Gray Wolf, Glacier National Park, NPS
The USFWS thought it was being clever. Several years ago they decided they wanted to delist gray wolves across the lower forty-eight but they had a problem. Before wolves can be delisted they have to be recovered through most of their former habitat. Since gray wolves are basically confined to the Northern Rockies, Southwest, Great Lakes Region and Pacific Northwest, they couldn’t make that claim. So they used a 2012 study that stated there was another species of wolf, the Eastern wolf.
“A few years ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) put forth a controversial proposal to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list. Technical distinctions about wolf species were at the heart of the plan. The FWS argued that gray wolves had been restored in enough of their original habitat. The agency relied on a 2012 study to designate a new species, the eastern wolf, as a separate species from the gray wolf; if that were true, it would mean gray wolves had never lived in the eastern United States, and thus the FWS claimed it wasn’t responsible for restoring gray wolves in that area.”
Their theory was just dealt a severe blow. It turns out the Eastern wolf is really a hybrid, a gray wolf with coyote DNA. There is no other species of wolf in North America but the gray wolf, which means this thwarts the USFWS plan to delist gray wolves across the Continental US. Gray wolves have not been recovered in most of their former habitat. And almost every time they try to disperse to states like Kansas or Kentucky, they’re shot by a hunter using the mistaken identify excuse or “I thought it was a coyote”. And of course they almost always get away with it. What’s the point of having ESA protection for wolves if there are no consequences when they’re shot illegally? I’d love to hear the answer from USFWS!
The Eastern wolf has been proven to be a hybrid. I’m sure the USFWS is working overtime, using their “pretzel logic” to find a way around this conundrum. DNA is a wonderful thing!
Win one for the wolves!
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North America Has Only 1 True Species of Wolf, DNA Shows
Credit: Dan Stahler, courtesy of UCLA
By Megan Gannon, Live Science Contributor | July 29, 2016 07:04am ET
Research by UCLA biologists published today in the journal Science Advances presents strong evidence that the scientific reason advanced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act is incorrect.
A key justification for protection of the gray wolf under the act was that its geographic range included the Great Lakes region and 29 Eastern states, as well as much of North America. The Fish and Wildlife Service published a document in 2014 which asserted that a newly recognized species called the eastern wolf occupied the Great Lakes region and eastern states, not the gray wolf. Therefore, the original listing under the act was invalid, and the service recommended that the species (except for the Mexican gray wolf, which is the most endangered gray wolf in North America) should be removed from protection under the act.
A decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act may be made as early as this fall.
In the new study, biologists analyzed the complete genomes of North American wolves — including the gray wolf, eastern wolf and red wolf — and coyotes. The researchers found that both the red wolf and eastern wolf are not distinct species, but instead are mixes of gray wolf and coyote.
“The recently defined eastern wolf is just a gray wolf and coyote mix, with about 75 percent of its genome assigned to the gray wolf,” said senior author Robert Wayne, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. “We found no evidence for an eastern wolf that has a separate evolutionary legacy. The gray wolf should keep its endangered species status and be preserved because the reason for removing it is incorrect. The gray wolf did live in the Great Lakes area and in the 29 eastern states.”
Once common throughout North America and among the world’s most widespread mammals, the gray wolf is now extinct in much of the United States, Mexico and Western Europe, and lives mostly in wilderness and remote areas. Gray wolves still lives in the Great lakes area, but not in the eastern states.
Apparently, the two species first mixed hundreds of years ago in the American South, resulting in a population that has become more coyote-like as gray wolves were slaughtered, Wayne said. The same process occurred more recently in the Great Lakes area, as wolves became rare and coyotes entered the region in the 1920s.
The researchers analyzed the genomes of 12 pure gray wolves (from areas where there are no coyotes), three coyotes (from areas where there are no gray wolves), six eastern wolves (which the researchers call Great Lakes wolves) and three red wolves.
There has been a substantial controversy over whether red wolves and eastern wolves are genetically distinct species. In their study, the researchers did not find a unique ancestry in either that could not be explained by inter-breeding between gray wolves and coyotes.
“If you did this same experiment with humans — human genomes from Eurasia — you would find that one to four percent of the human genome has what looks like strange genomic elements from another species: Neanderthals,” Wayne said. “In red wolves and eastern wolves, we thought it might be at least 10 to 20 percent of the genome that could not be explained by ancestry from gray wolves and coyotes. However, we found just three to four percent, on average — similar to that found in individuals from the same species when compared to our small reference set.”
Pure eastern wolves were thought to reside in Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park. The researchers studied two samples from Algonquin Provincial Park and found they were about 50 percent gray wolf, 50 percent coyote.
Biologists mistakenly classified the offspring of gray wolves and coyotes as red wolves or eastern wolves, but the new genomic data suggest they are hybrids. “These gray wolf-coyote hybrids look distinct and were mistaken as a distinct species,” Wayne said.
Eventually, after the extinction of gray wolves in the American south, the red wolves could mate only with one another and coyotes, and became increasingly coyote-like.
Red wolves turn out to be about 25 percent gray wolf and 75 percent coyote, while the eastern wolf’s ancestry is approximately 75 percent gray wolf and 25 percent coyote, Wayne said. (Wayne’s research team published findings in the journal Nature in 1991 suggesting red wolves were a mixture of gray wolves and coyotes.)
Although the red wolf, listed as an endangered species in 1973, is not a distinct species, Wayne believes it is worth conserving; it is the only repository of the gray wolf genes that existed in the American South, he said.
The researchers analyzed SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) — tiny variations in a genetic sequence, and used sophisticated statistical approaches. In the more than two dozen genomes, they found 5.4 million differences in SNPs, a very large number.
Wayne said the Endangered Species Act has been extremely effective. He adds, however, that when it was formulated in the 1970s, biologists thought species tended not to inter-breed with other species, and that if there were hybrids, they were not as fit. The scientific view has changed substantially since then. Inter-breeding in the wild is common and may even be beneficial, he said. The researchers believe the Endangered Species Act should be applied with more flexibility to allow protection of hybrids in some cases (it currently does not), and scientists have made several suggestions about how this might be done without a change in the law, Wayne said.
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of California – Los Angeles. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference:
Bridgett M. Vonholdt, James A. Cahill, Zhenxin Fan, Ilan Gronau, Jacqueline Robinson, John P. Pollinger, Beth Shapiro, Jeff Wall and Robert K. Wayne. Whole-genome sequence analysis shows that two endemic species of North American wolf are admixtures of the coyote and gray wolf. Science Advances, 2016 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1501714
Cite This Page:
University of California – Los Angeles. “Should the gray wolf keep its endangered species protection? New genomic research provides the scientific answer.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 July 2016. .
http://www.livescience.com/55586-wolves-only-one-species.html
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The Gray Wolf Is The Only True King in The North
By Carli Velocci
http://gizmodo.com/the-gray-wolf-is-the-only-true-wolf-in-north-america-1784426738
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It turns out the United States has just one true species of wolf
OR7 yearling pup – Courtesy ODFW
Rachel Feltman
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Gray Wolf The Only Species Distinct To North America, Study Says
Alpha female with her pup NPS Alaska
By Mary Pascaline On 07/28/16 AT 7:33 AM
http://www.ibtimes.com/gray-wolf-only-species-distinct-north-america-study-says-2395516
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Gray wolf is the only pure wolf species in North America
Echo – Courtesy NPS
Submitted by Diana Bretting on Fri, 07/29/2016 – 21:52
http://perfscience.com/content/2144509-gray-wolf-only-pure-wolf-species-north-america
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RED WOLVES
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Posted in: gray wolf, biodiversity
All photos in this post are credited
You Tube: wwwAAASorg
Tags: gray wolf, eastern wolf a hybrid, ESA, DNA study gray wolf, red wolf, USFWS, Echo, OR7
Boulder White Clouds Council
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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
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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 
This is simple, the USFWS, especially under Obama is very corrupt. I remember hearing about a large coyote/wolf coming back to the Eastern part of the United States. The article read, “After 80 years of evolution a hybrid of the wolf has returned to the eastern US.” No, these are not your Northern Rockies’ wolves by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, technically there are no ‘true’ wolves left. (Thank you mankind…not.) Along the centuries the gray wolves have mated with family dogs that had gone wild (dogs being left behind by human families). In fact, it is believed that even the Tundra wolf is a subspecies of the gray wolf. “The tundra wolf is another name for the arctic wolf. Tundra wolves are considered to be a sub-species of the gray wolf.” So…until God feels that all the morons of the world that are out to slaughter His dog are gone……there will be no true ‘gray’ wolves. The government has an awfully long time to wait, as it is impossible to delist something that does not exist.
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* All subspecies of the original gray wolf should be protected. They are keeping our Eco system in check, and until each and every Northern Rockies wolf, from east to west, has had their DNA checked, they are and should be listed as ‘gray’ wolves. (Wanted to clarify above.)
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Reblogged this on hocuspocus13 and commented:
jinxx💙xoxo
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“DNA is a wonderful thing!”
Yes, it is. The title of your post has done my heart a world of good! I’m so happy to read this study. Restoring wolves to New England habitat is a dream. I love our coyotes, and coywolves – but the grey wolf need to be restored to his and her rightful homes too.
I hope where wildlife is concerned, if the Democrats win, we won’t see Obama 2.0. With Hillary’s running mate Tim Kaine a Sportsmen’s Act supporter, I’m concerned. I hate this political gambling and giveaway of our natural resources and wildlife.
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Ida, I completely share your concern about the hunter-conservationist Democrats. If the Democrats were to regain control of the Senate, it would be thanks to hunters like Heinrich (D-NM) and Tester (D-MT), along with the Clinton machine’s (McAuliffe) appointment of Kaine’s successor.
We really need a law to protect all wildlife, including coyotes, instead of wasting time and money on updating biological taxonomy. Unfortunately there is almost no chance of passing such a a law.
(At the risk of angering Ahimsa, I will point out that the only issue even indirectly concerning wildlife in the presidential campaign is access to to birth control, a necessity if we are to reduce human overpopulation, which is why I will vote for Hillary.)
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Yes, but I hope that having this incontrovertible proof as a backup will help create/change laws for the better for wildlife protection. As far as Jon Tester is concerned, I feel that thousands of wolves killed is too big a sacrifice, as well sacrificing judicial review.
Hillary is looking better by the minute after what I have been dismayed to read about the Khan family and Donald Trump.
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People make comments with regard to making this situation political; however, it is, indeed, political, because government entities keep sticking their noses where they don’t belong. Let me say this about that, though: there are FIVE BILLION more people in this world than this planet can comfortably sustain, so whoever made the comment with regard to birth control is right on the money. We are encroaching on the endangered species’ (and those not endangered) habitats, so where the hell are they supposed to go? This is not their fault; it is OURS! But, like Dr. Phil says, “You can’t fix what you won’t acknowledge.” People like Tester are a blight on society. Luckily, I just moved way out of Montana. I found them to be stupid, lazy, ignorant, pretentious and rude. What a combination.
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Reading the ignorant comments just makes me shake my head. And we wonder why the country is halfway down the toilet. Veiled threats of SSS, intended to frighten but just make them look more ignorant than they already are, and making stupid jokes. These are the people who are going to control what happens to our wildlife and the country? Scary. The subspecies of Homo sapiens – Homo ignoramus.
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I couldn’t agree more. The level of many comments, especially on any controversial topic, is frightening. People can’t stay on topic, and somehow animal-related issues bring up abortion and how worrying about animals is wrong. Finally, it all degenerates into name calling. It makes you wonder what is going on in schools.
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^^reading the comments to the articles linked, sorry.
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The poor USFWS! They tried, but it didn’t work. Delisting the grey wolf and removing protection would allow hunting. But suggesting there are distinct subspecies is not only incorrect, it is stupid. Right now hunters can’t seem to tell the difference between a wolf, a coyote, and a pet malamute. Trying to make a distinction between subgroups won’t make hunters smarter or more honest.
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LOL! It ought to be worth the price of admission just to watch them all scramble and juggle their lies, with Grizzly delisting hoped for too. That’s what the Director of our esteemed USF&W Dept. says, that he ‘hopes’ that the states will be good stewards of the grizzly, after he abandons them to the killer states. smh
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I’m sure you all know the EPA or/and USFWS is only concerned with regard to which way the political wind is blowing, and don’t know their asses from first base. They are no more the friend of endangered animals (or any animals) than the FDA is to homo sapiens. They couldn’t care less. They are P’sOS, and so is anyone naive enough who thinks they make any positive difference! Unfortunately, we are all circling the drain.
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My heart skipped a beat when I realized that the coyotes or coywolves I have seen, (especially one trotting though my backyard!) are part gray wolf. Yip-yip-yipeeeeeeee!!!!
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. . . all of which being WELL-known to biologists for decades
Genetics were available to distinguish the intermediate relationship of Red Wolves, and Algonquian Wolves, as well as the evidence that western wolves were FAR more resistant to interbreeding with Coyotes decades ago. There is more to mention of genetic relationships of North American wolves, but I will not now bore activists on it.
The wolf as well as the far smaller coyote is perfectly adapted to natural life in North America, unlike the particular primate who tests and writes and pontificates, and exploits this continent to excess through technologies that have long now devastated the earth – whether metallurgy, chemistry, (poisoning) or “resource” extraction and overpopulation.
The wolf transmits both concrete heritable adaptations and consciously teaches others of their kind. Their innate morality pretty clearly supersedes human/primate morality, as well as either convergent/analogous or homologous violent response to population oversaturation.
A reason insufficiently voiced for avoidance of killing ANY individual wolf, is that social and environmental learning can only be transmitted through the individual.
Mexican wolves have both genetic and learned adaptations to survival as balancers of semiarid and arid ecosystems, and without them, any natural ecosystem in the southwest and much of Mexico is impoverished, both in other species and in the less-diverse ecosystem itself.
Coastal wolves, the salmon-eating swimmers who live on islands and Pacific coastal areas, who were once more represented far south of their presently occupied areas as well, were and would be extremely important to systems and future.
Red wolves once occupied the low Mississippi delta lands of east Texas and Louisiana, seeming less vulnerable to certain mosquito-borne diseases than are Northern Wolves. they once ranged between there and the once-malaria-prone Chesapeake region.
So each subspecies and individual is as precious to the continent as any human believes they or their own offspring are.
Wolves are only vilified to agricultural, domestic slave animal keeping humans. As you observe through e=news articles in the eastern USA, this includes comfort slaves, companion domestics, of which canids, were long artificially selected for rather unconscionable and sociopathic use for “protection” , alarm, herding, assistance to the sensorially-impoverished humans who wished to become predators instead of the opportunistic omnivores we actually are.
This also includes the emotional surrogates sought for relationship without stress – not quite accurate as companion dogs are extremely subject to hierarchical human abuse; only the human gains consistent and false emotional comfort, as they almost universally abuse their dogs. I am long familiar with dog lovers and others who without thought abuse this highly social species. I constantly have to argue with them about their abuse, as they deny doing so even when their permanently-bonded canid suffers visibly and vocally.
In short, the most common human relationship with canids, whether with the wise and wild or the crippled-through-domestication, is sociopathic abuse.
At the meeting of the wolves who are willing to interbreed with coyotes easily, and those who will not, is the upper Great lakes area, where some are genetically predisposed to do so, while others more closely related to more western wolves, who originally hailed more from Asia in the time of the Bering land bridges, for the many repeated millennia when they occupied both continents. Clear evidence for this variation is also found in the distinct groups.
It was long ago discovered by genetics that the present wolves are more closely related to coyotes than were Dire wolves, who were thicker and heavier with noticeable bone size differences, even though some Northern wolves meet ro even exceed their size. Dire wolves disappeared with many, many North American megafauna at the time when humans first migrated over the Bering land bridges or canoed on the south shores of that arc.
That humans have arrogated to themselves some “right” to “manage” other animals, largely by killing them, is or should be highly offensive to any human, but instead is presently taken as moral or right in some disgustingly weird way by nearly all including most scientists, who after all, do their work in hopes of further promoting their private and cultural interests and norms.
Although I have studied more biology and wildlife cognition and behavior than most scientists I could not countenance the goals of most funding institutions and employers in those disciplines. Because few actually work or even consider beneficially supporting the valuable existence of the lives of wild, self-willed animals other than human, the species is on a collision course with mass extinction, and unless a real change in concern and values occurs, the zoo-like approach of almost all humanity toward other life will assure its demise.
Would you sacrifice one human? why then should you be allowed the power to sacrifice one wolf merely because it relieves human arrogance in any way whatsoever?
Who speaks, indeed, for Wolf?
Not one who weighs a wolf in balance with a human need or desire, and finds that the wolf is less.
We now deal in a world where nothing is sacred except continuing human excess. Humans are as well subject to the strange unrealistic, and evil belief that they should be or are arbiters of justice, an emotional concept not peculiar to our species alone, but applied all too extensively by our species toward others to their loss and our specious gain.
It seems to me good that we know and can know the heritage and relationship of one wolf to another, one canid to another, one species to another. That we use it psychopathically to enrich one or more humans, is reflective of our incapacity our unworthiness to have power over life and death.
I do not feel to be of the species that abuses, uses, judges, and exploits others selling all others and all knowledge for social profit.
A few of you are part way there, sometimes only through resentment at the failure of your species to be able to bond as strongly or permanently as is the wolf and some other species.
In my own case, I was born when and where wolves still roqmed, made their homes, and called to one another. This experience seems to have caused my love to be spread more widely among those who lived . I once knew a man, born in 1850 or 51, who lived where and when humans had not hammered and poisoned th elife from wolves or others, unless at GREAT personal need. I learned that wider love perhaps from him, as he lived to 106, when the last I saw of him he was still eager, interacting with wildlife, and kind to us children.
His world is, as many traditional people say, again underground, but I know it as only temporarily buried by cement, smog, excess humanity thinking only of itself as worthy of consideration. Seeing mostly the ground hurt and buried by human excess, I side wholly with the wolf and the salamander, the tree and the damselfly, although largely at peace with most of those humans who seek to destroy them and the fragile others.
Doi not prate of love when you enslave, or seek to take or use. All animals with brains know their own, their selves. Yesterday I passed groups of bison, cows, horses, and small ponies. all, wild or domestic, later sheltered with their own kind when I passed again.
consider this, that your use of domestics are what caused the death of the Imnaha wolf family, a once strong and secure family from which came the California wolves, or-7 and the Rogue pack of the southern cascades, and a great number of the wolf families now surrounding the area where they were killed in the Wallowas of NE Oregon. They were obviously superb teachers to their young for a few generations, although they sometimes chose a certain large ungulate who was regarded b y some humans as their personal propitty, although those cattle each had a life of their own, only shortened and doomed by those humans.
I surely ceased advocacy and consideration for wolf science as management when Oregon Dept of Fish and Wildlife made the decision to vengefully kill. I have previously heard human ranchers prate of their fears , which were entirely of losing cash in relationship to wealthier or the humans they borrowed from.
Although these and like humans must be dealt with in some way which will not cause that lethal response and vengefulness to turn on wolves or the extremely few humans who actually have the concern for individual wolves as paramount, all life remains under their guns, until siuch time as evolution removes such humans from earth.
Long ago, I noted that seven thousand million, or even three billion, were far, far, too many humans for the health of life itself,
I merely watch the self-deception of humans, their crazed search for removal of threats to maintenance and growth of that crazed ovepopulation, and their medicine and science. There is a current that is life itself, and it has temporarily swung to erode the diversity of life, and the integrity of individuals of every species.
In that devastation it is to be expected that humans might one day experience, like the Saiga Antelope who suddenly almost all died off in a few days from the complex action of bacteria and some other stochastic living effectors, a drop sufficient to save the tender and fierce wolf from further “management.”
I watch medical and scientific literature with an eye to the probable source of such a relief, although my main early training was in human psychology, due to a desolate wonder as to why humans treated one another so cruelly.
ALthough I notice how cruel was one grandfather toward wolves and bears and his “own cattle, and how my own brother retains that character”, it sensitizes, instead of blinds me to the actions, biases, intentions, and beliefs of almost every human, who because they intermittently have kind feelings or even emotional dependence upon another animal, universally turn their backs from time to time, claiming that their abandonment is somehow included in their supposed love.
Your species is dangerous not only because it seeks reciprocial ill, and revenge, but also because individuals refuse to question their own ill behavior toward those they claim to love, instead falsely claiming that their modern focus on social status is somehow necessary while the life of their captives drain away in lonely frustration, forever restrained from freedom to go with their kind.
Such an individual or species who does this, this enslavement for utility or comfort is not to be trusted, and fortunately the wolf’s imperatives kicking in after the short first imprinting period, causes them to fear and avoid humans.
This continent was once occupied by humans who gave the wolf space and respect. No pretention to necessity by humans superior to other animals’ lives or freedoms si remotely valid in any way whatsoever.
Wolves do and do not consort with coyotes, depending upon situations. this difference is of no import, and outside of knowing natural relationships by a primate who has lost or evolutionarily traded sure smell for violent emotional memory (for that is the brain shape we have taken over time, it being useful once), humans should not be ceded the power to kill at a distance, to prosecute or judge other animals, or worse to take their world from them.
Everything you ever learn in school could be traded for something more valuable, under the right circumstances.
The world nor other life needs it or humans not at all.
But we do need them, and science shows this more and more clearly.
That particular lesson of science is insufficiently taught to almost no human (yes I mean the double negative. think as you read it), and taught not at all to those who have benefited from its application, mostly at the expense of other lives on the planet.
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“Food For Thought: “So, until we consider animal life to be worthy of the consideration and reverence we bestow upon old books and pictures and historic monuments, there will always be the animal refugee living a precarious life on the edge of extermination, dependent for existence on the charity of a few human beings.” (Gerald Durrell)”
Not while I’m alive! It’s a very accurate quote, but with animal advocates continually fighting for them – they’ll have more hope. I would add to it naming our stupid sports teams after them too.
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I saw your post about Craigs List, Nabeki – there ought to be a law passed that they cannot deal in buying and selling animals, because the legitimacy of those involved cannot be trusted. In Quincy, MA there was a man who tortured and killed a dog he targeted on Craigs List. But man, did he have a day in court. Yay!!!!
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What a hauntingly beautiful video, just watched I Am Wolf. How true, and I become more convinced every day that the only dumb, brutish beast on the planet is human.
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What you have said is spot on; we are not going to be satisfied until we have s$%t on every square inch of this country. The problem has NEVER been the animals; it is US!
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Are you okay????? just realized I have seen nothig frm yo in about 2 months and hope all is as well as could be imagined cnsidering the morons controling wl
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Hi Nabeki! Happy New Year!
Ugh. I saw your latest post, and it is offensive to still have wolves referred to as vermin by using the word ‘infested’. I don’t even like the word ‘rich’, because the implication is an overabundance of them, and from there, it’s just a short jump to killing the so-called too many! Just the same old propaganda, but luckily many can see it and and are intelligent enough to separate the wheat from the chaff in these pieces.
How about just simply wolf populated, or nothing at all? Any creature out in wilderness alone is subject to an entire host of dangers – not just wolves and predators. Wolves should not take the brunt of human fear and persecution alone. Were other predators mentioned? Who left the horse for dead anyway ought to be the focus.
Truly, human overactive imaginations and hysteria will make an issue worse than it need be. I’m glad this news report was called out and corrected! Again I’ll ask, who left the horse for dead anyway?
It shows that Nature can take care of herself, without needless meddling by humans who don’t know as much as they think they do.
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My New Year’s resolution is to Stamp Out Wolf Propaganda wherever it rears its ugly, prejudicial head! (More than ever).
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Stamping out Wolf Propaganda begins with the young…and the little child shall lead them. There is a children’s book entitled, “The Kind Wolf” that I used to read to my granddaughter all the time. I think it begins there, because there is so much ignorance and old wives tales and tales passed down from trappers who embellished on their stories every time they told them so nothing remotely resembling the truth was the result. These ignoramuses don’t want to hear the truth; they’d rather exterminate without a valid reason for doing so! The philosophy, “When ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise” was never more appropriate.
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