Minnesota Hunters Kill 119 Wolves In 10 Days

“Gloria Skinaway of the Sandy Lake Reservation holds a sign at a protest against the Minnesota wolf hunt at Lake Superior Plaza in downtown Duluth, Minn., Friday afternoon, Sept. 7, 2012.  (AP Photo/The Duluth News-Tribune, Clint Austin)”

November 12, 2012

379 wolves have died in the combined hunts since August 30, 2012. Minnesota has been particularly brutal, killing 119 wolves in just 10 days.

This doesn’t surprise me, the state has been moving away from their reasonable position on wolves for some time now. Minnesota’s US Democrat Senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, are not wolf fans.

When Minnesota Wildlife Services funding, to trap and kill wolves, was cut in 2011,  Senator Al Franken didn’t waste any time writing to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack imploring him to restore monies to the wolf kill program.

Minnesota Wildlife Services kills approx. 200 wolves each and every year for agribusiness  It’s been going on for decades, while wolves were still protected under the ESA. This happens in all the wolf states, their dirty little secret. That’s why public wolf hunts are not needed. Wildlife Services kills hundreds of wolves annually. Americans are not aware wolves are now facing two hunts in Minnesota, one conducted by WS and the “legal wolf hunts” I like to call “Killing Wolves For Fun and Profit”.

When writing to Secretary Vilsack, Senator Franken  pulled out all the stops, stating ” this larger gray wolf population means additional threats to Minnesota citizens and livestock are possible” even though wolves are not attacking people in Minnesota or anywhere else for that matter in the lower 48. Click here to read Franken’s letter.

In all of North America, in the last ninety years, wild wolves have been accused of just two controversial, un-witnessed fatal attacks. Yet hunting accidents claim the lives of nearly ONE HUNDRED INNOCENT PEOPLE EVERY YEAR in the US and Canada and wound a 1000 more. 216 adults and children have been mauled to death by domestic dogs since 2005 and millions have been bitten but that’s not even close to the damage caused by Bambi:

“The most dangerous mammal in North America is…Bambi. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that white-tailed deer kill around 130 Americans each year simply by causing car accidents. In 1994, these predator deer had a banner year, causing 211 human deaths in car wrecks.

There are about 1.5 million deer/vehicle collisions annually, resulting in 29,000 human injuries and more than $1 billion in insurance claims in addition to the death toll. Deer also carry the ticks that transmit Lyme disease to about 13,000 people each year. Economic damage to agriculture, timber, and landscaping by deer totals more than $1.2 billion a year.”…reason.com

Where is the outrage over these deaths?  Should we have a domestic dog hunting season? (Of course not!) What about the hundreds of deaths caused by hunting accidents?  Yet many hunters are the very people accusing wolves of attacking children at bus stops, when these shy animals are doing no such thing. In Oregon an eleven year old boy was put in terrible danger, not by a wolf but a hunter who accidently shot him while the child was waiting AT A SCHOOL BUS STOP!

In the 2010 International Wolf Center’s Winter Magazine, an article appears titled Considerations for Developing Wolf Harvesting Regulations in the Contiguous United States by L. David Mech which supports wolf hunts and goes into shocking detail on how to carry them out. There is talk of harvesting wolves, killing  pregnant females, hunting wolves for their pelts, hunting pups later in the year so they don’t look like pups, leg-hold traps, baiting, calling and hiring bounty hunters. Seriously, if I didn’t know better I would have believed this article was written by a fish and game agency. Also included in the edition was  “Another Viewpoint: Why Hunting-Trapping is Best Plan to Manage Gray Wolf Populations by Jim Hammill and Wolves Meet their Match in Airborne Predators. An ancient tradition gives new meaning to aerial wolf hunt by Tracy O’Connell.  The International Wolf Center is located in Ely, Minnesota and was founded by Dr. Mech, who serves on their Board of Directors as Vice Chair.

 In 2011 the  Minnesota legislature removed the 5 year moratorium on wolf hunts that had been part of the state wolf plan for years.  That cleared the way for an almost immediate hunt, once wolves were delisted by the Obama administration’s USFWS.

Minnesota had been the state  people looked to and admired concerning wolves but that image has been badly tarnished by the actions of their state legislature, US Senators, Minnesota DNR and trophy hunters.  The state has turned a blind eye to Minnesotans who support wolves, including Native Americans, most of whom vehemently oppose the hunt.

===

Amy Klobuchar declares war on wolves

By Mike Mullen 

Wed., Oct. 5 2011 at 3:51 PM

​Amy Klobuchar is substantive, smart, hard-working, avoids controversy, rarely makes a public verbal misstep — save for the vaguely northern accent, she’s sort of the anti-Sarah Palin. But now Minnesota’s respectable senator has revealed what she has in common with Alaska’s inescapable former governor: An insatiable thirst for wolf blood.

READ MORE

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2011/10/wolf_endangered_species_list_minnesota_amy_klobuchar_trapping.php

 

===

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Sen. Franken Presses USDA to Fund Gray Wolf Management Until Animal is Taken Off Endangered Species List

Tells Agriculture Secretary Vilsack Federal Funding Needed to Protect Citizens and Livestock Until State of Minnesota Takes Over Wolf Management

http://www.franken.senate.gov/?p=hot_topic&id=1781

===

Bills affecting wolves

State Management of Minnesota’s Wolves

In anticipation of the federal delisting of gray wolves, the Minnesota state legislature passed a wolf management bill in 2000 and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) completed a Wolf Management Plan in 2001. Minnesota statutes were amended in 2011 to change the state status of wolves to a small game species and provide the ability to authorize a season without a five year waiting period. Please see below for details on the state’s management plan.

READ MORE

http://votersforanimals.org/issues-legislation/2011-2012-legislative-wrap-up/animal-bills-2012/bills-affecting-wolves/

===

Humane Society of the United States Intent To Sue USFWS and Ken Salazar Over Great Lakes Wolf Delisting

October 15, 2012

Sixty-Day Notice of Intent to Sue Over Violations of the 

Endangered Species Act in Designating and Delisting the 

Western Great Lakes Distinct Population Segment of the 

Gray Wolf

http://hsus.typepad.com/files/great-lakes-wolf-delisting-noi-10.15.12.pdf

===

===

“Wolves roam in the wilderness in February 2010 near the Minnesota-Wisconsin border.” (MPR File Photo/Derek Montgomery)

===

Photo: MPR File Photo/Derek Montgomery)

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Minnesota Wolves

Tags: Minnesota hunters, 119 wolves dead, wolf persecution, HSUS, Al Franken, Amy Klobucher, Minnesota Legislature,

Minnesota DNR, Five year wolf hunt moratorium axed