What Have They Wrought?

If a policy is wrongheaded, feckless and corrupt, I take it personally and consider it a moral obligation to sound off and not shut up until it’s fixed……David Hackworth

Wolves of the Northern Rockies are in grave danger. They’ve been stripped of their ESA protections and are at the mercy of brutal state management plans.  Why? Because a little more than two years ago, in the Spring of 2009, the Obama administration delisted wolves and I’m not going to pretty it up and say it was Ken Salazar who delisted them. Ken Salazar didn’t appoint himself, so let’s do away with the rah, rah I love Democrats BS and call it like it is. If if looks like a duck, quacks like a duck,  it’s a duck. Barrack Obama appointed Ken Salazar, the rancher, to head the Interior. He didn’t do it because he was dumb or misinformed, he did it to curry favor with the red states and the not–so–blue states, like Montana.

Once again wolves were abandoned by Democrats in 2011. Why? Because they are trying desperately to hang onto their Senate majority.  So all those Dems that allowed Tester and Simpson to slip the wolf delisting slaughter rider into a must pass budget bill are responsible for what wolves are facing now. 81 Senators voted for the budget bill and Obama signed it into law, case closed. The Democrats sold out wolves and the ESA for votes and there is no way to spin that sad reality.

So what have they wrought? For starters they weakened the ESA and made it vulnerable to political wheeling and dealing. Never before, in the history of the ESA has Congress delisted a species for political expediency. They were willing to throw wolves under the bus to please a small, vocal, radical minority they hoped would vote for Tester if he was seen to be “out wolfing” his opponent  Denny Rehburg.  I have news for them it’s not going to work. I highly doubt Tester will be re-elected. They’ll lose their Senate majority but they’ll have lost much more. They’ll have lost the support of their base. The people who counted on them to stand up for the ESA and wolves. The people who wrote letters, faxed, phoned, emailed and generally poured their hearts and souls into saving wolves. They betrayed them as much as they betrayed wolves.

Just in case anyone in the Senate happens to read this blog I will tell you what you’ve brought down on wolves in the Northern Rockies. A 220 Montana quota for the fall wolf hunt. That’s 220 wolves marked for death. A tripling of the first Montana wolf hunt quota of 2009. If WS has their way they’ll add another 140 wolves or so to that total. That was the death toll in 2010. Doing the math that totals 360 innocent wolves, almost 2/3 of wolves currently living in Montana.

We can’t forget the upcoming Lolo wolf slaughter. The state of Idaho wants to aerial gun 50 innocent wolves in the middle of pupping season, for elk declines in the Lolo zone. Wolves will be killed for eating their natural prey and their little babies will die right along with them.

This is the wonderful state management the Senate vote brought down on wolves. Did any of the Senators even bother to learn about the toxic climate wolves live under every day of their lives in the Northern Rockies, stirred up by hate groups that would like to see nothing more than wolves total demise in the region? Apparently not.

Do we close our eyes to the horrific ways wolf families will suffer and die in Idaho and Montana? By arrow, by bullet, by leg hold trap, by snare and god only knows what tortures will be dreamed up to hurt them when nobody is looking. It wasn’t so long ago when wolves were poisoned, fed broken glass, dragged behind horses, set on fire, had their penises and jaws sewn shut, even hamstrung and thrown into pits with dogs. Any imaginable torture that could be dreamed up was practiced on wolves during the first Western extermination.

The state of Montana even introduced sarcoptic mange into the wolf population, which still plagues them to this day.

This was and is the ugly face of  “wolf hunting”. The same mindset that allowed these horrors to occur once before is alive in the Northern Rockies today.

Sport hunting is animal cruelty couched as a sport.  It has nothing to do with  sport.

From: The Big Lie (1996) by Dino DiGiacomo

“People who enjoy killing animals have long tried to disguise their barbarity in a cloak of respectability they call “sporthunting.” The fact is, sporthunting does not exist. It never has.

All sports share certain conditions to ensure a sense of fair play and create equal opportunity for all participants. What the animal killers call sport hunting meets none of the conditions of real sports.

“Let’s take a look at some of the criteria that define sport
and why so-called sporthunting fails every one of them.

Willingness to Participate

In any sport, all participants choose to be there. Both boxers want to be in the ring that night, the players on both football teams want to be on the field that day, and both tennis players agree to meet on the court at that time. Sporthunting fails on this point because the animal is never a willing participant.

Knowing When the Contest Will Start

All basketball players are aware of the starting time of the game, giving them time to prepare. Golfers know what time they will tee off. Wrestlers know what time the match will start. They don’t expect their opponent to break into their home and hurt or kill them while they are sleeping or having breakfast with their family, which is what happens to animals because this sporting condition is not met.

Even Chance

All participants are given the same equipment with which to play the game. Both boxers have equally weighted gloves and protective gear, as do football and hockey players. Bowlers are only allowed to throw one ball at a time while all rowers use the same numbers of oars. Sporthunting fails here also because the hunters have airplanes,
automatic weapons, high-powered scopes, steel traps, etc., while the animal has only the equipment it was given at birth.

Equal Prize

The criterion here insures the same prize is awarded to whichever team or player wins the contest. The prize itself may be a trophy, belt or an award, but the commercial and athletic value of that prize is the same for each potential winner. Sporthunting fails miserably on this point because the prize is life itself, but it is not an equal prize. The hunter can only win or draw while the animal can only draw or lose. The hunter wins by killing the animal or draws if the animal manages to escape. Conversely, the animal draws by getting away or loses by being killed. The animal cannot win. Some hunters say that once in a while the animal wins by killing the hunter but that only happens on rare occasions with all the odds stacked against the animal, who is never a willing participant anyway.

I have heard some hunters say that hunting is not about the animals at all. It is, they insist, an awareness of self. Once and for all, let’s not buy into their facade.

Sporthunting is not a sport. It is simply an excuse for unhappy men and women to go out and kill. How do I arrive at the fact they are an unhappy lot? Look around you! Happy people do not take time away from their happiness to go out and kill something.

The real shame is that sporthunters pass this travesty onto their children who will come to believe that killing is a sport.”

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Endangered Wolves Sacrificed in Budget Deal

Glenn Hurowitz

Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy

Posted: 04/11/11 04:09 PM ET

Although Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Barack Obama stood firm against Republican attempts to repeal clean air and clean water protections, wolves in the Northern Rockies weren’t so lucky.

Under pressure from ranching interests in Montana and Idaho, as well as anti-wolf zealots in those states, Reid and Obama agreed to accept an amendment from Montana Democrat Jon Tester mandating the removal of grey wolves in Idaho and Montana from the endangered species list. For Obama, at least, the move isn’t surprising: his administration backed the Bush administration’s delisting of wolves even though it would allow the two massive states to cut wolf populations to as few as 450 individuals between them.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-hurowitz/endangered-wolves-sacrifi_b_847673.html

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Photo: Courtesy All About Wolves

Posted in: Wolf Wars

Tags: wolf persecution, wolf scapegoating, 81 Senators voted yes, wolves politically delisted