Victory! Wolf Delisting Rider Fails To Make It Into Massive Budget Bill!

December 17, 2015

Wolves in Wyoming and the Great Lakes are safe for now. The sneaky procedure of slipping wolf delisting riders into budget bills didn’t work this time for the congressional wolf haters and their ranching and hunting backers. The behemoth budget bill was supposed to be a vehicle to go around the courts and delist wolves in the Great Lakes and Wyoming via delisting rider. Supposedly it was not included due to a warning from the White House the bill would be vetoed if there were any changes to the Endangered Species Act. This is shocking since it was the Obama administration who delisted wolves in Montana and Idaho in 2009. He also supported the wolf delisting rider in 2011, that was slipped into an appropriations bill, which delisted wolves in Montana, Idaho and parts of Oregon, Utah and Washington state, without judicial review. Obama is  also challenging Judge Berman’s December 2014 relisting of wolves in the Great Lakes and Wyoming.  So it was big surprise the wolf rider was not included in the budget bill but it was certainly a welcome change.

This battle is far from over but at least this year there will be no wolf hunts in Wyoming or the Great Lakes. I wish I could say the same about the beleaguered wolves of Montana and Idaho.

Here’s the evil wolf delisting rider that was stripped out of the funding bill.

“Requiring the Secretary of the Interior to reissue final rules to delist wolves in Wyoming and the Great Lakes region that were overturned by a federal court and exempting those reissued rules from judicial review.”

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Wyoming wolf provision left out of massive congressional budget bill

Associated Press

Updated 19 hrs ago

 U.S. Reps. Collin Peterson, D-Minnesota, Reid Ribble, R-Wisconsin, and some other lawmakers had hoped to attach a rider to return management of wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Wyoming to the states, which could have opened the door to a resumption of wolf hunting in those places. The provision would have undone federal court decisions that restored the animals’ protected status in the four states despite repeated efforts by the federal government to remove them from the list.

Peterson said budget negotiators dropped the provision from the final bill, which was unveiled late Tuesday, because the White House had threatened a veto if the bill contained any changes to the Endangered Species Act.

“Obviously I’m disappointed,” Peterson said. “We thought it wasn’t going to be a problem because the Fish and Wildlife Service was supporting it.”

Peterson, the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, said supporters will have to regroup and decide on their next step. He said a stand-alone bill probably could pass the House but he’s not sure about the Senate. It’s also possible an appeals court could overturn the lower court decisions, he added.

While livestock interests supported removing federal protections for wolves, wildlife groups lobbied against it.

“It certainly was a pleasant surprise,” said Brett Hartl, endangered species policy director with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Backers of the rider were trying to use a tactic that succeeded in 2011 when Congress removed wolves in Idaho, Montana and sections of Utah, Washington and Oregon from the list.

 “Cooler heads prevailed in Congress,” said Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. He said a letter written by Sens. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, and Barbara Boxer, D-California, and signed by 23 other senators including Gary Peters, D-Michigan, helped make the difference.

The combined wolf population in the western Great Lakes region is estimated at 3,700, including about 2,200 in Minnesota, while Wyoming has around 333.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled last December that the western Great Lakes states didn’t have suitable plans to safeguard wolves, and that the animals haven’t come close to repopulating their former range. Her decision prevented Minnesota and Wisconsin from holding sport wolf hunting and trapping seasons this fall. Michigan hasn’t held a hunt since 2013. Another federal judge issued a similar decision in September 2014 in a Wyoming case.

The Obama administration, Michigan, Wisconsin and Wyoming are appealing the two decisions. Minnesota is not formally a party to the Midwest case, but the state attorney general’s office filed an amicus brief Tuesday supporting a reversal.

The brief says Minnesota’s wolf management plan will ensure the animals continue to thrive in the state. It says Minnesota’s wolf population and range have expanded to the point of saturating the habitat in the state since the animals went on the endangered list in 1973, creating “human-wolf conflict that is unique in its cost and prevalence.”

A similar appeal is pending in the Wyoming case. Pacelle said his group, which filed the lawsuit in the Midwest case, will keep up the fight.

“This is not the end of the process, but it’s a good outcome because Congress is showing restraint and not trying to cherry-pick a species and remove it from the list of endangered animals,” Pacelle said.

http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/wyoming-wolf-provision-left-out-of-massive-congressional-budget-bill/article_77ac09ef-d3a9-5bee-8e43-30cc471ac854.html

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Photo: Courtesy wolf wallpaper

Posted in: gray wolf, Endangered Species Act, biodiversity

Tags: No delisting rider, wolves safe in Wyoming and Great Lakes for now, ESA, budget bill, gray wolf, Great Lakes, Wyoming

“Where The Grizzly Walks” – Sam Elliott

Thank you Sam Elliott for speaking out for the Great Bears.

Please support Vital Ground, they work to protect grizzly bear habitat.

www.vitalground.org

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Photo: Courtesy Wiki

Posted in: Grizzly Bear, endangered species

Tags: Vital Ground, Sam Elliot, protect grizzly bear habitat, grizzly bears

Remembering Limpy: The Life and Death of Wolf 253

Limpy – Wolf 253/Steve Justad

March 16, 2015

On March 28, 2008, almost seven years ago, a cherished Druid Peak pack wolf,  nick-named Limpy, was shot dead outside Daniel,Wyoming.  It happened on the day wolves, in the Northern Rockies, lost their ESA protections for the first time by the then Bush Administration. 

“He died for nothing”  said Lake City resident Marlene Foard.  A senseless death for a beloved wolf.

RIP Limpy – we remember and miss you!

Here is Limpy’s story told  by the Trib.com.

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The life and death of wolf 253

Posted: Sunday, April 13, 2008 12:00 am  Trib.com

FRANZ CAMENZIND

A wolf died the other day in Wyoming. Along with three others, it was shot and killed on the first day that wolves in most of the state lost the protection of the Endangered Species Act. These were legal kills made by people simply because they could. Nothing more was required of them but to report the kills to state officials – no license, no fees, no restrictions.

For sportsmen, one of the proudly held rules is: “Know Your Target.” What did these hunters know about their targets?

One of the four dead wolves was a female that may have been pregnant. Two of the males were unknown and will be remembered simply as body count numbers in the West’s war on wolves. But one wolf has a history known to many throughout the region. To some he was “Limpy,” to others he was “The Wanderer.” Officially, he was 253M, the 253rd wolf to be radio-collared in the Greater Yellowstone area since wolves were reintroduced in the mid-90s.

253M was born in April 2000 into the Druid Peak Pack, whose territory encompasses Yellowstone National Park’s Lamar Valley. His father was likely 21M, a leader of renown and a story unto himself. 21M was one of the first generation of wolves born in Yellowstone in more than 60 years.

253M was black, as are nearly half of Yellowstone’s wolves. Before he was two, he was injured defending his territory from intruders from a nearby pack. Although the Druids held their territory, 253M’s left hind leg was injured, causing a life-long limp distinguishing him from other wolves.

In the fall of 2002, he left his home territory, typical behavior for wolves of that age. Later that fall, on Nov. 30, 253M was accidentally caught in a trap set for coyotes about 20 miles northeast of Salt Lake City, making him the first confirmed wolf in Utah in more than 70 years. Tracks around the site suggested that he was traveling with another wolf – perhaps they were a pair exploring for a place to begin a new life.

253M was taken back to Wyoming and released three days later by a federal biologist south of Yellowstone Park. He made his way back to the Druid Pack before Christmas, surprising the “experts,” who thought he would immediately head back south.

This second time around, he remained with the Druids for nearly two years and rose to the level of second-ranking male – subordinate only to the now-famous, but aging, 21M. In the summer of 2004, 21M died, and most observers thought that 253M would take over as leader of the Druids. But again, he managed to fool the experts and waged only a minor battle with “New Black,” as the victor and new Druid leader came to be known.

Immediately after New Black assumed his alpha status, 253M broke from the pack and began wandering about Yellowstone, mostly undetected, only to unexpectedly appear on the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole – 90 miles south of his birthplace – alone, but looking healthy.

It was in early 2005 that 253M may have fathered his only offspring. He was observed with another male and female, and 5 pups, forming the new Flat Creek Pack. But within a year, 253M again headed south, and the Flat Creek Pack dissolved. The cause of the sudden disintegration of this new pack will never be known. Was 253M simply living up to one of his names, The Wanderer?

Meanwhile, the Daniel Pack, which roamed across a mix of ranching and wild lands 60 miles southeast of Jackson, was implicated in cattle depredations and thus under constant surveillance and control. Sometime in the next year or so, 253M found his way into this persecuted pack.

During his eight years of travel across thousands of miles and at least two states, 253M was never accused of any destruction of human property. He was a “good wolf” – one who adapted to his human-dominated world. The kind of wolf we should be able to live with.

But on the morning of March 28, his luck ran out. Not because of anything he did, but because of what a minority of people in Wyoming wanted – to take all protection off wolves in 88 percent of the state, where anyone can now kill any wolf by any means at any time. 253M and three others were killed for nothing more than being wolves in Wyoming’s politically designated predator zone.

253M and other wolves are now dead in Wyoming because some don’t want wolves in the Equality State.

Now we “Know The Target.” What have we learned?

Franz Camenzind is executive director of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance.

http://trib.com/editorial/forum/article_124999b7-cf79-5ce6-bb05-48213d55554b.html

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Click the video to watch on YouTube

August 16, 2011

This video is a treasure I found by chance, a beautiful narration by Brian Connolly of the life and death of wolf 253M. It is so moving you will be brought to tears.

Limpy was the inspiration for this blog.  He was the perfect wolf in my mind’s eye, a member of the iconic Druid Peak Pack, who once ruled Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley.

Brian, I don’t know you but thanks  for your beautiful ode to Limpy, who gave pleasure to so many. A wolf, who over came the adversity of injury but was killed for nothing in the name of blood sport.

Rest in peace dear, dear wolf 253M

For the wolves, For Limpy,

Nabeki

Howling For Justice is dedicated to wolf 253.

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Beloved ‘Wolf 253′ killed in Wyoming

April 2, 2008

John Hollenhorst reporting

One of the nation’s most famous and beloved wolves has been killed. Someone in Wyoming shot him, along with two other wolves, apparently the very day the Bush Administration lifted legal protections.

READ MORE:

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=2994073

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Top Photos: Courtesy Steve Justad

Bottom Photo: Courtesy KSLdotcomUtah

Video:  Courtesy YouTube Brian Connolly

Posted in: wolf 253,  Endangered Species Act,  Wolf wars

Tags: Endangered Species Act, wolf intolerance, blood lust, Limpy, Wolf 253, Druid Peak Pack, RIP Limpy, KSLdotcomUtah, Brian Connolly, Trib.com

Take Action: Petition Demanding Obama Administration Prosecute Endangered Species Killers

Let the Obama administration know we want killers of endangered species to be prosecuted. Do it for Echo and all endangered species!

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From the Endangered Species Coalition 

TELL THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO PROSECUTE ENDANGERED SPECIES KILLERS

A little known and decades old Department of Justice policy is protecting the killers of endangered grizzly bears, whooping cranes, California condors and wolves.

The so-called “McKittrick Policy” was enacted after a Montana man gunned down a wolf and later claimed he had thought he was firing on a dog. He was prosecuted, though the Department of Justice (DOJ) later decided to accept his self-exoneration by claimed ignorance and has clung to that policy of inaction for years.

Endangered species need to be protected from hunters that can simply claim they did not know what they were shooting at.

Tell President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to drop the McKittrick Policy and treat the killing of endangered species like the crime that it is.

*If asked to enter a subject after submitting your email, please select “Environment”.

Click Link to Sign

http://action.endangered.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=19052

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Photo: Courtesy Tumblr

Posted in: Endangered Species Act, Wolf Wars, Activism, gray wolf

Tags: Echo, endangered species, prosecute killers of endangered species, The Endangered Species Coalition, USFWS do your job, senseless wildlife deaths

Killing Echo/Killing Wolves: – “Mistaken Identity and Other Excuses: Part Two

Echo

March 4, 2015

Wolves are one of the most social animals on earth, they’re right up there with us, the Great Apes, dolphins, lions, elephants, etc. Their lives are about family. Wolves may disperse from their natal packs between 1-3 years of age but it’s an individual choice. When they do decide to leave they’re prepared to do whatever it takes to find a mate and claim new territory. And that’s when the trouble begins for them.

There’s a reason wolves have been unable to reclaim lost habitat in most of their former range, they’re killed before they have a chance. The Pacific Northwest, Northern Rockies, Great Lakes and Southwest, where critically endangered Mexican gray wolves  struggle to increase their numbers, are the only areas of the country where gray wolves are successfully breeding and raising pups. BUT in 2009, when wolves in the Northern Rockies were delisted by the Obama administration, their recovery took a very dark turn. Until recent court decisions relisted wolves in Wyoming and then the Great Lakes, they suffered the same fate as their wolf brothers and sisters in Montana and Idaho.

Wolves are hunted with extreme animus, tortured by leghold traps, snares, arrows, bullets, many gut shot to prolong and increase their pain. The ultimate sadism directed at wolves was legalized in Wisconsin, as a twisted form of  dog/wolf fighting. It allowed the use of up to six dogs per trophy hunter to track and trail wolves. It’s not a stretch to believe some hunters let their dogs tear into the wolves, once they were cornered, delivering an even more grisly, frightening and painful death. That’s been put on hold for now, due to  recent court decisions but members of Congress, pandering to agricultural and hunting interests, are already scheming to make an-end-round the courts and pass legislation similar to the 2011 budget bill delisting rider, that removed wolves in Montana and Idaho from the endangered species list.

Life is hard for wolves in this country. The dream of wolf reintroduction has turned into a nightmare for hunted wolves. Idaho’s beleaguered wolf population faces endless wolf hunts that stretch through breeding, denning and pupping season. Hunting quotas have all but been removed in most of Montana and Idaho.  In the Treasure State up to a hundred wolves  can be killed by a single private landowner.

The situation for hunted wolves is not a success story but a tragedy. When wolves attempt to disperse, as Echo did, they usually end up DEAD.

Another barrier to wolf recovery is Wildlife Services, a ghastly federal agency, funded by American tax  dollars. They act as the Department of Agriculture’s killing arm,  destroying millions of animals annually, including  hundreds of wolves. It’s agriculture’s personal hit man-tag-team. Click here, here and here to read the Sac Bee’s expose of this hellacious agency.

Is it a surprise then that wolf recovery has been stopped in most of the country, outside of the areas I’ve mentioned? The odds are stacked against wolves as they face the likes of Wildlife Services, poachers, hostile state governments, hunters and ranchers.  Wolves are trapped by man-made boundaries they dare not cross. Boundaries that hold no meaning for them but ultimately contribute to their deaths.

One of the deadliest threats to dispersing wolves is the “coyote excuse”.  As I stated in part one, using those two words, gives the shooter a perfect alibi. It’s “he said, he said”. Or “she said, she said”. The wolf is dead, it’s the shooter’s word that counts.

What’s so striking about the wolf killings in Kentucky and Kansas  is wolves had been absent from those states for decades and specifically in Kentucky, for 150 years. Instead of celebrating the return of the wolf, she’s shot dead.

The USFWS should be prosecuting these people, to send a message that killing endangered wolves IS NOT OK. Instead they let “hunters” off with the “coyote excuse”. I don’t care what the “coyote hunters” say, if they kill an endangered wolf they should be prosecuted, period! That will send a signal to these numbskulls that shooting endangered wolves has consequences.  But the USFWS continues to fail wolves, they don’t take the killings seriously. It’s pretty clear USFWS is  not interested in gray wolf recovery, that’s why they’re pushing for a national delisting.

And why is it OK to kill coyotes? It’s not.  I’ve seen one too many horrific images of dead coyotes, killed for fun, killed for nothing. Coyotes undoubtedly need protection as well.

It’s a slap in the face to wolf and wildlife advocates that the agency charged with protecting wild wolves looks the other way when wolves are killed with impunity, meting out almost no punishment, even though the ESA clearly states:

– authorizes the assessment of civil and criminal penalties for violating the act or regulations; and

– authorizes the payment of rewards to anyone furnishing information leading to arrest and conviction of ANY violation of the act or any regulation issued there under.

A mockery has been made of the ESA concerning wolves. it’s a joke to think they’re protected, when time and again they’re killed as they attempt to disperse, just as Echo’s sad story proves.

Unless and until the American people stand up to the Interior Department and Congress, nothing will change. The system is broken and corrupt and needs a complete overhaul.

Here are a just a few examples of what happens when wild wolves dare to disperse from their natal packs, in search of a mate and new territory. It’s the wolf version of Russian Roulette.

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UTAH

Echo shot dead by coyote hunter using “coyote excuse”.

Her death was a tragic blow to wolf recovery, being the first confirmed wolf to inhabit the Grand Canyon in 70 years.

First Gray Wolf Spotted At Grand Canyon In 70 Years Shot Dead By Hunter

BY ARI PHILLIPS POSTED ON FEBRUARY 12, 2015 AT 2:59 PM UPDATED: FEBRUARY 13, 2015 AT 8:54 AM

Officials have confirmed that the first gray wolf seen around the Grand Canyon in 70 years was killed in December by a hunter in southern Utah after he mistook it for coyote. The three-year-old female, named “Echo” through a contest held with hundreds of schoolchildren, was the first gray wolf to be spotted in the region since the 1940s. After being collared in Wyoming in early January 2014, the wolf had ventured at least 750 miles into the new territory — further evidence that gray wolf populations are coming back from the brink of extinction after decades of reckless killings.

“The fact Echo had ventured into new territory hopefully signifies that there is still additional habitat where this vulnerable species can thrive and survive,” Nidhi J. Thakar, deputy director of the public lands project at the Center for American Progress, told ThinkProgress.

The coyote hunter who shot Echo, and whose name has not been released, reported the killing to authorities as an accident. Gray wolves are on the Endangered Species Act and it is illegal to kill them anywhere in the U.S. except Idaho and Montana, eastern Washington and Oregon, and northeastern Utah. According to the Center For Biological Diversity, this partial removal of federal protections in the Northwest has lead to the deaths of thousands of wolves through state-authorized hunting and trapping in recent years. Congress is now considering a legislative rider that would preclude protecting wandering wolves like Echo, according to the wildlife conservation group.

“Echo’s killing illustrates the perils that wolves face and the imperative to maintain federal protections as called for under the science-based standards of the Endangered Species Act,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. “Keeping wolves on the endangered list is the basis for the public education we need, to enable more wolves to live and thrive and minimize conflict.”

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/12/3622423/famous-grand-canyon-gray-wolf-shot-by-hunter/

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*Warning graphic images

Kentucky

Wolf shot dead using “coyote excuse”.

“In Kentucky, the first gray wolf seen in 150 years was shot dead last August….earth first newswire

Wild Wolf in Kentucky, First in 150 Years, Killed by Hunter

by Russ McSpadden / Earth First! News

“This photo posted on KentuckyHunting.net shows the first wolf to wander Kentucky in over 150 years, dead and exhibited as a trophy”..earthfirstjournaldotorg

earthfirstjournaldotorg

According to a recent announcement by state wildlife officials, a 73-pound, federally endangered female gray wolf was shot dead by a hunter in Munfordville, Kentucky earlier this year. Were it Alaska or Idaho this wouldn’t be news, but Kentucky has not seen wild roaming wolves since the mid 1800s.

 “Wildlife officials identified the man who killed the wolf as Hart County resident James Troyer, who shot the animal believing it to be a coyote.”

Read More:

http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2013/08/19/wild-wolf-in-kentucky-first-in-150-years-killed-by-hunter/

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Kansas

80 pound wolf killed using the “coyote excuse”. This was the first wolf confirmed in Kansas in 108 years.

Coyote hunters kill 1st wolf in Kansas since 1905

Wolf killed in December in northwest Kan.

Published  6:00 PM CST Feb 02, 2013

TOPEKA, Kan. —Coyote hunters have killed a wolf in northwest Kansas, the first documented wolf in the state since 1905.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the wolf was killed in December. The animal weighed more than 80 pounds, more than twice as much as a large coyote.

 Read More: http://www.kmbc.com/news/Coyote-hunters-kill-1st-wolf-in-Kansas-since-1905/18390636

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Missouri

Wolf killed in Missouri using the “coyote excuse”. Third gray wolf killed there in the last 13 years.

Hunter kills Gray Wolf in central Missouri

POSTED 6:17 PM, JANUARY 15, 2014, BY CHRIS SMITH, UPDATED AT 06:14PM, JANUARY 15, 2014

HOWARD COUNTY, MO. (KTVI) – This past fall a man from southeast Missouri killed what he thought was coyote on his property in Howard County, which is near Columbia, Missouri.  But, after a closure inspection of the animal, he thought it was something else.

The Missouri Department of Conservation says that the man killed a Gray Wolf. This is a  Federally protected species.  DNA confirms the wolf is from the Great Lake states.  Officials think the wolf may have wandered down from Minnesota, Wisconsin or Michigan. The animal was not tagged and is not believed to have been a captive animal.

This is the third Gray Wolf killed in Missouri over the past 13 years.  Many of them were shot by hunters mistaking the wolves as coyotes.

http://fox2now.com/2014/01/15/hunter-kills-gray-wolf-in-central-missouri/

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Colorado

Wolf Poisoned

Dispersing Mill Creek Pack female wolf poisoned by Wildlife Service’s deadly 1080 compound. 

Compound 1080…. “is one of the horrific poisons Wildlife Services uses in its arsenal to kill our wildlife.”

The Amazing Journey and Sad End of Wolf 314F (UPDATE)

October 16, 2009

I posted this story in October 2009 about an amazing little Mill Creek Pack wolf, who traveled 1000 miles from her home in Montana to a lonely hillside in Colorado, called “No Name Ridge”, where her bones were found.

Her death has been under investigation by USFWS all this time.

Finally, after almost two years,  it was announced she was poisoned by the deadly compound 1080. It is one of the horrific poisons Wildlife Services uses in its arsenal to kill our wildlife.

https://howlingforjustice.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/the-amazing-journey-and-sad-end-of-wolf-314f/ 

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Washington

Wolf shot for existing

Whitman Co. farmer could face charges for killing wolf

 Joshua Babcock Murrow News Service10:09 a.m. PST November 29, 2014

Washington fish and wildlife officials are recommending a Whitman County farmer face misdemeanor charges for shooting a gray wolf last month.

The charge could result in a year in jail and a two-year suspension of hunting, fishing and trapping licenses.

Steve Crown, chief of enforcement for Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the shooter was a farmer who also notified authorities. Crown said it is unclear why the farmer shot the wolf, as it did not appear to pose an imminent danger to pets, livestock or the farmer.

Crown said this is the third wolf shooting this year in Washington.

“If it’s just in the area, it’s not open season for wolves,” Crown said.

Read more:

http://www.krem.com/story/news/local/whitman-county/2014/11/28/whitman-co-farmer-facing-charges-for-killing-gray-wolf/19641521/

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Illinois

Wolf or Wolf hybrid hit By A Car

Wolf?! found at Morris – Probably a hybrid

This 48-inch long, wolf-like canine was found, apparently hit by a vehicle, on Nettle School Road, just northwest of Morris on Feb. 13. Measurements have been taken determine if it matches common wolf dimensions and DNA testing may be done.

Posted: Friday, February 20, 2015 9:03 am

Robert Themer
rthemer@daily-journal.com

A large, wolf-like animal found dead on a roadside north of Morris last Friday “looks like it might be a hybrid of some sort,” says Illinois Department of Natural Resources district wildlife biologist Bob Massey.

“It has characteristics of coyote, dog and wolf,” Massey said Wednesday, after IDNR sent out a news release about the animal being found along Nettle Creek Road, north of Interstate 80, early on Feb. 13. The site was a couple miles northwest of Morris, Massey said.

The animal was found by a some guys heading to a hunt club, who then called, he said.

Massey has measured the animal and sent the information off to a wolf biologist in Wisconsin.

“If it falls within the parameters of wolf size, we will send it for DNA analysis by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” he said.

http://www.daily-journal.com/news/local/wolf-found-at-morris—probably-a-hybrid/article_c1f521e0-439e-528b-821f-096908694708.html

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North Carolina 

10 Red Wolves killed by “coyote hunters”

10 highly endangered Red wolves were “confirmed or suspected gunshot deaths since the start of last year.”  Once again the “coyote excuse” was used.

Highly endangered red wolves being shot with impunity – only 100 wild red wolves left in North Carolina. Apparently these yahoos will shot any wolf they can.

Endangered red wolf shot in NC, 10 in past year

WCNC Staff, WCNC.com3:34 p.m. EST January 13, 2014

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The death toll for endangered red wolves continues to mount near their North Carolina refuge.

Federal and state wildlife agencies said Monday that another red wolf was found shot to death last week in Tyrrell County. That makes 10 confirmed or suspected gunshot deaths since the start of last year.

There are only about 100 red wolves roaming an area in Tyrrell and four other northeastern North Carolina counties where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been trying to restore the animals in the wild.

The state Wildlife Resources Commission this summer allowed coyote hunting in the same five-county area, but hunters easily confuse the two animals.

A federal judge is scheduled to hear arguments next month in a lawsuit by conservation groups seeking to stop the coyote hunting.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/13/endangered-red-wolf-shot-in-nc-10-in-past-year/

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New York

Coyote killers even shoot horses – no animal is safe!

Lousy Coyote Hunters Shoot Horses, Licences Seized

(not horses killed)

18 Feb, 2015 – CONRAD BAKER

SPARTA – The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has revoked two individuals’ hunting licenses for three years and issued a monetary penalty after the hunters shot and killed two horses on Jan.24, violating state Environmental Conservation Law.

Read more:

http://www.geneseesun.com/2015/02/18/lousy-coyote-hunters-shoot-horses-licences-seized/

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Demand Justice for Echo

author: Center for Biological Diversity

target: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe

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It’s as we feared. 

DNA analysis shows that the gray wolf gunned down in Utah last December was Echo, the Grand Canyon wolf. Echo wandered more than 750 miles from the Rocky Mountains to find a mate. When she made her historic appearance on the Grand Canyon’s north rim in 2014 she became the first wolf spotted there in more than 70 years.Just three weeks before her killing she received the name “Echo” through a naming contest entered by hundreds of schoolchildren around the world who were fascinated by her journey.But hopes of seeing gray wolves reestablished near Grand Canyon died when a hunter shot her dead, claiming to have mistaken her for a coyote.

Wolves are an endangered species in Utah, but hunters are rarely, if ever, punished when they illegally kill animals supposedly mistaken for unprotected wildlife species.

Demand justice for Echo.

Tell the head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that Echo deserves justice and he must do everything in his power to investigate and prosecute this callous and tragic shooting.

Click link to sign for Echo!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/775/624/120/

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Visit Bold Visions Conservation! 

 BOLD VISIONS CONSERVATION

IS FIGHTING FOR WILDLIFE!

THE BOLD VISIONS CONSERVATION MISSION

Bold Visions Conservation was created for the protection of land, water and wildlife.

Bold Visions Conservation exists to infuse a creative and bold energy into protecting wildlife and our environment.

Understanding, as John Muir did the importance of the “web of life” and the value of large protected areas, both on land and across our oceans as vital to responsible stewardship. We take our responsibility seriously to share our planet with all species of life and believe that we must instill passion in our effort to pass Earth’s bounty on to future generations.

 http://www.bvconservation.org/members-donate.html

and

Speak For Wolves

http://www.speakforwolves.org/

Get involved, make a difference for wolves and wildlife before it’s too late!

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More reasons to effect permanent change!!

Congress Takes Aim at Gray Wolves

Two new bills would strip the predator of endangered species protections.

When it comes to saving certain iconic endangered species, such as bald eagles, Americans embrace the effort wholeheartedly. There was resistance to ending the use of the pesticide DDT, the leading culprit in their decline, but it happened. Now bald eagles have recovered to the point that they’re off the federal list of endangered species. A pair is even nesting in New York City’s busy harbor.

Wolves are a different story. Although gray wolves are an equally potent symbol of freedom and nobility, American style, this week saw two efforts kick off in the House of Representatives to end endangered species protections for the species.

Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Wis., on Thursday introduced legislation to force the United States Department of Interior to remove gray wolf populations in Wyoming, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan from the federal endangered species list. Three Democrats are among the bill’s14 cosponsors.

Wolves are an immediate threat to “domestic animals, farm animals and, quite frankly, children,” Ribble said last month, according to E&E News.

Another Midwestern lawmaker, Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., signed on to Ribble’s bill and introduced his own earlier in the week. Kline’s measure goes one step further by proposing to “prohibit treatment of gray wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan as endangered species.”

That phrasing seems calibrated to make Great Lakes gray wolves ineligible, forever, for protection under the nation’s key wildlife conservation law, as well as to end-run any court orders that might demand their protection.

Ribble’s measure, by contrast, would not stop conservationists from petitioning for wolves’ protection or federal conservation officials from returning the Great Lakes or Wyoming wolf populations to endangered status.

Similar legislation in 2011 forced the end of federal protections for wolves in Idaho and Montana, and the Center for Biological Diversity has stated that more than 1,956 wolves have been killed in the two states since.

Protecting a species under federal law is usually time-consuming and complicated. So Ribble’s measure, if passed, might still mean years of state management for these wolf populations, and that’s not a welcome prospect for the animals’ advocates.

“This bill would turn over the keys to wolf recovery to four states that have made it clear they’re more interested in killing wolves than saving them,” Brett Hartl, endangered species policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

After protections for the Great Lakes and Wyoming wolves ended in 2011 and 2012, more than 1,600 animals were killed under state management plans, the center said, “likely contributing to a 25 percent decline in Minnesota and a 9 percent decline in the northern Rockies.”

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Federal Legislation Would Strip ESA Protections for Gray Wolves

February 12, 2015

The Humane Society of the United States urges Congress to keep wolves protected and for USFWS to Downlist to Threatened

Representatives from Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Wyoming introduced legislation that would remove gray wolves in those states from the Endangered Species list. This legislation comes on the heels of two recent court cases that placed wolves in the Great Lakes and Wyoming back under federal protection due to overreaching state management programs that jeopardized wolf recovery. It is the first of several bills expected to be introduced this Congress seeking to weaken protections for wolves and to subvert a series of federal court rulings that determined that the federal government has too narrowly segmented wolf populations and that the states had overreached in their trophy hunting, commercial trapping, and hounding programs.

Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, issued the following statement in response:

“This legislation is an end-around a series of federal court rulings that have determined that state and federal agencies have acted improperly in acting to delist wolves.  This bill is just a the latest act of political bomb-throwing and gamesmanship, and lawmakers who want balance on the wolf issue should reject it.

Read More: 

http://www.humanesociety.org/news/news_briefs/2015/02/esa-protections-wolves-021215.html

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Top Photo: Courtesy Arizona Game and Fish

Kentucky wolf photos: Courtesy Earth First Newswire

Middle Photo: wolf/wolf hybrid Courtesy newsjournaldotcom

Red wolf photo: Courtesy Wiki

Horse photo: Courtesy Wiki

Bold Vision logo: Courtesy Bold Vision Conservation

Bottom Photo: Courtesy Earth Island Journal

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Endangered Species Act, biodiversity, Activism

Tags: Echo,  “coyote excuse”, dispersing wolves poached, wolf recovery, USFWS, Congress, Utah, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, North Carolina, Illinois, North Carolina, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, abusing the ESA, change needed, Bold Visions Conservation, Earth Island Journal

50 Renowned Scientists Send Letter To Congress Urging “LEAVE WOLVES ALONE”

“Increasingly, Americans recognize the wide range of economic and ecological benefits that wolves bring.Photo: Stockphoto”

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Pack of Scientists Urges Congress to Leave Wolves, ESA Alone

February 18, 2015

A Humane Nation

Wayne Pacele’s Blog

Today, more than 50 world-renowned wildlife biologists and scientists, many of whom have devoted their entire professional careers toward understanding the social and biological issues surrounding wolves in North America, sent a letter to Congress urging members to oppose any efforts to strip federal protections for wolves in the contiguous 48 states. If Congress were to take this adverse action, according to these scientists, it would upend two recent federal court rulings, which criticized the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for distorting the “plain meaning” of the standards of the Endangered Species Act and admonished several state wildlife agencies for conducting overreaching and dangerous trophy hunting and trapping programs upon federal delisting.

The scientists, including Rolf Peterson and John Vucetich of Michigan Technological University, and Adrian Treves of University of Wisconsin, Madison, noted that “wolves are absent from most of the United States, with potentially secure populations in only a handful of states (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan). Yet, in those same states, the loss of federal protections resulted in state-sanctioned seasons on wolves at levels designed to reduce their populations to arbitrary goals, which were based on politics but not the best available science.”

Rather than removing wolves’ protections completely, there is a better way forward. A federal downlisting to “threatened” would be a far superior option, allowing “lethal management to resolve wolf-livestock conflicts.” Last month, The HSUS and 21 animal protection and conservation organizations petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reclassify gray wolves as “threatened” throughout their U.S. range south of Alaska (except the distinct Mexican gray wolf subspecies in the southwest which should remain listed as endangered). It’s the right compromise that balances the national interest in protecting wolves, while providing tools to federal and state agencies to allow selective control of wolves to address livestock and property damage.

This past fall, Michigan voted overwhelmingly against the notion of a trophy hunting season on wolves – in the first ever statewide votes on the issue of wolf hunting. Those votes – in a state with major hunting and agriculture industries – are additional indicators that increasing numbers of Americans recognize the wide range of economic and ecological benefits that wolves bring. More than 14 million people have viewed the documentary, How Wolves Change Rivers, showing how wolves move sedentary deer and elk populations so they don’t overgraze or browse. Wolves remove sick and weak animals, preventing slow starvation, and limiting deer-auto collisions and deer depredation on crops. By modulating prey herds, wolves act as a sort of barrier to chronic wasting disease and other infections that could cost the states millions of dollars to eradicate and in lost hunting license sales. And each year, thousands of wildlife watchers gaze at the world’s most-viewed wolves in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone, bringing in $35 million to the Yellowstone region annually. In the Great Lakes region, the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minnesota, brings in as much as $3 million each year from wolf watchers.

Lawmakers should respond to common sense, sound economics, and robust science. We’ve had enough of fairy tales and fabrications and trumped-up public safety charges against wolves. The reality is, they are hugely important in restoring the health of ecosystems and increasing the diversity of species. Wolves have their place, and with only about 5,000 of them in the lower 48 states, they should continue to receive federal protection.

http://blog.humanesociety.org/wayne/2015/02/scientists-letter-wolves-congress.html

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Photo: Courtesy HSUS

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Endangered Species Act, gray wolf

Tags: 50 renowned scientists, biodiversity, wolves benefit ecosystem, wolf recovery, wolf persecution, Congressional overreach, weakening the ESA, HSUS

Victory! Wolves In The Great Lakes Back On The Endangered Species List!!

Federal judge: Great Lakes wolves return to endangered list

By John Flesher, Associated Press5:52 p.m. EST December 19, 2014

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — A federal judge on Friday threw out an Obama administration decision to remove the gray wolf population in the western Great Lakes region from the endangered species list — a decision that will ban further wolf hunting and trapping in three states.

The order affects wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, where the combined population is estimated at around 3,700. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dropped federal protections from those wolves in 2012 and handed over management to the states.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., ruled Friday the removal was “arbitrary and capricious” and violated the federal Endangered Species Act.

Unless overturned, her decision will block the states from scheduling additional hunting and trapping seasons for the predators. All three have had at least one hunting season since protections were lifted, while Minnesota and Wisconsin also have allowed trapping.

More than 1,500 Great Lakes wolves have been killed since federal protections were removed, said Jonathan Lovvorn, senior vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, which filed a lawsuit that prompted Howell’s ruling.

“We are pleased that the court has recognized that the basis for the delisting decision was flawed, and would stop wolf recovery in its tracks,” Lovvorn said.

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Gavin Shire said the agency was disappointed and would confer with the U.S. Department of Justice and the states about whether to appeal.

“The science clearly shows that wolves are recovered in the Great Lakes region, and we believe the Great Lakes states have clearly demonstrated their ability to effectively manage their wolf populations,” Shire said. “This is a significant step backward.”

Wolf advocates applauded the ruling Friday.

“We filed the lawsuit to relist the Great Lakes population of wolves,” said Jill Fritz, coordinator of Michigan’s Humane Society of the United States. “It was based on the assertion that the Great Lakes states had proven they could not responsibly manage wolves when they were delisted in January 2012.”

Jodi Habush Sinykin, an attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates, which supports science-based wildlife management, said the decision should serve as a clear signal of caution to people who would destroy the nation’s wolves.

Minnesota Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Landwehr said agency attorneys will study the ruling before determining its effect on state wolf policy.

“On face value we’re very surprised. We didn’t even know it was coming to a conclusion here,” Landwehr said. “It’s an unusual turn of events.”

Lansing State Journal reporter Louise Knott Ahern contributed to this report.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2014/12/19/great-lakes-wolves-ordered-returned-endangered-list/20655023/

Click HERE to read the court’s decision!

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Posted in: Wolf Wars, endangered species act

Tags: Great Lakes Wolves Relisted, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Humane Society of America

 

Embarrassing Press Coverage Continues For USFWS National Wolf Delisting Push…..

Wolf Pups Snoozing

February 26, 2014

USFWS  continues to take heat over their politically transparent push to nationally delist gray wolves. They’ve never looked more inept or disingenuous as they attempt to twist the ESA into silly putty to suit their agenda.

PLEASE COMMENT!!!

Deadline Midnight March 27, 2014

http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=FWS-HQ-ES-2013-0073

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Feds’ postponement of wolf delisting follows embarrassing scientific review

 February 26, 2014 Earth Journal

By Ron Meador | 02/25/14

It’s too soon to tell, I guess, whether this month’s decision to take more public comment on federal wolf protections will change the policy eventually adopted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

But if you’re inclined to believe, or even just to hope, that sound science still has a role in such decisions — well, this embarrassing episode may be worth a closer look. The picture you’ll see is not pretty.

It’s probably fair to say that wolves are by far the biggest headache that Fish and Wildlife has been handed under the Endangered Species Act. Wolves have had ESA protections for four decades now, and for more than half that time the service has been working actively to shed its responsibilities for these worshipped and detested predators, battling an assortment of national groups at every turn.

What looked like maybe the last of those turns came in June, when FWS announced its plan to end protection of gray wolves throughout the remainder of the lower 48 where authority hadn’t already been turned back to the states.

However, such delisting decisions are legally required to be rooted in the “best available science,” and here the service had a problem: Its primary foundation for this delisting was a single paper laying out a fairly controversial re-classification of wolf species.

One species or two?

That paper, by Steven M. Chambers and three others, came down squarely in favor of seeing North American gray wolves as being of two types:

• Those that have been recovering in the western U.S., with two populations sufficiently robust to justify their delisting in a zone of the northern Rockies and the region covering Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.
• Others of a separate “eastern” species that supposedly was native to but is now essentially extinct in 29 states west of the Mississippi.

Plenty of other wolf biologists and animal geneticists think that question is far from settled — and more than a few actually think it has been settled in the opposite direction of Chambers’ conclusion, with all gray wolves belonging to just one species.

The science of these things is complex and technical, as you might expect, rooted in DNA mapping and requiring judgments as to whether DNA differences detected among wolves are permanent or temporary, results of evolutionary divergence or interbreeding convergence, and so on.

But if the differences at the molecular level are tiny, at the policy level they could hardly be larger.

The gray wolf has Endangered Species Act protection until FWS can prove it’s no longer needed; “eastern gray wolves,” if they exist, have never been protected and presumably never will be, since virtually all of the territory that would be considered their natural range has been wolfless for a long, long time.

In another policy decision that has brought sharp criticism recently, FWS has chosen to define the “natural and historic range” of a threatened species as whatever territory it occupied at the time of being listed for protection — not its historic territory. Some critics see this as an effort to rewrite the ESA by recasting its most important definition.

In-house research project

There were some other problems with the Chambers paper, too:

• Chambers is an FWS employee. So are his three collaborators. Their work was published in an FWS journal,  “North American Fauna” without peer review. (The paper can be found here.)
• In forming a peer review panel after publication, a private contractor hired by FWS first selected and then de-selected three national wolf experts who had signed a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell expressing doubts about the service’s move toward delisting. (Among the three was John Vucetich, known to MinnPost readers as director of the Isle Royale study of wolf/moose population dynamics.)

FWS claimed at the time that it had no role in the picking and unpicking, but a reporter for MSN News turned up an email in which the three were told by the contractor that, “I understand how frustrating it must be, but we have to go with what the service wants.”

The only way out of the ensuing embarrassment was to halt that review and arrange for a second, this one to be undertaken by five scientists chosen without the service’s knowledge or involvement, and their work was released earlier this month.

It happens that one of the five, Robert Wayne of UCLA, was also among the three bounced from the first panel. But as the panel’s report puts it:

[W]e did not avoid selecting reviewers who had previously made known their personal (as opposed to scientific) opinions on the issue. This distinction is important; it is entirely possible for a scientist to have a strong opinion on policy or a proposed action, but also for that scientist to make an impartial assessment on (for instance) the precise genetics or taxonomic techniques and data that were used.

In any case, the five were assigned to give no thought to the policy aspects of the delisting proposed by FWS but to consider only its scientific basis for making them. And its conclusions are rather stark:

• There was unanimity among the panelists that, although there was much good scientific work in the Proposed Rule, the rule is heavily dependent upon the analysis of Chambers et al.

• There was unanimity among the panelists that Chambers et al was not universally accepted and that the issue was “not settled.” The issues raised by Chambers et al could be definitively answered relatively soon

• There was unanimity among the panel that the rule does not currently represent the “best available science.”

• READ MORE: http://www.minnpost.com/earth-journal/2014/02/feds-postponement-wolf-delisting-follows-embarrassing-scientific-review

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Photo: wolf-pups_mythwallpaper-com

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Endangered Species Act

Tags gray wolf, shaky science, USFWS, national wolf delisting proposal, please comment, March 27, 2014 deadline, wolf persecution

From Center for Biological Diversity – Tell Congress To Protect Wolves in the Lower 48! DEADLINE MARCH 1st

March 1, 2013

Please sign the deadline is today!!

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Urge U.S. Fish and Wildlife to Keep Existing Protections for Gray Wolves

 http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/gray_wolves/pdfs/Dear_Colleague_Gray_Wolf_Letter.pdf

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Wolf recovery across the United States is in jeopardy

In the past two years, federal protections for wolves have been removed in the northern Rocky Mountains and western Great Lakes, leaving management decisions to individual states. States in these regions have approved aggressive hunting and trapping seasons designed to drastically reduce recently recovered populations. In 2012 alone, more than 1,200 wolves were killed in these two regions under the state plans. State management programs are as gruesome as they are ineffectual.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife now wants to remove protections for wolves in remaining lower 48 states — including the Pacific Northwest, California, the southern Rocky Mountains and Northeast – even though wolves are just beginning to recover in these areas.

Right now members of Congress are willing to take action to defend wolves in the greater United States. U.S. Representatives Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) are circulating a letter to the Service opposing the hasty removal of wolf protections. U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) has already signed on as a lead co-signatory.

Please call your member of Congress today at (202) 224-3121. Tell him or her to oppose the removal of Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the lower 48 states and to sign onto Reps. DeFazio, Markey and Grijalva’s letter to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Then use the form below to send a letter to your Representative today.

Click HERE to visit Center For Biological Diversity and sign letter!

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Photo: kewlwallpapersdotcom

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Endangered Species Act

Tags: Tell Congress Protect wolves, Center For Biological Diversity, Rep. Grijalva, Rep. Peter DeFazio, Rep. Ed Markey, take action for wolves, wolf recovery jeopardized

ACTION ALERT: From Center for Biological Diversity – Tell Congress To Protect Wolves in the Lower 48!

Wolf recovery across the United States is in jeopardy

In the past two years, federal protections for wolves have been removed in the northern Rocky Mountains and western Great Lakes, leaving management decisions to individual states. States in these regions have approved aggressive hunting and trapping seasons designed to drastically reduce recently recovered populations. In 2012 alone, more than 1,200 wolves were killed in these two regions under the state plans. State management programs are as gruesome as they are ineffectual.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife now wants to remove protections for wolves in remaining lower 48 states — including the Pacific Northwest, California, the southern Rocky Mountains and Northeast – even though wolves are just beginning to recover in these areas.

Right now members of Congress are willing to take action to defend wolves in the greater United States. U.S. Representatives Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) are circulating a letter to the Service opposing the hasty removal of wolf protections. U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) has already signed on as a lead co-signatory.

Please call your member of Congress today at (202) 224-3121. Tell him or her to oppose the removal of Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the lower 48 states and to sign onto Reps. DeFazio, Markey and Grijalva’s letter to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Then use the form below to send a letter to your Representative today.

Click HERE to visit Center For Biological Diversity and sign letter!

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Urge U.S. Fish and Wildlife to Keep Existing Protections for Gray Wolves

 http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/gray_wolves/pdfs/Dear_Colleague_Gray_Wolf_Letter.pdf

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Photo: kewlwallpapersdotcom

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Endangered Species Act

Tags: Tell Congress Protect wolves, Center For Biological Diversity, Rep. Grijalva, Rep. Peter DeFazio, Rep. Ed Markey, take action for wolves, wolf recovery jeopardized