal grand jury Tuesday handed up a 12-count indictment that accuses Bill White and his son Tom White, of the Twisp area in Okanogan County, of poaching at least two wolves and then conspiring with Tom’s wife, Erin White, to smuggle one of the pelts to an acquaintance in Alberta. The men may have killed another three of the endangered species, according to the indictment.
Activists pushing to see wolf populations restored in Washington applauded the charges.
“People who kill wolves are flat out poachers — people with disrespect for the law and for wildlife,” said Mitch Friedman, of Conservation Northwest. “It’s critical that we come down on them hard, and I’m glad to see that we are.”
The indictment is the first to come after a rash of suspicious wolf deaths, many involving a group of animals known as the Lookout Pack, which took up residence in the Methow Valley in 2008.
One skinned gray-wolf carcass was found dumped by the roadside in Skagit County with a bullet hole in it. Meanwhile, the Lookout Pack’s lone breeding female disappeared last year. She was wearing a radio collar that should have changed signals if she’d simply died. Instead it went silent, leaving state biologists to suspect it had been destroyed by a gunshot. She disappeared more than a year after federal agents began investigating the Whites.
Canis lupus was extirpated from the American West more than 70 years ago, but the animals were reintroduced in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in 1995. Since then, wolves from there and from British Columbia have begun recolonizing Washington, thrilling conservationists and frustrating some livestock owners who fear wolves may decimate their herds of cows and sheep.
The White case surfaced in late 2008, when a woman walked into a FedEx office in Omak and attempted to mail what she said was a rug. The shipping agent refused to mail the package after he saw it was leaking blood. Omak police were called, discovered the pelt and sent it to wildlife agents who confirmed it was from a wolf, according to a search-warrant affidavit.
Investigators used security cameras to trace the woman and her car to the Whites’ house. During a search of two homes occupied by the Whites near Lookout Mountain, agents seized a computer that included photos of Tom White posing with a large wolf with a damaged paw, the search-warrant affidavit said.
The indictment describes the case against the White family like this:
In late 2007, after reports of wolves began to surface in Eastern Washington, Bill White emailed a relative in Alaska asking for help in finding someone who knew how to snare wolves in a trap. Six weeks later he emailed someone that he and others were hunting three wolves near his home.
Tom White allegedly killed one wolf in mid-May 2008 and another in December, one of which he skinned, the indictment says. His father allegedly contacted a friend in Alberta and offered him “a really big coyote” for tanning.
Just before Christmas, according to the indictment, Erin White drove the pelt to the shipping agent in Omak and used a false name to attempt to send it to Canada.
Later, in January 2009, Bill White again sent an email to someone claiming he and others had shot two wolves in a group of nine and one wolf in a group of three. It’s not clear whether he was claiming they had shot three more wolves, or three total. That same month, the indictment alleges, Bill White also illegally applied pesticides in a manner intended to kill wolves.
Bill White faces nine felony counts, including conspiracy and obstruction charges. If convicted, the combined charges could result in decades in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
If Tom White is convicted, he faces up to eight years in prison, while a conviction for his wife could lead to a sentence of more than 10 years.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015269378_wolves09m.html
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Happier Times!
Lookout pups caught frolicking on a trail camera, August 2008.
If these people are found guilty I hope they throw the book at them!!
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http://www.conservationnw.org/news/justice-for-lookout-wolves
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Videos: Courtesy of Conservation NW
Posted in: Wolf Wars, Washington’s wolves
Tags: Poachers, Lookout Pack, Wolf Wars, Washington, Methow Valley, Conservation NW, wolf pups, Lookout Pack alpha female, FedEx
Candy Mountain Pack 4/1 Authorized to kill two wolves (breeding pair end of 2009)
Dry Forks Pack 4/6 Removing wolves and collaring wolves, 4/7 one wolf killed, possibly two. (breeding pair end of 2009)
Ninemile Pack 3/23 one wolf shot from helicopter (breeding pair end of 2009)
Silcox Pack 3/ 5 one pup killed (breeding pair end of 2009)
Superior Pack 4/20 two wolves killed, 4/21 alpha male killed which removed the entire pack ( six wolves killed in total) (was breeding pair end of 2009)
Cedar Creek Pack 4/22 WS services given permission to kill five wolves from this pack, WS has killed three of those wolves
Trapper Peak Pack: alpha male and another wolf killed 2009, 4/13 (aprox date) yearling wolf shot by rancher, 4/23 WS authorized to kill entire pack
3/8 one wolf killed
3/23 three wolves killed
4/9 Gunning for entire wolf pack near Wisdom
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The Idaho Wolf Management Progress Report has been released by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. So far the report says there have been 28 wolves killed for 14 livestock animals taken. This doesn’t make sense when you consider that last month’s depredation numbers were the same as this month’s yet they report that 8 calves were taken and 10 wolves killed this month. Something didn’t get updated properly.
It also notes that “Additional capture efforts are planned through April.” This is noteworthy since wolves den in April. Does this mean that they have been capturing pregnant females just before denning? Usually ground trapping doesn’t occur when there is a chance of freezing temperatures due to the possibility of injury to the wolves’ feet so presumably capturing refers to aerial darting of wolves.
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Posted: Apr 28, 2010 4:09 PM
By Mark Holyoak
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The federal authorization for each state to reduce wolves to 100-150 animals puts northern Rockies wolves on a spiral toward extinction.
By Michael J. Robinson, Guest Writer, 4-21-10
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Mailing Address
Montana Office of Tourism
PO Box 200533
Helena MT 59620-0501
Email
mt-webmaster@visitmt.com
Phone/FAX
Phone: 406.841.2870
Fax: 406.841.2871
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Lastly, please stop eating beef!! It’s a cruel industry and will help save wolves. Watch Earthlings and Food, Inc. to see how much ranchers care about their cows and sheep. It will make you sick!
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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.
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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 Vital Ground
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
