Aspen AF667 and AM863 in the summer of 2007 (USFWS)
USFWS gives and then takes away. Mexican gray wolves will be allowed to roam further but will be under the threat of increased killing! I highlighted some of the blithering from the USFWS. Of course they’re speaking in double talk but the bottom line is this: …..“as proposed, those science-based reforms would be coupled with provisions that would allow increased federal, state and private trapping and shooting of wolves, contrary to studies that show that more wolves must be allowed to live in the wild.” (Center For Biological Diversity)
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Wolves Could Be Free to Roam, be Killed Under Program Changes
PUBLIC COMMENT SOUGHT
Posted: Friday, August 8, 2014 9:40 am
By Donald Jaramillo and Benjamin Fisher Cibola Beacon and Silver City Daily Press | 0 comments
CIBOLA COUNTY – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recently announced its update to its June 2013 proposed revisions to the existing nonessential experimental population designation of the Mexican wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) under the Endangered Species Act to provide additional clarity and flexibility to effectively manage the experimental population in a working landscape. The Service also announced the availability of a draft environmental impact statement (dEIS) on the proposed revisions. A 60-day public comment period is reopening through Sept. 23 to provide all interested parties an opportunity to comment on the proposed rule and dEIS. Public information meetings and hearings have also been scheduled.
FWS has proposed new revisions to the Mexican gray wolf initiative that would expand both the scope of the animals’ reintroduction and the freedom to kill them in certain circumstances.
The proposed a revision would extend the wolf’s population area from Interstate 40 to the U.S.-Mexico border in New Mexico and Arizona. This would allow reintroduction and dispersion of the wolf to anywhere in that border area. Since not all of that area is federal land, it will allow the wolves to spread onto private, state and tribal lands as well.
“(We’re) trying to open up the landscape, to set up a northern border at I-40 and let them spread out,’ said Tracy Melbihess, a biologist with the FWS’s Mexican Wolf Recovery Program. “It gives the wolves the chance to spread out outside of the Apache and Gila national forests.”
“If we are already in place trying to remove wolves from an area, it is just more efficient to go ahead and permit the property owner to help us,” Melbihess said. “So, this could permit ranchers to take a wolf under very special circumstances.”
Jeff Humphrey, a public outreach specialist with the USFWS, said that the pro posed revision is really there to open a broad enough rule to accommodate what may be needed in the future.
Because of the wolf’s proposed new spread, many private, state and tribal lands are included — resulting in more opportunities for interaction between wolves and humans. Therefore, the proposal also clarifies definitions of when wolves can be taken while attacking livestock or non-feral dogs, or as is needed to manage wild populations of elk, deer, etc. The FWS already “takes” wolves in these situations.
The proposal will be the subject of two hearings. The New Mexico meeting will be held Aug. 13 from 6 to 9 p.m. in Truth or Consequences, with an informational session scheduled from 2 to 4 p.m. that day in the same location. The Arizona meeting will be held Aug. 11 in Pinetop.
The comment period on the proposed rule will remain open through Sept. 23.
Since 1998, the Service and cooperating state, federal and tribal agencies have reintroduced and managed Mexican wolves under a rule designating the U.S. population as “Nonessential, Experimental.” The designation provides for increased management flexibility for populations that are reintroduced into a designated experimental area within their historical range.
The proposed revisions include:
• _expanding the areas within which Mexican wolves can be released and disperse,
• _extending the Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area’s (MWEPA) southern boundary from I-40 to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and New Mexico, and
• _clarifying definitions in the rule, including when wolves can be taken while attacking livestock and non-feral dogs, or as needed to manage wild ungulate populations (elk, deer, etc.).
The regulatory flexibility provided by these proposed revisions to the 1998 rule would allow for management actions within the MWEPA that further the conservation of the Mexican wolf while being responsive to the needs of local communities in cases of problem wolf behavior.
The proposed rule revisions have been informed by and are being evaluated through the development of a comprehensive dEIS. The dEIS evaluates impacts of four alternative revisions to the rule (including the 1998 rule) on land use, biological resources (including wild ungulate prey species), economic activities (including ranching, hunting and tourism), human health and safety, and environmental justice.
Written comments on this proposed rule and the draft environmental impact statement can be submitted by one of the following methods:
(1) Electronically: Go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov . Search for FWS–R2–ES–2013–0056, which is the docket number for this rulemaking. You may submit a comment by clicking on “Comment Now!” Ensure that you have found the correct rulemaking before submitting your comment.
(2) By hard copy: Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS–R2–ES–2013–0056; Division of Policy and Directives Management; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters, MS: BPHC, 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803.
Previously submitted comments on the proposed rule revision and dEIS need not be resubmitted, as they will be fully considered in preparation of the final rule and EIS.
To learn more about the proposed rule revision, dEIS, and details of the public hearings, and for links to submit comments to the record, visit http://www.fws.gov/southwest/es/mexicanwolf/
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Photo: Courtesy USFWS
Posted in: Mexican gray wolves, Wolf Wars , Action Alert
Tags: Increased ability to kill Mexican gray wolves, more room to roam but with strings, let wolves live in peace, take action, critically endangered species
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
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
Howling For Justice 
It’s appalling to me that every contingency for every species of wildlife includes the “kill ’em” clause.
It’s appalling to me to consider that it’s more probable a wild animal will be killed by a human – or a by-product of human behavior – than die of old age.
It’s appalling to me that an animal, brought back from the brink of extinction, could even be considered for a ‘taking’.
I’ll submit the comment because I feel I must but many prior experiences with Federal agencies have shown – when these guys author paperwork, they have already made a decision. It rankles.
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Public comment with particular emphasis on http://www.fws.gov/southwest/es/mexicanwolf/pdf/Mexican_Wolf_Proposed_10j_Revision-July_25_2014-17587.pdf page 43359 through 43361, is desired by the agency and your comment will be most effective in addressing the 8 topics.
A couple key words and phrases to comment on in the new proposed 10(j) rule, are:
1. “removal.” Since USDA Wildlife Services performs removals, wolf advocates need to stress that removals be NONlethal. We have to address the capacity of wolves to return to areas from which they were removed nonlethally. Since the Mexican wolf recovery area is rather large[*] , releases to other Zone 1 and 2 areas can be economically and more easily accomplished through nonlethal removal and appropriate release.
Since at least one nonprofit nongovernmental organization, Defenders of Wildlife makes available compensation for wolf depredation to domestic animal enterprises, with the goal of shifting economic responsibility for wolf recovery away from the individual rancher and toward the millions of people who want to see wolf populations restored, USFWS management policy and language should also shift from lethal management actions to directing compensation and conflict resolution to this and other advocacy organizations with programs, rather than taking direct action. This will save taxpayers and managing agencies large amounts of funds.
[* Please note that the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project identifies and advocates for a significant addition to the north of the USFWS proposed new recovery Zones.
Go here to find more:
http://www.gcwolfrecovery.org/about-us/grand-canyon-region
AND PLEASE ADD THIS ADVOCACY TO YOUR COMMENT TO USFWS PROPOSAL!]
2. An area of West Texas in El Paso, Hudspeth, and Culberson Counties, North of Hwy 62, has been eliminated from the MW recovery area proposal (1) Southern boundary. Why? This area appear suitable. I believe that the failure to retain this area is due to political pressure from the state of Texas, and should be investigated. If any non-biological influence has been determined to occur in this decision, re-inclusion of the area should be required.
3. Notice that lethal response to Mexican wolf conflict has been allowed (7) for “any Mexican wolf that is in the act of biting, killing, or wounding livestock on Federal land”. On NonFederal land paragraph (5) allows the same. This recourse, while seemingly reasonable to Euroamericans, can be subject to abuse. I suggest that wording requiring forensic investigation of biting, etc. claims be added and emphasized.
4. (6) allows domestic animal owners on nonFederal lands to take MWs should the federal agency or designate fail to remove. Since federal land boundaries are not boundairies understood by wolves, I suggest strongly that necessary buffer zones, where private individuals are not allowed to lethally remove wolves whose pack/family unit is determined to be largely based on federal lands.
5.Considering the claimed absence of ecotouring in the MWEPA, a number of ecotouring enterprises are found, contrary to the determination in the Proposed Rules. While none as yet have active “wolf experience” tours, we may expect that with Mexican Wolf recovery to ecologically effective numbers, that these or other businesses will quickly create such economically valuable and viable tours. Since a rather large proportion of US citizens and foreign visitors are highly interested in wolves and their recovery, the expected economic value and impact will be quite large in the rural areas and smaller cities of AZ and NM. In fact, the value can easily become far higher than economic values of hunting/consumptive use enterprises.
[For you guys – I tossed off this comment just now, and aside from the [bracketed] section, which was just for you, I regard it as a suitable first comment on the proposed rule, and will file it today.
I am sure you can do as well or better; again, just continue to educate yourselves, never stop fighting against the evil of butchery-for-pleasure, and your voice will be of far greater importance than that of the killers.
I’ve known a few wolves, and dedicate my work especially to one who was caught in the human inundation of his land, and who actively sought to bond to me as brother. I could not ever give him justice and his birthright, but his nation, his great family, awaits your recognition, our respect, and even now, teaches us a wider, more encompassing way to live.]
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I refined my comment to regulations.gov, clarifying wording as well as adding the following:
“2. Also concerning (1) boundaries: The 36 million-acre Grand Canyon Ecoregion, bounded on the west by the Grand Wash drainage, on the east by the Little Colorado River watershed, extends from the Mogollon Rim in central AZ north to southern UT’s High Plateaus. Scientists have conducted feasibility studies determining where within the GCE the best suitable habitat for wolves exists:
Carlos Carroll study 2004: http://www.klamathconservation.org/docs/carrolletal2005_text.pdf
Carlos Carroll study 2006: http://www.klamathconservation.org/docs/carrolletal2006.pdf
Paul Sneed feasibility study 2004: http://www.gcwolfrecovery.org/docs/projects/2004SneedESUPaper.pdf
Kurt Menke feasibility study 2006A: http://www.gcwolfrecovery.org/docs/projects/2006KurtMenkeReport.pdf
The results of these strong peer-reviewed studies identify and advocate for a significant addition to the north of the USFWS proposed new recovery Zones.
6.Considering the claimed absence of ecotouring in the MWEPA, a number of ecotouring enterprises are found, contrary to the determination in the Proposed Rules. While none as yet have active “wolf experience” tours, we may expect with MW recovery to ecologically effective numbers, that these or other businesses will quickly create such economically valuable and viable tours. Since a rather large proportion of US citizens and foreign visitors are highly interested in wolves and their recovery, the expected economic value and impact will be quite large in the rural areas/smaller cities of AZ and NM. In fact, the value can easily become far higher than economic values of hunting/consumptive use enterprises.
7. Because hunting/trapping constitute consumptive use, reducing wolf populations without regard to the social/environmental learning processes of this species, they must be regarded as doubly damaging:
a) wolves, being apex predators, were not historically subject to significant human source of mortality before the highly destructive attempt in the 1800s through present in the US West, to purposefully eradicate the species. This issue being important in management from the Upper Great Lakes through every other state presently involved in management of Canis lupus, suggests that far closer look be taken to allowance of state management policies and withdrawal of state control where negatively affecting wolves.
b) Social learning is vital: numerous studies show wolf practice and necessity. The wolf is a social learner, highly socially and developmentally altricial, and NO harvest for sport purposes should be allowed.”
There’s a whole lot more information on number 7 of mine available in peer-reviewed work by wolf biologists, and I hope y’all will find and use it in supporting your comments and efforts to prevent wolf killing by humans, both in your comment on this Mexican Wolf proposal, and in other wolf management comment and advocacy –
AND ALSO IN DRUMMING REALITY INTO THE HEADS OF THE UNEDUCATED AND NAIVE PUBLIC!
I intend to further comment to USFWS on this #7 issue before Sept 23, but it will require suport.
Last note to you all:
Yes, some Supervisors and Agency heads make prejudicial-type decisions; HOWEVER, these are subject to legal challenge, and along with becoming members of organizations like CBD, DoW, the above-mentioned GCWRP, and local environmental groups promoting wolf recovery and protection, and of course, Earthjustice, your loud response to corruption is always necessary.
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What I find really deploring, is that trapping is still allowed. They are such an outdated brutal mechanism that kills anything that happens to step into them. Any creature caught in them suffers an agonising death over a long period. I am against any method of killing wildlife, but especially traps and snares.
The Federal government should ban their manufacture, distribution and sale throughout all fifty states and put laws in place which will severely punish anyone who breaks these laws. The laws should be strictly enforced.
That would be a start in stopping the killing of wolves.
Give them their own space.
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Once again, a lot of ‘bunk’! If a wolf takes down a lamb or a calf the only ones to blame are the people. You kill off part of a pack, they can no longer hunt big game…then you have big game over grazing, you get dry lands, sick herds…and none of this is through the fault of the wolf. When are they going to wake up and realize that God is a bit smarter than the regular farmer? First of all, the number one predator is MAN. Wake up!!!! You have all kinds of other predators before you can even begin to consider the wolf as any kind of threat. If anything..he’s there to help control the over population of predators. Go ahead, bite off your noses to spite your faces. Heck…it’s cheaper than surgery! Sorry, but you are total morons. It befuddles me, at the same time amazes me, the stupidity of some humans. Wake up! THINK!!!(
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EXACTLY. Couldn’t agree more!
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Isn’t letting them roam on private land a recipe for disaster? Don’t they realize that there are people out there just waiting to kill them? They were killing them before this new plan. I guess this is a way to ensure that, and that will look good to the clueless general public. Did they include this poaching, irrational hate killings, and automobile accidents that threaten this very small populations of wolves in this wonderful new plan? “Nonessential experimental population”. The colossal gall and arrogance.
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I agree with everything you said 100%! The arrogance and colossal gall is mind numbing!
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As I read:
Ranchers blame the Wolves for killing their livestock because the rancher get a tax payer reimbursement
When according to whistleblowers:
The ranchers livestock actually died from other reasons and not the wolves
And from my understanding no one investigates or determines why the ranchers livestock died before our tax dollars are handed over
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While they can receive payment for false claims, it would only be through corrupt processes, investigators, or personal relationships:
Here is a typical description of the process:
“[USFWS Southwest] Mexican Wolf/Livestock Coexistence Council
Depredation Compensation Guidelines ”
“If livestock owners suspect they have incurred a livestock death or injury due to wolves:
We recommend that you protect the evidence. Agency experts suggest covering the remains when possible and keeping the site undisturbed by other animals/people to preserve evidence in the area.
Contact a local USDA APHIS-Wildlife Services (Wildlife Service) field representative, Tribal investigator, or the [USFWS – mm] Interagency Field Team, who will coordinate an investigation,
including meeting the livestock owner at an appropriate time and place.
The Investigator will provide a completed Depredation Report Form to the owner/manager of the animal.
The Depredation Report Form should provide a reasonable and complete record of evidence based on the Wildlife Services’ ‘Criteria for Classification of Reported Depredation Incidents.'”
Through accurate investigation, documentation, reporting, USDA gets actual livestock mortality statistics.
In http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/CattDeath/CattDeath-05-12-2011.pdf
you see that wolves cause only 3.7% of cattle deaths. Sheep deaths are higher, due to mishandling by owners – look in the voluminous literature of Defenders of Wildlife and others for such stats and discussions.
Federal agencies and nonprofit predator defense organizations have a vested interest in accuracy, and I invite those who, like myself, are against killing of the wolf and other native wild species, to broaden and deepen their study, investigation, and evaluation instead of merely commenting with the intent to vilify their opponents (as worthy of such vilification as they may be, we are a small percentage of humans, with little political power, and must use science, ethics, as well as appeal to those who, understanding death, suffering, and the emotional, social, ecological, and intrinsic devastation engendered by needless, meaningless human killing.
Defenders and other local or larger orgs offer compensation to proven (forensic veterinarians and others are involved in investigations) losses. Here is a DoW pdf on procedure to claim compensation they use , in order to reduce plitical appeal and wolf killing responses:
Click to access instructions_for_wolf_compensation_in_northern_rockies.pdf
By entering into disputes about “tax dollars” etc. you are merely playing the game with astoundingly heavily funded hunters, entire political parties (neither Rep nor Dem are innocent of wolf persecution – they are using it only as means to gain VOTES for their parties, without care or ethics. John Tester was a Dem, and he is implicated in the profoundly corrupt congressional Northern Rockies Pop Segment wolf delisting , for instance.)
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I’ve always wondered that myself – how can they be sure that predation was actually by the wolf, and the wolf didn’t come along after the fact? Was the sheep, cow, etc. already dead and left there as bait? Never underestimate the devious potential of humanity.
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Baiting of wolves (and many other animals) to attract them to killing sites is largely against the law, but there are so many roads built into and adjacent to public lands that such laws cannot easily be enforced.
The use of accurate GPS detectors by trappers in AK around Denali NP and around Yellowstone to capture wolves is evidenced by the incredibly accurate placement of traplines. There is no law covering this. I believe that there are limits on the number of traps a license allows, but I do not know for sure – you will have to research this (I feel so poorly toward the trappers involved, that it is not good for me to personally to discover too much about their individual activities, as I am not involved with law enforcement).
It is common practice for ranchers across the USA to merely move their dead cattle to unobtrusive places, and this practice does assist in the health of predators and carrion-eaters.
Since I have seen a LOT of this practice, I can tell you that (IF ranchers do not personally target or advocate for removal of wolves) many native species I feel necessary for the preservation of wild North America are benefited.
Dr. Gordon Haber used to emphasize that his findings in AK showed that 40% to 85% of wolves diet is carrion. A few of you may know that wolves only can take the seriously ill, the old, some of the injured, and the excess young (ALL species produce significant excess of young – if they did not, they would be soon extinguished from the earth).
Wolves, unlike human “sport” hunters, poachers, trappers, and actually, most anyone who uses a gun for hunting (there are strong figures showing that this in itself is a severe problem) benefit other species. They prevent the overpopulation and sedentism which leads to crowd diseases, heavy erosion, and other environmentally deleterious effects. They have massive cognitive abilities including evaluative capacities which allow them to judge the likelihood of being injured or failing and thus weakening themselves.
Again, I invite commentors to seriously educate themselves on the wolf.
(at present I am passing through the death of a wolf I knew personally and closely for a decade, and having some difficulty with description, as it is inadequate: the wolf senses and understands many things which are blunted to near absence in our species, along with information processes and cognitions which may be completely absent in our own kind, and these things may be among the most important things in life)
A thing of final importance:
The wolf TEACHES the young (along with one another, and any who are privileged to experience them), and learn quickly what are prey and what are not. Only a few ungulates in North America are regarded nearly automatically as prey, while hunting methods of other native ungulates must be taught. Some smaller species are recognized, while many have defenses, and are almost never attacked.
But I digress; because the wolf teaches, he or she is REQUIRED by the young for up to 3 years or more of their early life. When humans artificially take the lives of wolves (and pretty much ALL human wolf-killing is artificial, existing only because of unnatural machines like guns and traps, snow machines, atvs, offroad vehicles, airplanes) they prevent the continuance of environmental, social, cultural learning by wolf families.
This issue is well-documented scientifically these days, but European Americans persist in persecution for psychological reasons having nothing directly to do with the wolf, and are unlikely to change their constricted behaviors, as the wolf is a wild, self-willed carnivore, a predator whose ecological place is to balance out natural systems of life in hte areas of Earth to which it is native.
Unfortunately, a few indigenous human populations and individuals partake in the value systems of those Euroamericans, and have become overly persecutory or avaricious toward the far older native, the wolf.
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I support expanding the area into which the Mexican Gray Wolf can be introduced. But the thinking and proposal of the USFWS regarding boundary restrictions sounds political and not scientific. The boundaries should include southern UT, northern AZ, southern CO, and northern NM. The restrictions do not make sense and sounds political not scientific. Designating the Mexican Gray Wolf as nonessential and expressing the view that the 83-90 existing population could be wiped out and it would not threaten their survival is absurd. The USFWS should be protecting the population and designate it as essential not falling on the anti-wolf political spectrum. The current proposals make the USFWS sound weak on supporting a subspecies recovery. Conflicts with anti-wolf groups should be handled in an educational and wolf advocacy manner. Else recovery is compromised if not sabotaged by the very agency that should be doing the opposite. The usual anti-wolf groups of ranchers, hunters, parochials are not going to be satisfied with anything less that a repeated eradication. Their reasons (hysteria, folklore, myths and lies) are old and resistant to change, to facts, to science and logic. Species are recovered because wanton, hate killing of them is not allowed and their presence is a forced tolerance long enough for these groups to observe that their hysteria was not justified and they have adjusted to the recovered species or subspecies. Hunters and ranchers lead a war on wildlife and have for 10,000 years plus. They will only tolerate predators because the irrational, unscientific “management” of predators is not allowed. This is the job of the federal government, of USFWS. It seems that conservation groups have to be the advocates and lead in advocacy against state wildlife agencies and federal agencies such as USFWS, USDA Wildlife Services. The gray wolf and gray wolf subspecies are of course essential to a balanced ecology in which they once existed; and there are still many of their old niches left to which they should be allowed to recover for a healthy and balanced ecology and because the general public wants them recovered.
Comment posted to USFWS current proposals regarding the Mexican Gray Wolf 08/04/2014
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Thank you, so wanderfully said.
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The value of the new boundaries helps the nation of Mexico to recover their population as well: they are involved in doing so,.
Because the relevant NM areas have many (ranchers and others, who have been exposed to older generations deeply involved in wolf eradication, and are rather adamant about resisting wolf return) opposed to the return of the Mexican Wolf, some astonishingly, essentially psychotic fantasy is used popularly to create public opposition and hatred of the wolf.
You can look up the articles about children and bus stops, etc. No Euro fairy tales come close to the exaggeration and pure falsehood involved.
Because of falsehood across the entire Rockies, South Dakota, and the upper Great Lakes states, many, many naive and other individuals not caring to educate themselves align their ignorant opinions with those who believe they would profit if the wolf remained absent or is again exterminated.
A key word here is: profit.
Hunting is a huge industry, and unless and until their financial might is diminished, no rational or ethical governing of the wild, intact, recovering, or natural ecosystems can ever be attained.
I can only recommend to advocates that they never cease pushing for rewilding – the retention recovery, and recreation of ALL public lands to natural ecosystems, with significant corridors between them protected in the same way, to allow native species to live in the ways they evolved.
Go here: http://rewilding.org/rewildit/ to learn more about this vital effort.
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The “kill them” clause sais it all, how the governmental treat the adorable wolves and Wildlife. Their fate is on politicians’ hands.
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Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game and commented:
Also see, What are Wolves Supposed to do? Order a Pizza? http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/08/01/mexican-grey-wolf-rules/13485531/
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because the wolf teaches, he or she is REQUIRED by the young for up to 3 years or more of their early life.
Mayuke, thanks for your post. This concept is completely dismissed out of hand by the DNRs and F&W departments, for an assembly-line idea of hunting to grow our economies (what a ridiculous thing to apply to nature and wildlife) – what little valuable statistics they do provide show that it is the very young and naïve wolves that are blasted away by hunters, a year old or so. These ‘scientific’ documents just tell the consumers of wildlife what they want to hear, and justify it. But it is wrong. Just because someone says it is science, doesn’t mean it is good science, maybe just political science.
We think that we are the only ones that have a prolonged period of youth where our elders teach (some of us don’t even do that) – other species, wolves and elephants come to mind, have that too – and where we have destroyed their families it has had a terrible effect. There is science to back this up.
Now age and wisdom are not held in any kind of esteem, and perpetual youth is desperately held on too, and nothing is more ridiculous, or futile.
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Hey Ida!
Biologists increasingly have reported on the individuality of wolves – as a matter of fact, even their personality changes along with different ages and relationships – but personality is a variable and insufficiently defined (I studied psychology as well as other disciplines and struggle to keep up on recent valid discoveries!)
Bears require long period of learning as well; most altricial animals, strongly social or not, get some.
It’s a long subject, but wolves are an extremely fast-learning species, doing so in certain circumstances (of which there are MANY!) far faster then our species.
I didn’t document the wolf who chose to bond with me in the face of two years of abuse by his rescuers – he did never relent. He needed to both live and explore life with his only hope; without the present human culture’s obligate means of livelihood, I let the documentation go, and just lived and traveled with him as much as possible.
That said, a wolf’s senses and involvement in the present are clearly superior to the reflective, primate sociality of humans, who only partially attend to the sensory present, and whose memories even when not blunted by the numerous exogenous substances they consume (Humans intake far too many cognition-changing substances. Leave all of them alone to awaken, unless you are an initiate of certain cultures’ medicine practices. Caffeine even blunts humans in certain ways, making them demonstrably stupider, as many many studies in the past 60 years have shown. Every neurotransmitter/modulator analogue and many artificial food additives have distortive or cognitively diminutive effects) and many questions remain about the wolf’s full capacities.
I used to explore those capacities as well as I could, but $, mobility, and other issues prevented so much. I can relate hundreds of enlightening stories, but cannot within the limits of comments.
I HAVE experienced the Wolf attempting to teach me things, and especially earlier in his life (wolves are efficient, no-nonsense teachers!) showing clear excitement at my suddenly “getting it.”
As far as teaching wolves, they consistently prove to be practical and fun-loving. You CANNOT teach a wolf to obey, and trying even to do so, is to violate their integrity (I tried to convince him to follow my lead in the face of night auto headlights, and only succeeded because wolves attend to the emotional content of your communications – being highly social, they understand this as indicator of urgency. Even then, when he was involved with chasing, it took a strike from a car for him to completely defer to me. The blinding intensity of artificial lights eliminated his ability to gauge the dangers.
The tapetum lucidum must really have been a drawback, as I have too often experienced and experimented with his abilities to evade and assess, even in the midst of fights with other canids and in communal actions like capture and other processes.
Suffice to say that wolves are prepared to learn complex mutually-valuable interaction, from instantaneous to tactical and strategic in particular usefulness.
I never raised my voice or emotions to him other than on the vehicle issue (our bond was not essentially dominant/submissive but the bond of adults – he formed the desire by age 3, approximately the age of commencing the search for adult bonding), and he understood every practical opinion or suggestion – largely nonverbal of course: Wolves have a brilliant language, which is contextual and involves gesture, attitude, and numerous physically demonstrative signals of body parts and entire bodies. My comments are long, and I can’t go here without writing you a book!
But let’s get back to Nabeki’s issue here:
For quickly updated info on the Mexican Wolf, and the proposal, go to http://www.mexicanwolves.org/index.php?page=stay-informed
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I can’t get off this page!
Here is important source information for your public comment to regulations.gov on the new Mexican Wolf proposal:
http://www.mexicanwolves.org/index.php/news/1230/51/Changes-Needed-to-Help-Lobos-Thrive
If you read my notes above, you will see that I’ve left out several of the most important parts, when you visit this page.
I intend to make further comments, using this info, and hope you will also comment WHENEVER you find new relevant information pertaining to the proposal.
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The wildlife agencies, state and federal, do what they want and call it science and conservation. Sporting groups do the same, such as the Safari Club and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Montana FWP is having sporting groups compete for bids on big game tickets, an auction. FWP calls them conservationists. They call themselves conservationists. The emphasis of these sporting groups which FWP goes along with and USDA Wildlife Services facilitate and USFWS supports is game farming which is bad news for predators because these groups and wildlife agencies buy into the folklore that in order to have plenty of game to kill, such as elk, then the predators have to be managed and minimized. I listened to an outfitter talk one day about wolves to a young Elmer Fudd Nimrod for about a half hour and it was pure folklore and villainization. The the sporting groups will call for management in an area because they believe some localized elk population is down and in come the cavalry of management services to cull the predators. Usually, waxing and waning of say an elk population is over hunting, forage, weather, normal movement, but it is evident what is running the show of wildlife management (mismanagement) is hunter-trapper-fancher folklore, lies, myth, parochial ignorance and self-centered power and control. This wildlife agency-hunter-rancher unholy alliance is what the gray wolf is up against and what the real conservationists are up against. The wildlife agencies and sporting “conservationists” really do not understand millennia of predator-prey ecology.
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What is the point of expanding their habitat if the killing of them is going to increase? How is this “recovery?” Dan Ashe is a total piece of sh*t.
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Nabeki and everyone reading:
Please go to
http://www.mexicanwolves.org/index.php/news/1292/51/Act-Now-Stand-up-for-the-Mexican-wolf-at-the-Aug-21-N-M-Game-Commission-meeting-in-Santa-Fe
titled: RESCHEDULED:Stand up for the Mexican wolf at the AUG 28 N.M. Game Commission meeting in Santa Fe.
On the page you will find information and links to send comments before that date – this coming Thursday. If you can make in person appearance, good, but please write in using the links.
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http://www.mexicanwolves.org/index.php/news/1294/51/Editorial-Putting-wolves-on-North-Kaibab-now-might-work-better
From the AZ Sun comes the article reprinted on the link above.
The Kaibab, some will remember, was the place where a possible irruption to overpopulation of deer occurred in the 1920s following predator removal. Aldo Leopold used the information in his rethinking of the value of predators and intact ecosystems.
There was a repeat irruption in the 60s.
Although the measurement of evidence for overpopulation and overgrazing has been called into question, there is no question that the Kaibab Plateau is excellent habitat for a significant Mexican Wolf population.
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