Wolf Violation Notice Delivered To Montana Governor Steve Bullock….

October 23, 2014

It’s time to start thinking outside the box concerning the decimation of America’s wolves and WWAG is certainly doing that. Trying to protect Montana and Idaho wolves, by fighting for them in federal court,  was hamstrung by the budget bill-wolf delisting rider, passed by the Democrat controlled US Senate, in 2011, which took judicial review off the table.

WWAG is demanding wolves be placed back under federal protection stating  “Montana’s wolf management policy violates the United Nations Charter for Nature, !”

“Why are these psychopaths allowed to torture animals in this country, yet 86 other countries have banned trapping?” asked WWAG member Michelle Domeier.

The group held posters showing wolves dead in both foothold traps and snares identified as legal means of killing wolves in Montana. More than 2,600 wolves had been killed since being strippedfrom federal protections, they said.

After speaking on the Capitol steps, WWAG member Karen Wells delivered the violation notice to the governor’s office, which was taken by staff in Bullock’s absence….Independant Record

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UPDATED: Group demands return of federal wolf protections at Capitol protest

‘VIOLATION NOTICE’ DELIVERED TO GOVERNOR’S OFFICE DURING PROTEST AT CAPITOL

October 20, 2014 6:52 pm  •  TOM KUGLIN Independent Record

Saying that Montana’s wolf management policy violates the United Nations Charter for Nature, members of the Wolf and Wildlife Action Group delivered a “violation notice” to Gov. Steve Bullock’s office at the Capitol Monday.

Montana’s wolf policy allows for a landowner to kill up to 100 wolves, using what WWAG called cruel and barbaric methods such as aerial gunning and trapping, the violation notice said.

The policy is an attempt to exterminate the gray wolf, and WWAG demanded that wolves return to federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, said member Jeanne Rasmussen.

Bullock was not at his office at the time WWAG delivered the violation notice.

“They are being shot and trapped and gut shot, and they burn baby pups out of their dens,” Rasmussen said. “Hunters just want them eliminated.”

WWAG described itself as an “international grassroots organization” at the Capitol on behalf of 80 percent of Americans who want wolves protected.

Madison County resident Diane Nelson-Steiner spoke passionately about wolves killed near her home along the Big Hole River. She recalled an entire pack shot by government officials flying a USDA plane, and seeing the animals left to rot.

“To see those wolves killed and laying in a field is horrible,” Nelson-Steiner said. “They killed most of the Big Hole pack, and since then we’ve been overrun with elk and deer. It’s getting absolutely ridiculous with the herds getting to be overly large.”

Wolves also kept coyote numbers in check, which have increased dramatically since elimination of the wolf pack, she said.

Nelson-Steiner and her husband, Tim Steiner, brought several foothold traps they said were found illegally set on their property by trappers after wolves. They have found or heard of multiple animals caught in traps including domestic cats and dogs, an eagle, a badger and coyotes, but no wolves, Steiner said.

“Yes that’s cruel and inhumane,” Steiner said while holding a trap. “Animal cruelty is against the law in all 50 states. It’s not just wolves they’re catching; it’s everything else.”

“Why are these psychopaths allowed to torture animals in this country, yet 86 other countries have banned trapping?” asked WWAG member Michelle Domeier.

The group held posters showing wolves dead in both foothold traps and snares identified as legal means of killing wolves in Montana. More than 2,600 wolves had been killed since being strippedfrom federal protections, they said.

After speaking on the Capitol steps, WWAG member Karen Wells delivered the violation notice to the governor’s office, which was taken by staff in Bullock’s absence.

“Montana has a highly-effective wolf management plan, developed through collaboration with stakeholders and based on scientific principles and thorough research,” said Kevin O’Brien, Bullock’s deputy chief of staff, in an email. “While some on the far left and far right may take issue with the management plan, it has resulted in healthy wolf populations in Montana.”

Within the violation notice, WWAG made the following statement:

“One Montana landowner deems a wolf a ‘problem’ wolf (and) they can legally kill it, and may ‘legally’ kill up to 100 Wolves in any cruel method, including cruel and barbaric leg hold traps and snares, poisoning, gassing and burning alive pups in their dens, stomping, clubbing, gut shooting, chasing down and shooting from the air, with no restrictions or quotas. In addition, wolf ‘hunting’ and trapping is allowed from Oct. to May.”

That statement contains several inaccuracies in reference to seasons and new regulations for landowners, said FWP spokesman Tom Palmer. Hunting and foothold traps are legal methods of take, while other methods are prohibited by hunters or trappers, he said.

Montana’s general wolf hunting season runs from Sept. 15 to March 15. The archery only season runs from Sept. 6 to Sept. 14. The trapping season runs from Dec. 15 to Feb. 28, according to regulations. Landowners can kill wolves threatening livestock or people out of season and without a permit under FWP rules.

“Most of this isn’t allowed,” he said. “Snares aren’t allowed. You can’t bait or poison them. You can’t burn them alive. Gut shooting isn’t allowed.”

Landowners also do not have special regulations allowing aerial shooting, he said.

The Fish and Wildlife Commission approved rules that allow up to 100 wolves per landowner, authorized at 25 at a time, he said. Landowners have harvested four wolves under the rules, he said, and baiting is not allowed either in hunting or trapping.

“They (wolves) have to be actively threatening you or your livestock,” Palmer said. “The chances of a landowner seeing a threat and setting out a trap immediately is almost nill.”

When told of FWP’s response, Nelson-Steiner insisted that the regulations allow landowners to use “any” means of killing wolves.

Violations of existing regulations have run rampant, and FWP and the sheriff’s office have failed to enforce state laws in her area, Nelson-Steiner said.

On the issue of international law, Bullock was in direct violation of several items within the UN’s charter, Wells said.

“We demand that these violations be corrected forthwith or these violations will be brought before the International Court of Justice,” the violation notice said.

Click HERE To Read the Violation Notice

http://helenair.com/wolf-violation-notice/pdf_6c652dcc-e4fe-532b-bebf-8c4d4c090f11.html

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Photo: Courtesy Fanpop

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Montana wolves, Activism, Animals Cruelty

Tags: WWAG, Gov. Steve Bullock, Montana wolves, Stop the wolf hunt, United Nations Charter for Nature, trophy hunting evil, wolves suffering, wolf persecution

Wisconsin Trophy Hunters Slaughter 91 Wolves in 5 days, Go Over Limit In Two Zones

UPDATE: October 21, 2014

The numbers changed today on the DNR 2014 “wolf harvest”. It’s now 92 wolves dead but the numbers have moved around on the chart.  Hmmmm. Notice there is one less dead wolf in Zone 1, where trophy hunters went over the legal limit. Yesterday the number  of wolves killed in that zone was 37, now it’s 36. So one dead wolf was moved from Zone 1 and added to Zone 3.  Also notice that it says “Zones will close when quotas are reached”. So how did they allow so many wolves to die above the legal limit?  It’s bad enough there is a hunt at all but hunters in Zone 2 killed FOURTEEN more wolves than they were supposed to. And in Zone 1 they killed 5 wolves, now it’s been changed to 4, over the legal limit. That’s 18 dead wolves who shouldn’t be dead. This is outrageous!!

I hate that I have to look at this chart. I hate that I have to ask about dead wolf numbers. I hate I used the word “harvest”, if only to describe what’s on the chart.

Have wolf advocates been reduced to counting dead wolves? It’s so incredibly maddening.

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Wisconsin DNR Wolf “Harvest”

It’s bad enough 91 wolves have been slaughtered in Wisconsin since October 15 (just five days) but notice Wisconsin trophy hunters are going over  legal limits of killing wolves. In Zone 1 by 5 wolves and in Zone 2 by 14 wolves. Is the DNR ignoring what amounts to poaching of wolves by not monitoring the hunt closely and letting hunters kill wolves with impunity?

Please flood their lines and ask why hunters have been allowed to go over the legal hunting limit in Zone 2 by 14 wolves and Zone 1 by 5 wolves. Do they care?

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Governor Scott Walker

(608)266-1212

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Wisconsin DNR

Call Center Staff Available 7 Days a Week (7 a.m.-10 p.m.)

General Information 1-888-WDNRINFo | (1-888-936-7463) | Hours: 7 a.m. – 10 p.m.
101 S. Webster Street . PO Box 7921 . Madison, Wisconsin 53707-7921 . 608-266-2621

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“This picture out of the Wisconsin killing fields has been making the rounds on the internet. This is just one of the 85  91 wolves reported killed since last Wednesday. Source unknown and used under “Fair Use.”  (From Our Wisconsin, Our Wildlife)”

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Seems like Wisconsin trophy hunters are well on their way to beating the 2013 over-limit:

UPDATE: Wis. wolf season ends with 6 extra wolves killed

Posted: Thu 3:24 PM, Dec 26, 2013

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin wolf hunters and trappers went slightly over the quota this season.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said Thursday the 2013 season ended with 257 wolves harvested. That’s six animals over the 251-wolf limit.

http://www.nbc15.com/news/state/headlines/Wis-wolf-hunt-gets-underway-227838411.html

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Posted in: Wolf Wars, Wisconsin Wolves, gray wolves

Top Photos: Wisconsin DNR

Bottom Photo: Courtesy Our Wisconsin, Our Wildlife

Tags: Wolf killing frenzy, Wisconsin, wolf slaughter, State should be ashamed, wolves suffering, contact the Wisconsin DNR, over-limit in 2013 as well

Wisconsin Trophy Hunters Wipe Out 65 Wolves In Just 4 Days..

Deja’ Vu – Slaughtered Wisconsin Wolf – 1909 – What’s different today?

October 18, 2014

There’s a wolf killing frenzy going on in Wisconsin. In just four days Wisconsin trophy hunters have slaughtered 65 wolves, that’s over 16 wolves per day. Wolves are being tracked and trailed by up to 6 dogs per hunter and I don’t believe for one second that some of those wolves haven’t been directly killed by dogs or at the very least bitten multiple times before they’re killed by the hunters. Can you imagine the terror wolves face as their chased by barking dogs and hunters?

Besides legalized dog/wolf fighting,Wisconsin allows wolves to be trapped, arrowed, shot and baited. And they’re killing wolf puppies, who are barely eight months old. Trophy hunting is sick and anyone who engages in it needs their heads examined.

The Badger state trophy hunters are acting like barbarians, this is nothing but blood lust and hatred toward an animal who’s been persecuted for hundreds of years in this country. Shame on the Obama Administration for allowing  USFWS to delist Great Lakes wolves. They’ve turned wolves over to their greatest enemies, fish and game agencies.

IMO Ted Nugent was obviously encouraging poaching of Wisconsin wolves when he  posted this on his Facebook page on October 17, 2014.

“WISCONSIN Spirit BloodBrothers the Weisner family trapped this stunning wolf. Though no state has issued an adeqaute number of wolf tags, believe when I tell you that certain WE THE PEOPLE in touch caring Americans are killing MANY MANY more wolves than the numbnut corrupt dishonest PC government thugs allow. Kill as many as you can real conservationists. The wolf population is irresponsibly & dangerously out of control. Wolf jackets ROCK!!”

Is Wisconsin DNR investigating Nugent’s outrageous comment? I doubt it, they’re too busy sucking up to their customers, the hunters.

BOYCOTT WISCONSIN!

Don’t buy their cheese or any products they sell. Don’t visit or take vacations there. The only way to send a message to the state is to hit them in their pocketbook. Maybe they’ll reconsider their disgusting “dog fighting” wolf hunt.

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Patricia Randolph’s Madravenspeak: Why is the DNR destroying our wolves?

October 12, 2014 4:30 am  •  PATRICIA RANDOLPH | state columnist

“My favorite recipe for wolf is to skin it, piss on it and let it rot for the maggots. Then cash in the hide and watch people like you squirt a tear over it.” — Dwayne Glosemeyer, Wisconsin Wolf Hunt Facebook page 

Dwayne Glosemeyer’s in-your-face arrogance flinging torture and disrespect for wolves at wolf advocates mirrors the hatred of wolves promoted by the Department of Natural Resources. The DNR has a flagrant disregard for science, nature, and the majority of citizens in Wisconsin.

Paul Paquet is a world-renowned Canadian biologist who has been studying wolves for over four decades. He is on the advisory/science and recovery board of the Living with Wolves organization started by Jim and Jamie Dutcher after they lived with and filmed the Sawtooth Pack for six years. The organization’s goal is to stop the slaughter of wolves. Jane Goodall and Robert Redford are on the honorary board. I heard Paquet speak passionately against hunting wolves, as a moral issue, at the International Wolf Symposium last October in Duluth, Minn. He co-signed the letter sent by UW-Madison’s Adrian Treves recommending suspension of the 2014 Wisconsin wolf hunt.

READ MORE:

http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/column/patricia-randolph-s-madravenspeak-why-is-the-dnr-destroying-our/article_f47037c0-845d-57e8-8a01-923ea29bad48.html

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Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Wisconsin wolves, gray wolves

Tags: brutality, barbarism, 65 wolves slaughtered in 4 days, Wisconsin DNR,  Ted Nugent encourages poaching of wolves?, wolves suffering, Patricia Randolph, Madravenspeak

Idaho Wolf Trapping Torture Is Here AGAIN…

Idaho opened their second wolf trapping season yesterday. Wolves in Idaho now face more pain, suffering and brutality.

Warning graphic Video

A helpless, struggling wolf is shot while caught in a leg-hold trap. Can it get more cowardly than this? Some trappers stomp and strangle wolves to death to preserve the “pelt”.  This video was uploaded December 23, 2011, on YouTube by someone called wolfkillr. This is the ugly face of trapping. I know it’s hard to watch but America needs to see the brutality and the evil that is trapping. Can you imagine the fear this wolf experienced?

Idaho Says “Make It Hurt!”  forbidanimalcruelty.com

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NIWA (Northern Idaho Wolf Alliance) was in Coeur d’ alene yesterday protesting the opening of wolf trapping season in Idaho.

My good friend, Ann Sydow brought her beautiful Plott Hound Boomer as a Canis lupus familiaris ambassador, standing up for his wolf brothers.

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Opening day of trapping season draws protest

Posted: Friday, November 16, 2012 12:17 am

By BILL BULEY/Staff writer | 0 comments

COEUR d’ALENE

http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_0f3b7480-2fc6-11e2-b9d5-0019bb2963f4.html

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Video: YouTube uploaded by wolfkillr

Top Photo: Courtesy forbidanimalcruelty.com

Bottom Photo Courtesy CDA Press: SHAWN GUST/Press

Posted in: Wolf Wars

Tags: trapping cruelty, Idaho wolf trapping, wolves suffering, stop killing wolves

EIJ: Wolf Torture and Execution Continues in the Northern Rockies by J. William Gibson

(From Earth Island Journal) A Hunter and his dead prey

Montana Anti-Trapping Group Gets Death Threat for Releasing Photos

On March 16, a Friday, a US Forest Service employee from Grangeville, Idaho, laid out his traps wolf. The following Monday, using the name “Pinching,” he posted his story and pictures on www.Trapperman.com . “I got a call on Sunday morning from a FS [Forest Service] cop that I know. You got one up here as there was a crowd forming. Several guys had stopped and taken a shot at him already,” wrote Pinching. The big, black male wolf stood in the trap, some 300-350 yards from the road, wounded—the shots left him surrounded by blood-stained snow. Pinching concluded his first post, “Male that went right at 100 pounds. No rub spots on the hide, and he will make me a good wall hanger.”

The Trapperman website went wild with comments. “That’s a dandy!! Keep at it,” wrote Watarrat. Otterman asked, “All the gray on that muzzle make a guy wonder how old he is or if it is just part of his black coloring.” Pinching’s picture of the wolf’s paw caught in the trap got special attention. “Is that the MB750 stamped ‘wolf’ on the pan?” asked one man. “Looks to be a perfect pad catch. Congratulations! Pinching confirmed the trap model and commented, “Oh an [sic] by the way, a wolf is a heck of a lot of work to put on a stretcher! Man those things hold on to their hide like no other!”

Read More: 

http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/wolf_torture_and_execution_continues_in_the_northern_rockies/

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Trapped Wolf Used for Target Practice

Wolf torture continues and is praised by some while critics are threatened.

Published on March 29, 2012

by Marc Bekoff, Ph.D. in Animal Emotions

Wolves remain in the crosshairs and the teeth of leghold traps in the Northern Rockies (see and). Let me say upfront that I apologize for posting this brief alert, but it’s essential that people who don’t know about what’s happening learn about the barbaric treatment of wolves, and also for the skeptics to see it up close and personal if they can stand it.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201203/trapped-wolf-used-target-practice

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Photo: Courtesy Earth Island Journal

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Trapping wolves

Tags: trapping cruelty, war on wolves,  wolves suffering,  Earth Island Journal, J. William Gibson

Idaho Wolves Howling For Justice…..

Update: March 27, 2012

I see the trapper website where those horrible images of the trapped and doomed wolf  reside has been password protected so you won’t be able to access the site through the KOS article, which is still up BTW. But the images are all over Facebook, not hard to find. The one thing trappers don’t want is for people to see the suffering they cause. Big mistake on their part posting those pictures but we’re thankful they were posted because the wolf won’t have suffered and died in vain. Now his pain  has been exposed for all the world to see and it’s uglier than anything I’ve ever witnessed and will stay with me all of my days. Rest in peace beautiful black wolf, we have your back.

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The Daily KOS spells out the terrible situation Idaho wolves find themselves in. The brutality and cruelty are escalating. With the addition of trapping and snaring to IDFG’s bag of tricks the suffering quotient for wolves has climbed dramatically.  The situation is spinning out of control.

Mon Mar 26, 2012 at 10:28 AM PDT

Idaho wolves in serious trouble

by Gallatin

Ever since Obama and John Tester worked to remove wolves from the endangered species list for political purposes, it’s been bad times for wolves. Of course, there’s a track record for all of this. It was the failure of the states that initially killed off the wolves to begin with, forcing them into the government’s hands and the Endangered Species List.

It looks like the states are at it again, and this time Idaho is leading the path to extermination.

There were many of us who cried foul when Tester introduced a rider that would undermine the ESA, the first of its kind, opening the door for wholesale destruction of species by single interests. It was even more shocking when Obama signed the bill into law.

Reasonable people would expect a few wolves to be killed with rifles, and that many of these would be clean. But there’s nothing reasonable about the wolf hate in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

Recent images have become available of a trapped wolf at the far end of a blood circle in the snow. In the photo, a hunter appears to be smiling for a pose. Posters to the website indicate the wolf was shot at while it waited for the trapper to return. Who knows how long it was there, but it looked like quite a while with all that blood in the snow.

Read More

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/26/1077348/-Idaho-wolves-in-serious-trouble-graphic-images-

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Contact information is included in the article for President Obama and Senator Tester. Please use them!!

Idaho wolves need protection from the hate.

IDAHO: 364 wolves killed. (368 Wolves Killed (251 shot, 117 trapped or snared)

 (3/26/12)

535 Wolves DEAD in Idaho/Montana hunts 

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Photo: http://candleinthedarkness.com/

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Idaho Wolves, Animal Cruelty

Tags:  Idaho wolves, trapping cruelty, wolves suffering, speak out, Senator Tester, President Obama

Wolves Trapped To Death

Warning Graphic Photos

A wolf choked to death by a killing snare. This is the face of trapping, so hard to look at but in good conscience can we look away?

Every day I wrestle with what to post or not. The pictures are shocking and gruesome but necessary because they shine a bright light on trapping and snaring. I do it for the wolves who’s howls are being  silenced by this brutality.

This post is dedicated to the first wolf trapped in Idaho.  She was trapped or snared & killed on Nov 16 in the Dworshak-Elk City Zone in Unit 14, near the old ghost town of Florence. The small female wolf, killed on the second day of Idaho’s first ever wolf trapping season of modern times, weighed 80 lbs and was a subadult (1 1/2 years old). This area used to be the home range of the Florence Wolf Pack, but after heavy-handed control ordered by IDFG, that pack has ceased to exist. Florence is located in the mountains north of the Salmon River, some 15 miles form Riggins. Idaho trappers can kill up to ten wolves in the 2011-12 trapping season which goes from Nov. 15 to March 31.

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Trapped

by Tim Woody

Photo by Tim Woody

This is no way to see a beautiful animal.

We were rambling across the Portage flats in search of a decent trail on Saturday when my friend Mark stopped at the edge of a copse of alders. A few feet into the brush, a large, healthy wolf lowered itself back to the snow, exhausted and in pain, its right front leg crushed by a steel-jawed trap.

The wolf’s struggle was evident for yards around the wooden post to which the trap was anchored. Trampled snow was covered with splintered wood, chunks of ice, and blood spatters. But this once-powerful animal was done fighting. Its eyes watched us, but it was too tired to hold its head up and track our movements. Its breathing was shallow. We wondered how long it had been there facing its slow, painful death. There is no state law mandating how frequently trappers must check their traplines.

We wished we had a pistol, because the scene in front of us was one of dreadful suffering. A merciful bullet would have made everyone feel better. There was nothing we could do except spare the wolf further anxiety by continuing on our way.

READ MORE: http://www.alaskamagazine.com/blogs/trapped

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The Art of Trapping Idaho’s Wolves

http://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/2011/11/21/the-art-of-trapping-idahos-wolves/

This is an extremely one-sided story glorifying trapping and snaring, and how great it is to pass this cruel & inhumane “hobby” on to your children and grandchildren. Boise State Public Radio missed the boat on this one.

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Tread carefully with traps Fish & Game balances hunters, wolves, wildlife

http://www.cdapress.com/news/outdoors/article_0d3899c9-0ddf-5103-8c51-140c6bb5eed6.html

IDFG brought in an Alaskan trapper with plenty of killing experience to spread his knowledge to wolf haters signing up by the hundreds for the trapping course.

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I’ve asked a lot of you over the last several years but this is the gravest crisis wolves have faced since their reintroduction. The wolf hunts have taken an even darker turn with the introduction of snares and traps in Idaho. Speak out for them before it’s too late. They are dying at an alarming rate, 236 dead and climbing.  That’s not counting the wolves killed by Wildlife Services in 2011.

CONTACT

Governor Butch Otter

Phone: 208-334-2100

Fax: (208) 334-3454

http://www.gov.idaho.gov/ourgov/contact.html

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Idaho Fish and Game Commissioners

http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/cms/about/commission/members.cfm

Panhandle Region

Tony McDermott

 Chairman, Idaho Fish & Game Commissioner

mcmule@msn.com

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Clearwater Region

Fred Trevey
fred.trevey@idfg.idaho.gov

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Southwest Region

Bob Barowsky
bbarowsky@fmtc.com

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Magic Valley Region

Wayne Wright
2wrights@cableone.net

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Southeast Region

Randy Budge
rcb@racinelaw.net

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Upper Snake Region

Kenny Anderson
kenny.anderson@idfg.idaho.gov

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Salmon Region

Gary Power
gpower@centurytel.net

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Idaho Fish and Game

IDFG Director Virgil Moore:

(208) 334-3771

virgil.moore@idfg.idaho.gov

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Jon Rachael, IDFG Wildlife Dept.

(208) 334-2920  

jon.rachael@idfg.idaho.gov

Idaho Fish and Game General Numbers Click Here

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Idaho tourism office

http://www.visitidaho.org/contact/

For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing….Simon Wiesenthal

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Top Photo: Hunt 101

Middle Photo: Courtesy Tom Woody

Bottom Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Posted In: Wolf Wars, Idaho wolves, Trapping wolves

Tags: Idaho wolves, snares, leg hold traps, wolves suffering, trapping animal cruelty

Back To Court….

UPDATE: November 8, 2011

No word from the Ninth Circuit yet!!

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Advocates seek stop to Idaho, Montana wolf hunts

By MATTHEW BROWN and NOAKI SCHWARTZ – Associated Press | AP

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Wildlife advocates appeared in federal court Tuesday seeking to stop gray wolf hunts that are already well under way in the Northern Rockies, arguing that Congress overstepped its authority in stripping federal protections from the canines.

Federal biologists say the wolf population is healthy enough to support the hunts in Idaho and Montana. The two states want to drive down the predators’ numbers to curb their attacks on livestock and big game herds.

But wildlife advocates say too many wolves are being shot too quickly, threatening to unravel the species’ decades-long recovery and killing animals closely followed by wolf watchers.

Almost 170 wolves have been shot since hunting began in late August.

“The longer the hunting season goes on, the more risk to the population in total,” said James “Jay” Tutchton, an attorney who spoke on behalf of WildEarth Guardians, one of the groups that sued Interior Secretary Ken Salazar after wolves lost their federal protections.

The hunts were allowed after Congress last spring took the unprecedented step of stripping endangered species protections from more than 1,300 wolves. That prompted a lawsuit from wildlife advocates who say Congress effectively reversed prior court rulings that favored protections for the animals.

Tuesday’s hearing was before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, Calif.

The 9th Circuit agreed to hear the case on an expedited basis. But several groups involved in the lawsuit requested an injunction to stop the killing of wolves while the case is pending.

Read More: http://news.yahoo.com/advocates-seek-stop-idaho-montana-wolf-hunts-220628246.html

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November 8, 2011 @ 5am

Today is a landmark day for wolves. The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing oral arguments on the wolf delisting lawsuit and considering the emergency injunction, to stop the brutal wolf hunts in Idaho and Montana. Wish we could be in Pasadena with everyone. Thanks in advance to all the dedicated wolf advocates who are taking the time to travel to the courthouse in a show of solidarity. Best of luck to the attorneys who are fighting the good fight for our wolves.

CLICK HERE to read the renewed emergency motion as filed.

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Death Toll November 8, 2011

167 Wolves Slaughtered In The Hunts

103 Killed By Wildlife Services and Ranchers (for ridiculously low depredations)

“Even without hunting, wolves are shot regularly in the region in response to livestock attacks. At least 103 of the predators had been killed this year by government wildlife agents and ranchers.”

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Total 264 dead wolves and it’s only November.

These numbers also don’t reflect poaching or general wolf mortality.

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Ranchers routinely lose thousands and thousands of cows every year to non-predation, IE: weather, disease, calving, theft.

2010 Cattle Loss Numbers Non-Predation (NASS)

Idaho: 86,900

Montana: 74,800

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Total: 161, 700

Yet wolves are dying because of extremely low depredations in each state. Why aren’t ranchers squawking about the 161,700 cows they lost in 2010 to non-predation?

This is a campaign to demonize wolves. The media glosses over or doesn’t report at all on the non-predation livestock losses.

Livestock are also lost to other predators. Feral dogs and coyotes are responsible for the majority of livestock  depredations but it’s wolves that garner the negative attention.

We can only hope the truth rings out loud and clear today in the Pasadena courtroom and the wolves plaintive howls of suffering are finally heard.

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Idaho and Montana state wolf hunts head to court

BILLINGS, Mont.—Wildlife advocates are due in federal court Tuesday seeking an injunction to stop gray wolf hunts already well under way in the Northern Rockies.

Federal biologists say the wolf population is healthy enough to support the hunts in Idaho and Montana. The two states want to drive down the predators’ numbers to curb their attacks on livestock and big game herds.

But wildlife advocates say too many wolves are being shot too quickly, threatening to unravel the species’ decades-long recovery and killing animals closely followed by wolf watchers.

More than 150 wolves have been shot since hunting began in late August.

Tuesday’s hearing is before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, Calif. The hunts were allowed after Congress last spring took the unprecedented step of stripping endangered species protections from more than 1,300 wolves. That prompted a lawsuit from wildlife advocates who say Congress overstepped its bounds by effectively reversing prior court rulings that favored protections for the animals.

The 9th Circuit has agreed to hear the case on an expedited basis. But several groups involved in the lawsuit requested an injunction to stop the killing of wolves while the case is pending.

“We perceive a continuing threat not just to the population in total but to particular individual wolves. Even if the court is going to delay another three months, we would like them to stop the hunt while they consider the case,” said attorney Jay Tutchton with plaintiff WildEarth Guardians.

Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/11/08/idaho_and_montana_state_wolf_hunts_head_to_court/

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Photo: Lawyer Mohawk Courtesy A.S.

Posted in: Wolf Wars

Tags: US Ninth Circuit, emergency injunction, Pasadena, brutal wolf hunts, wolves suffering

Trophy Hunting, Legalized Animal Cruelty….

Trophy hunting is nothing more than animal cruelty couched as a “sport”. There is nothing sporting about it.

Wolves are being subjected to trophy hunts in the Northern Rockies as I type this. The death toll continues to climb in Idaho, a state that’s declared war on its wolves, along with Montana  and Wyoming.

To understand the brutality of trophy hunting just peruse YouTube to see video after video of trophy hunters displaying their sad corpses, while they “lord over them”, grinning  like Cheshire cats. It’s bone chilling.

Trophy hunting  exists because it’s a billion dollar world wide industry, blood money generated off animal deaths.  A macabre killing game, costing millions of  innocent animals their lives. Game farms in South Africa raise tame lions to be killed in “canned hunts”, the most disgusting form of trophy hunting.

In his famous 1999 article, African lion advocate and wildlife researcher, Gareth Patterson,  examines the  connection between trophy hunting and serial killing.

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Is Trophy Hunting a Form of Serial Killing?

By Gareth Patterson

For me – and the many people who contact me to offer their support – killing innocent animals for self-gratification is no different from killing innocent people for self-gratification. By extension, then, trophy hunting – the repeated killing of wild animals – should surely be viewed as serial killing. And in the same moral light humanity’s thinking is, I feel, beginning to approach such a level of morality.

What are the comparisons between trophy hunting and serial killing?

To attempt to answer this question, I did some research into the gruesome subject of serial killing. I learnt firstly that serial murder is a grotesque habit which analysts regard as addictive. Serial murder, I learnt, is about power and control – both linked to the killers’ longing to “be important”.

It appears when the serial killer commits the first act of murder, he experiences feelings such as revulsion and remorse, but the killing – like a dose of highly addictive drug – leads to more and more murders until the person is stopped. Researchers have discovered that serial murderers experience a cooling-off period after a killing, but as with a drug craving, the compulsion – the need to kill – keeps building up until the killer heads out again in search of another victim.

Trophy hunters are mostly “repeat” killers. This is further fuelled by elite trophy hunting competitions. It has been calculated that in order for a hunter to win these competitions in all categories at the highest level, he would have to kill at least 322 animals.

Pornography is perceived by analysts as a factor that contributes toward serial killers’ violent fantasies – particularly “bondage-type” pornography portraying domination and control over a victim.

Hunting magazines contain page after page of (a) pictures of hunters, weapon in hand, posing in dominating positions over their lifeless victims, (b) advertisements offering a huge range of trophy hunts, and (c) stories of hunters’ “exciting” experience of “near misses” and danger.

These pages no doubt titillate the hunter, fuelling his own fantasies and encouraging him to plan more and more trophy hunts.

Trophy hunters often hire a cameraperson to film their entire hunt in the bush, including the actual moments when animals are shot and when they die. These films are made to be viewed later, presumably for self-gratification and to show to other people – again the need to feel “important”?

This could also be seen as a form of trophy which mirrors in some respect pornographic “snuff” videos known to be made by some serial killers. Other serial killers have tape-recorded the screams of their victims, which were kept for later self-gratification.

There is a strong urge to achieve perceived “heroism” in serial murderers. This is linked to the individual’s craving for “self-esteem”. Student Robert Smith, for example, who in November 1996 walked into a beauty parlour in Mesa, Arizona, and shot five women and two children in the back of the heads, said of his motivation to kill: “I wanted to become known, to get myself a name”.

Multiple killer Cari Panzram (among whose victims were six Africans he shot in the back “for fun” while working for an oil company in Africa) once stated of his actions: “I reform people”. When asked how, he replied: “By killing them”. Panzram also liked to describe himself as “the man who goes around doing good”.

The “Stockwell Strangler” of South London in the mid-1980s who told police he wanted to be famous is another example of how the serial killer clearly confuses notoriety for fame.

Are the trophy hunter’s killings linked to the serial killer’s addiction to murder, to achieve what is perceived to be heroism, to deep-rooted low self-esteem, to wanting to be famous – the “name in the trophy book”?

Certainly one could state that, like the serial killer, the trophy hunter plans his killing with considerable care and deliberation. Like the serial killer he decides well in advance the “type” of victim – i.e. which species he intends to target. Also, like the serial killer, the trophy hunter plans with great care where and how the killing will take place – in what area, with what weapon.

What the serial killer and trophy hunter also share is a compulsion to collect “trophies” or “souvenirs” of their killings. The serial killer retains certain body parts or other “trophies … for much the same reason as the big game hunter mounts the head and antlers taken from his prey … as trophies of the chase,” according to Colin Wilson and Donald Seaman in The Serial Killers, a book on the psychology of violence.

In The Serial Killers, the authors wrote about Robert Hansen, an Alaska businessman and big-game enthusiast who hunted naked prostitutes through the snow as though they were wild animals, then shot them dead. Hansen would point a gun at his victim, order her to take off all her clothes, and then order her to run. He would give his victims a “start” before stalking them. The actual act of killing his victims, Hansen once said, was an “anti-climax” and that “the excitement was in the stalking”.

How many times have I heard trophy hunters describing their actions in similar terms? “No, hunting isn’t just about killing,” they say. “It’s also about the stalk, the build-up to the kill”.

Hansen was a trophy hunter, who, according to Wilson and Seaman, had achieved “celebrity by killing a Dall sheep with a crossbow”. He also trophy hunted women but, as a married man with a family, he couldn’t put his human trophies next to those elk antlers and bear skins in his den.

As an alternative, Hansen, it was revealed, took items of jewellery from his victims as “trophies” and hid these in his loft so that, as with his animal trophies, he, the hunter, could relive his fantasy-inspired killings whenever he wished to.

According to Wilson and Seaman, Jack the Ripper cut off one victim’s nose and breasts and “as if they were trophies, displayed them on a bedside table, together with strips of flesh carved from her thighs”.

Jewellery, body parts, clothing such as underwear and so on, are all known “trophies” of the serial killer. One serial killer flayed his victim and made a waistcoat from the skin as a “souvenir” or “trophy”.

What could the non-hunting wives, girlfriends, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and children reveal of the nature and behaviour of a hunter in the family? Could they reveal that the hunter had a very disturbed childhood?

Almost half the serial killers analysed during behavioural research were found to have been sexually abused in childhood. Environmental problems early in life manifest in many cases in violence such as cruelty to animals. Maybe they have a frustrated craving for “self-esteem”, a deep desire to be recognized, a resentment against society? All these factors are some of the known links to the profile of the serial killer.

Lastly, serial killing has been described as a “20th-Century phenomenon”. The same could be said of Western trophy hunting in Africa.

From The Authors Website:

“My name is Gareth Patterson, known to some as ‘ The Lion Man of Africa.’ I have dedicated the past 25 years of my life to the preservation of the African lion. Shockingly, in those past 25 years, Africa has lost 90% of its lion population. Today it is estimated that only 20,000 lions grace the entire African continent. The lion is now very endangered. Despite this, international trophy hunters come to Africa to kill lions for so-called “sport.” In South Africa lions are bred in captivity to be shot in enclosed spaces by these trophy hunters. This sordid practice is known as “canned lion hunting.” This song is about the story of one lioness, the Dark Lioness, who was killed under these horrible circumstances. We must act now to save the African lion. Anouschka and I have collaborated to produce this song in an attempted to created new awareness to a new audience about the plight of the lion. Thank you very much for your support.”

http://www.garethpatterson.com/index.html

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The Horrible Life and Death of Lions Raised For Canned Hunts

Warning, graphic video

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Photo: Courtesy Jamie Kripke / Getty Images

Posted in: Trophy Hunting

Tags: ban trophy hunting, killing for sport, wolves suffering, mercy for animals, Gareth Patterson, decimation of African lions

UPDATE: First Wolf Slaughtered by Bow in Montana, Ten Wolves Dead In Idaho Hunt….

UPDATE: September 9/7/11

IDFG changed dead wolf numbers from eleven to ten???

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Well here’s the grim news. Montana FWP is now saying one wolf was killed by a bow-hunter on Sunday, instead of two wolves as had been reported. It’s all just sickening and depressing. Meanwhile over in Idaho,  the death toll for wolves now stands at ten and counting.  How much more carnage before America wakes up and speaks out??

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Archery season’s first wolf killed Sunday

Posted: Wednesday, September 7, 2011 12:15 am | Updated: 6:29 pm, Tue Sep 6, 2011.

CARLY FLANDRO, Chronicle Staff Writer |

Montana’s archery season for wolves opened Saturday, and the following day, the first wolf was killed.

Ron Aasheim, spokesman for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said the wolf, a male, was harvested in Stillwater County.

The kill marks the first in the state’s 2011 wolf hunt, which is only the second of its kind to take place. The first occurred in 2009, and both hunts have been surrounded by debate over how many wolves should be killed and whether they should be hunted at all.

This season, hunters are allowed to kill 220 wolves — nearly triple the 2009 quota of 75.

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/environment/article_c2a7d888-d8e7-11e0-9ca7-001cc4c03286.html

Photo: Howling for Justice

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Montana wolf hunt, Idaho wolf hunt

Tags: wolf hunts, wolves suffering, bow hunting cruelty