Gunning For Four Wolf Packs In Montana….What About The Pups?

August 1, 2014

This was first posted in 2010. Wildlife Services continued to kill wolves even though 500 wolves died in the Northern Rockies in 2009, due to the first wolf hunts held in Montana and Idaho after the Obama admin. stripped them of their ESA protections. Along with poaching and Wildlife Services, wolves continued to die in 2010 after the hunts were over. This is just a fraction of the damage Montana and Idaho have inflicted on wolves over the last five years. Read it and weep, then get active. There’s a time to write about tragedy and a time to do something about it. How many more years will I have to report about dead wolves? It’s burning a hole in my soul.

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May 5, 2010

Wolf killing season continues even though the “legal hunts” are over.

Wildlife Services and Montana FWP are gunning for four wolf packs. The Trapper Peak Pack, Miner Lakes Pack, Bender Pack and any remaining wolves from the Battlefield Pack.

Do any of these packs have pups? It’s pup season and babies are just weeks old, totally dependent on their mothers to survive. Is this how Montana FWP intends to further reduce the wolf population by wiping out wolf pups when they kill their parents? The situation is disgusting to say the least. What happens to these pups when their parents are killed. They are BABIES! Do they leave them for dead, kill them along with the other members of the pack? When is this going to end?

The Montana Wildlife Services wolf extermination squad continue to go after wolves for livestock depredation even though wolf predation is a tiny figure in overall cattle deaths. Let’s ask ranchers how many cows they lose to disease, weather, theft and reproductive issues? They don’t want to talk about that because they don’t get reimbursed for cows killed by lighting.

People are outraged by the continued wolf killing. And the ranchers just sit back and let the feds take care of “the problem” for them. Why do Montanans owe the ranchers anything? It’s their cattle. Hire range riders, use electrified fladry, herders, guard dogs, what ever you have to do but why are federal tax dollars being used to kill wolves for agribusiness? It’s a subsidy for ranching pure and simple.

Yes, Montana Wildlife Services has been very busy and it’s only four months into the 2010. Read it and weep.

Stats From Montana FWP Weekly Wolf Reports:

Horse Prairie Pack….12/31 and 1/5 two wolves killed, 3/31 WS authorized to remove entire pack, 4/1, WS authorized to remove remaining two wolves, 4/21 collared female killed. (breeding pair at end of 2009)

Miner Lakes Pack 1/8 two wolves killed, 2/15 authorized to remove entire pack.

Bender Pack 1/14 one wolf killed, 1/20 one wolf killed, 3/11 WS gunning for last wolf in this pack

Fishtrap Pack 2/8 authorized to remove 1/2 the pack (up to four wolves), 4/22 WS killed wolf NW221F who was the last collared wolf remaining (was breeding pair end of 2009)

Camas Prairie Pack 2/4 two wolves killed, 2/17 one wolf killed, 4/21 one wolf killed, 4/22 killed remaining collared wolf

Candy Mountain Pack 4/1 Authorized to kill two wolves (breeding pair end of 2009)

Dry Forks Pack 4/6 Removing wolves and collaring wolves, 4/7 one wolf killed, possibly two. (breeding pair end of 2009)

Ninemile Pack 3/23 one wolf shot from helicopter (breeding pair end of 2009)

Silcox Pack 3/ 5 one pup killed (breeding pair end of 2009)

Superior Pack 4/20 two wolves killed, 4/21 alpha male killed which removed the entire pack ( six wolves killed in total) (was breeding pair end of 2009)

Cedar Creek Pack 4/22 WS services given permission to kill five wolves from this pack, WS has killed three of those wolves

Trapper Peak Pack: alpha male and another wolf killed 2009, 4/13 (aprox date) yearling wolf shot by rancher, 4/23 WS authorized to kill entire pack

3/8 one wolf killed

3/23 three wolves killed

4/9 Gunning for entire wolf pack near Wisdom

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From Ralph Maughin’s Website: From April 22, 2010

March Idaho Wolf Management Progress Report released

April 22, 2010 — Ken Cole

28 wolves killed in control since the beginning of the year

The Idaho Wolf Management Progress Report has been released by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. So far the report says there have been 28 wolves killed for 14 livestock animals taken. This doesn’t make sense when you consider that last month’s depredation numbers were the same as this month’s yet they report that 8 calves were taken and 10 wolves killed this month. Something didn’t get updated properly.

It also notes that “Additional capture efforts are planned through April.” This is noteworthy since wolves den in April. Does this mean that they have been capturing pregnant females just before denning? Usually ground trapping doesn’t occur when there is a chance of freezing temperatures due to the possibility of injury to the wolves’ feet so presumably capturing refers to aerial darting of wolves.

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This was not the purpose of the reintroduction.

Nobody envisioned wolves would be continually killed by the state for agribusiness. Why would you reintroduce wolves in the West only to send them down the road to extinction, once again? This is slaughter pure and simple and it’s WRONG.

And again, what about the newly born pups? They are doomed along with their parents!

Wildlife officials target 3 wolf packs for attacks on stock in Big Hole Valley

By the Associated Press | Posted: Friday, April 23, 2010 9:47 pm

http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_2fb6262e-4f54-11df-85a6-001cc4c03286.html

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State decides to kill Trapper Peak wolf pack

Ravalli Republic | Posted: Wednesday, May 5, 2010 12:00 am

http://ravallirepublic.com/news/local/article_436e6a62-57df-11df-8321-001cc4c03286.html

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Bitteroot Wolf Pack To Be Eliminated

Posted: Apr 28, 2010 4:09 PM
By Mark Holyoak

http://www.kpax.com/news/bitterroot-wolf-pack-to-be-eliminated/

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Montana, Idaho and Wyoming Wolf Policies Foreshadow Extinction

The federal authorization for each state to reduce wolves to 100-150 animals puts northern Rockies wolves on a spiral toward extinction.

By Michael J. Robinson, Guest Writer, 4-21-10

http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/montana_idaho_and_wyoming_wolf_policies_foreshadow_extinction/C559/L559/

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Please write to Carolyn Sime and the rest of the wolf team to express your outrage over the continued killing of wolves for agribusiness:

Carolyn Sime, Helena

Montana Statewide Wolf Coordinator
(406) 444-3242 (work)
(406) 461-0587 (cell)

Click Here To Email Her:

Click Here To Contact Montana Wolf Team:

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Write to Montana’s Office of Tourism and tell them you want Montana to stop killing wolves or you won’t spend tourist dollars in the state:

Montana Office of Tourism

Mailing Address
Montana Office of Tourism
PO Box 200533
Helena MT 59620-0501

Email
mt-webmaster@visitmt.com

Phone/FAX
Phone: 406.841.2870
Fax: 406.841.2871

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Lastly, please stop eating beef!! It’s a cruel industry and will help save wolves. Watch Earthlings and Food, Inc. to see how much ranchers care about their cows and sheep. It will make you sick!

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Helicopter Photo: Courtesy AGRO, James Balog

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Wildlife Services War on Wildlife, Howling For Justice

Tags: wolf pups, wolf slaughter, wolf persecution, killing wolves for agribusiness

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

July 26, 2014

This little Mill Creek Pack wolf was another casualty of the war on wolves.

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UPDATE: October 16, 2012

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.

The organization Predator Defense has been trying for years to ban this deadly compound along with Sodium Cyanide, used in M-44s. So far they have been unsuccessful in their bid to do so. Maybe now people will wake up and realize they must pressure Congress to ban these deadly poisons FOREVER.

Apparently Compound 1080 is banned in Colorado, which would make 314f’s death an illegal killing.

This is a sad day for me to learn how the little 20 month old 314f died. Her epic journey to Colorado, ended in an agonizing death at the hand of Compound 1080.

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Wildlife investigators: Poison killed Colorado wolf

DENVER (AP) — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says a gray wolf that strayed from the Yellowstone region into Colorado where it died in 2009 was killed by the poison Compound 1080.

The substance, also known as sodium fluoroacetate, is found in collars used to protect sheep and goats from coyotes.

Gray wolves are considered endangered in Colorado. At least two that wandered from the Yellowstone area have been spotted in the state

The wolf that died was a female from Montana’s Mill Creek pack and was collared as part of an effort to improve wolf-monitoring techniques. Her tracking collar indicated she broke from her pack and wandered about 1,000 miles to Colorado, to Eagle County.

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20110110/UPDATES01/110110026/Wildlife+investigators++Poison+killed+Colorado+wolf

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The Amazing Journey and Sad End of Wolf 314f

She traveled through five states, her GPS collar registering 1000 miles. This young Mill Creek Pack wolf left her Montana home in September 08 and arrived in Colorado in February 09. Her epic journey was long and precarious. She was tracked through Yellowstone National Park, western Wyoming, the Bridger-Teton National Forest, southeastern Idaho , northeastern Utah, finally arriving in Eagle County, Colorado.

Her journey ended in February 09 on a lonely hillside in Colorado called “No Name Ridge, where her bones were found. Nobody is saying how she died. The investigation into her death is ongoing.

314F’s life and death reinforces the argument wolves need ESA protection, especially when they’re dispersing in search of other wolves or a mate. They’re under constant pressure from the SSS mentality, which makes this young wolf’s journey so incredible.

Against all odds, this twenty month old wolf showed the world what wolves are made of. I hope Wildlife officials discover how she met her end. If she died by human hands this person or persons should be prosecuted!

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Lonely Lady Wolf Looks For Love in All The Wrong Places

Rocky Mountain News

By Berny Morson

Published February 25, 2009 at 3:09 p.m.

Call it the power of love.

A female wolf has wandered more than 1,000 miles through five states in search of a mate and is now in Colorado’s Eagle County, wildlife officials in Colorado and Montana said Wednesday.

The wolf, known only as 314F, set off on her lonely quest in September when, for reasons unknown, she became unhappy with the male prospects among the pack of seven animals she was born into 20 months earlier.

Since then, 314F has followed her heart from the Paradise Valley north of Yellowstone National Park through Wyoming, Utah and Idaho. She has trotted past areas where other wolf packs are known to live toward a state that has not had a wolf population for 60 years.

Montana officials follow her progress with a global positioning device on a collar that was fitted to her neck in July.

“Basically, what she’s doing is, she’s wandering around looking to see if there’s other wolves around,” said Carolyn Sime, wolf program coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Her prospects here are not good. The last confirmed wolf sighting in Colorado was a male who made his way from Yellowstone in 2004. But he was killed on Interstate 70 near Idaho Springs before anyone knew he was here.

Colorado Division of Wildlife biologist Shane Briggs said that when wolf packs get too large, some animals leave in search of a mate with whom to start a new pack in a different area, Briggs said. That’s how the species increases its range, he said.

Before the 2004 sighting, wolves were considered extinct in Colorado. The last confirmed one had been killed in 1943.

Wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park in 1995.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/feb/25/yellowstone-wolf-travels-1000-miles-colorado/?partner=RSS

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MYSTERIOUS DEATH

News_Colorado_Wolf-300x0

Wolf 314F lies under anesthesia after being fitted with a GPS collar on July 1, 2008. The collar has tracked the wolf on an epic journey from Montana to Colorado. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks photo

Suspicion Surrounds Colorado Wolf Death

Did the epic journey of Wolf 341F from Montana to Colorado end at the hands of a human? Officials aren’t saying.

By David Frey, 9-27-09

A wolf that wandered from Montana and died in Colorado earlier this year met its end on a hillside about 24 miles north of Rifle, according to government documents obtained by an environmental organization.

Federal wildlife law enforcement officers continue to investigate the death of a Montana wolf that wandered from Montana and died in Colorado, nearly after a year after the wolf’s carcass was collected, raising speculation that the wolf was killed by a human.

“It’s a good question, but I’m not going to answer it,” says George Morrison, Colorado senior wildlife agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Morrison confirmed the examination of the body, called a necropsy, had been completed, but he said the results would be closed to the public until agents complete their investigation.

“It could be two weeks or as long as a year,” he says. “It’s important to us not to impede the investigation.”

Wildlife officials have refused to divulge specifics about the wolf’s condition or its final whereabouts. But Rob Edward, carnivore recovery director for WildEarth Guardians, said he discovered its final location through an open-records request seeking information about wolves in Colorado. The documents showed the last location of the wolf to be about 24 miles north of the Western Slope town of Rifle, less than two miles west of Highway 13.

“I have believed for the last couple of months that they definitely have a law enforcement angle on this,” Edward said. “Otherwise they would tell you that it died of natural causes.”

Intentionally killing a wolf in Colorado would be a violation of the Endangered Species Act and state statutes that protect endangered species.

Edward described the site as “within rifle distance of a road.” Maps show the location to be what appears to be a scrub-covered hillside in an area known as No Name Ridge, apparently on Bureau of Land Management land just north of a dirt road called Thirteenmile Road.

“That’s the way the wolves from the Northern Rockies are going to come,” Edward said. “What we have to work on is making those lands safer.”

Known as wolf 341F, the 18-month-old female made headlines for making a 1,000-mile journey from the outskirts of Yellowstone National Park to Colorado. Biologists tracked her movements using a GPS unit in a collar fitted to her neck.

Researchers said she was a member of the Mill Creek pack and wandered from the pack’s location between towns of Gardiner and Livingston, Mont., in search of a mate.

She left her pack in September 2008 and took a meandering path through Wyoming, Idaho and Utah to Eagle County. She crossed back into Wyoming, then back into western Colorado where her collar showed she stopped moving. Biologists responded and gathered her carcass to perform a necropsy.

Native wolf populations in Colorado were wiped out by the late 1930s. The last record of a native wolf killed in Colorado was in 1943. In June 2004, a radio-collared wolf from Yellowstone was found killed by a passing motorist on Interstate 70 near Idaho Springs. In 2007, video footage captured an apparent wolf near Walden.

Officials say among Northern Rockies wolves, 26 out of every 100 wolves are killed, almost all of them shot by animal control officers or poachers. Among lone-dispersing wolves like this one, most are hit by cars or illegally killed.

State law does not call for wolf reintroduction, but it does protect wolves that wander into Colorado.

For wolf reintroduction advocates, this wolf’s death highlights a need for more protections.

“They’re not going to come down here and repopulate the area on their own,” Edward said, “especially if they meet that kind of fate.”

http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/suspicion_surrounds_colorado_wolf_death/C41/L41/

* It’s been reported that wolf 314F’s number is actually 341F but since she is so well-known as 314F, I didn’t make any changes.

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Top Photo Compound 1080: Courtesy of AGRO

Middle Photo Compound 1080: Courtesy of Predator Defense

Posted in: Montana wolves, Wildlife Services War on Wildlife, Wolf Wars

Tags: 314f, dispersing wolves, wolves in the crossfire, deadly compound 1080, No Name Ridge, Montana, Colorado, Mill Creek Pack

Published in:

on July 26, 2014 at 12:39 am Comments (11)
Tags: 314f, Colorado, deadly compound 1080, dispersing wolves, Mill Creek Pack, Montana, No Name Ridge, wolves in the crossfire

Remembering The Hog Heaven Wolf Pack…

February 3, 2014

I wrote this post in October 2009, a month after Howling For Justice was created and mere months after wolves in the Northern Rockies were delisted by the Obama administration. The first wolf hunts in Montana and Idaho had just gotten underway but the Hog Heaven Wolf Pack wasn’t killed by hunters, they were wiped out by Wildlife Services in 2008.

27 members strong, with two breeding females and 15 puppies, they are now just a memory, as so many wolf packs are. Today they barely have names, they’re anonymous wolves, who live and die without any recognition. But I remember when Wildlife Services gunned down one of the largest wolf packs to roam Montana. Here’s a look back at the doomed Hog Heaven Pack. In their memory please vow to work harder than ever to stop the slaughter of wolves.

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Hog Hell: The Demise of the Hog Heaven Wolf Pack

October 23, 2009

In 2008, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming killed 245 gray wolves in the name of ”livestock depredation”.

Twenty seven of those wolves were members of the Hog Heaven Wolf Pack, residing southwest of Kalispell, Montana, in the Browns Meadow/Hog Heaven area. They had been accused of preying on a few calves, some llamas and a bull. The decision was made in November 08 to take out the entire pack. Eight members of the pack had already been shot from the air by Wildlife Services.

In a three-day period, December 3rd, 4th and 5th of 2008, the remaining 19 members of the Hog Heaven pack were gunned down, an almost unprecedented event, causing public outrage. Many articles were written and opinions voiced, opposing the action. FIFTEEN PUPPIES AND TWO BREEDING FEMALES were among the slain. The Hog Heaven pack was “the seventh entire wolf pack to be killed by Montana in 2008.”

The zero tolerance wolf management plan is just plain wrong and senseless, especially since cattle deaths by wolves are minimal. Domestic dogs killed five times the number of cows than wolves in 2005. I don’t see Wildlife Services taking out Labs and Huskies from the air?

“The average number of cattle losses specific to wolf predation in these States is less than 0.7%. This compares to an average of 1.6% of cattle losses due to predation by coyotes and an average of 90% of losses due to non-predator related causes such as health problems and disease.”

*The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), reports on cattle losses in the lower 48 States every five years. Nationally, health issues such as respiratory problems, digestive problems, calving complications and disease were overwhelmingly the most significant causes of cattle death in 2005. (The year for which we have the most recent detailed data.)”

“Only 0.11% (about 1/10 of 1%) of all cattle losses were due to wolf predation in 2005. Coyotes killed 22 times more cattle than wolves killed that year. Domestic dogs killed almost 5 times as many cattle, and vultures killed almost twice as many cattle as wolves in 2005. Theft was responsible for almost 5 times the cattle losses as were lost by wolf predation.”

http://www.everythingwolf.com/news/readarticle.aspx?article=234

The Hog Heaven pack was special, one of the largest wolf packs ever recorded in Montana, (the once mighty Yellowstone Druid’s had 37 members at their peak).

Instead of trying non-lethal methods to preserve the pack, the state eliminated them! AND this all happened while wolves still had ESA protection!!

The anti-wolf crowd wants you to believe wolves are hanging around ranches waiting to prey on livestock, when in reality most of the miniscule depredations take place on our vast public lands, where cattle and sheep are left unprotected.

George Wuerthner, the famed ecologist, calls cows, “walking picnic baskets”. What would you do if you were a predator surrounded by an ocean of cattle and sheep? Would you munch on them or go after more difficult prey? We already know the answer. Yet the wolf pays the ultimate price for lazy, sloppy ranching practices and the federal government’s refusal to pull public land grazing permits, even though cattle pollute streams, trample riparian zones and over graze the land.

Wolf supporters realize the unfairness of what’s happening.

In 2008, when the Hog Heaven pack was lethally removed, people spoke out:

“Gunning down an entire pack of wolves — a species that is supposed to be protected under the endangered species act — borders on criminal,” said Jerry Black of the Missoula group Wildlife Watchers.

“We are outraged by this senseless slaughter of one of nature’s most majestic animals.”

Added Whitefish resident Roger Sherman: “It seems to me the so-called ’scientific management’ of wolves boils down to simply killing them to conciliate the livestock industry.”

“Brian Vincent, communications director for the group Big Wildlife, insists that the elimination of the Hog Heaven Pack could have been avoided.”

“Why should an entire pack of wolves pay the fatal price for a situation that could probably have been avoided?” he said.

“Both agencies are acting like it’s the Wild West with all guns blazing.”

It’s too late for Hog Heaven, they’re not coming back. This unique pack, was wiped out by Wildlife Services before Montanans could react. Is it any wonder wildlife advocates question the motives behind so many wolves losing their lives for so little reason? Why are the lives of predators held so cheaply?

If the failed policies of the states and feds to “manage wolves” continue, it’s certain they will never fully recover. We’ll be left with fragmented populations of wolves, genetically isolated, constantly under the gun.

What’s behind the intolerance of wolves? It’s certainly not because they’re killing large numbers of livestock, wolf predation on livestock is minimal. It’s not because wolves are decimating elk populations. Elk in Montana and Idaho are strong, with numbers way up. Idaho has 105,000 elk and Montana numbers are even higher at 150,000 plus.

Yet the war on wolves continues. This year the Sage Creek Pack and Yellowstone’s Cottonwood pack were gunned down, one wiped out by Wildlife Services and the other shot in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness at the beginning of Montana’s wolf hunt. They join the Hog Heaven Pack and many others in the ever-increasing death toll of gray wolves.

Will it be Hog Heaven or Hog Hell for wolves in the Northern Rockies?

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Wildlife managers are endangering wolves

Jerry George

Saturday, December 27, 2008

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/26/HORN14OJ9T.DTL#ixzz0VYOc9Gu4

Wolf photos: Courtesy Wikipedia Commons, All About Wolves, Wolf Wallpaper

Categories posted in: Montana Wolves, Wildlife Services War on Wildlife

Tags: gray wolf, wolves or livestock, wolf intolerance, Wildlife Services, Hog Heaven Wolf Pack, National Agricultural Statistics Service

Published in:

on February 3, 2014 at 1:57 am Comments (16)
Tags: gray wolf, Hog Heaven Wolf Pack, National Agricultural Statistics Service, Wildlife Services, wolf intolerance, wolves or livestock

Alert: Montana Proposes To Turn Day-To-Day Wolf Management Over To Wildlife Services!!!

Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse for Montana wolves, with the approval of trapping and no quotas during the upcoming 2012/2013 wolf hunt, now the state is proposing to turn the day-to-day management of wolves over to Wildlife Services!!

I’m speechless!!

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From Center For Biological Diversity

For Immediate Release, August 23, 2012

Montana to Give Wolf Management to Federal Agency With Legacy of Wolf-killing

SILVER CITY, N.M.— The state of Montana is proposing to turn most day-to-day management of wolves over to Wildlife Services — the same U.S. Department of Agriculture agency responsible for exterminating wolves throughout the West before they gained federal protection in the 1970s.

In a draft protocol released this month to address wolf-livestock conflicts, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks proposes transferring its authority to decide which wolves will be killed for livestock depredations to Wildlife Services, the federal agency that has killed millions of animals — including thousands of wolves — as part of its work to eradicate and suppress animals considered livestock predators or agricultural pests. The state would retain jurisdiction over public hunting seasons; unlike citizen hunters, Wildlife Services is not limited in where, or how many wolves, it can kill.

“Montana proposes to hand over key decisions on wolves, including how many will survive above a barebones minimum number, to the very federal agency that originally wiped out the West’s wolves,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, a group that has advocated for western wolves for more than 20 years. “With no one looking over its shoulder, a secretive branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, partially funded by the livestock industry, will once again serve as prosecutor, judge and, most especially, executioner.”

According to the proposal, Wildlife Services will respond directly to ranchers’ complaints of cattle killed by wolves and could initiate aerial gunning of the animals it deems guilty, informing Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks of how many it has killed only later. Wildlife Services is funded not only by federal appropriations but by matching funds from livestock associations and/or the state and local counties.

Wildlife Services’ only constraints would come if the wolf population drops below 150 animals or 15 breeding pairs. At the end of last year, 653 wolves, including 39 breeding pairs, survived in the state.

A series of investigative articles this spring by Sacramento Bee reporter Tom Knudson found that just since 2000, Wildlife Services has killed millions of animals using methods that are inhumane, illegal and ignore science. In his 2005 book Predatory Bureaucracy: the Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of the West, the Center’s Michael Robinson documented multiple instances of the agency circumventing or outright breaking rules intended to protect wildlife.

“Putting Montana’s wolves fully in Wildlife Services’ hands will mean two things,” said Robinson. “More wolves will die, and fewer people will know why.”

Background
As a result of hunting and trapping in Idaho and Montana that was intended to drastically reduce wolf numbers, 545 of the 1,900-plus wolves in the two states have been killed over the past year. Additional wolves have been killed by Wildlife Services under criteria loosened since the removal of wolves from the endangered species list in May 2011.

In its decision last year to circumvent the Endangered Species Act and delist wolves by attaching a rider to a budget bill, Congress bypassed the Act’s requirement to adhere to the best available science. Federal courts had previously ruled that wolf delisting was illegal because the Fish and Wildlife Service disregarded scientific findings that wolves in Yellowstone National Park could become genetically isolated and that the wolf population still occupied only a small portion of its historic range.

Wolves are vital to their ecosystems. By deterring elk from browsing on cottonwood sprigs in low-visibility areas alongside rivers, the return of wolves has resulted in more stream side trees, benefiting beavers, fish and songbirds. By controlling the numbers of coyotes, the presence of wolves has led to increased numbers of foxes and pronghorn. Wolves also provide carrion from their leftovers, which is relied upon by scavenging animals such as badgers, eagles and bears.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 375,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2012/wolves-08-23-2012.html

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The Sacramento Bee’s Exposé On Wildlife Services

Deadly Poison 1080 Compound

The killing agency: Wildlife Services’ brutal methods leave a trail of animal death

By Tom Knudson tknudson@sacbee.com

Published: Sunday, Apr. 29, 2012 – 12:00 am | Page 1A

Last Modified: Wednesday, May. 2, 2012 – 10:52 pm

First of three parts

The day began with a drive across the desert, checking the snares he had placed in the sagebrush to catch coyotes.

Gary Strader, an employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, stepped out of his truck near a ravine in Nevada and found something he hadn’t intended to kill.

There, strangled in a neck snare, was one of the most majestic birds in America, a federally protected golden eagle.

“I called my supervisor and said, ‘I just caught a golden eagle and it’s dead,’ ” said Strader. “He said, ‘Did anybody see it?’ I said, ‘Geez, I don’t think so.’

“He said, ‘If you think nobody saw it, go get a shovel and bury it and don’t say nothing to anybody.’ “

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Wildlife Services’ deadly force opens Pandora’s box of environmental problems

By Tom Knudson tknudson@sacbee.com

Published: Monday, Apr. 30, 2012 – 12:00 am | Page 1A

Last Modified: Wednesday, May. 2, 2012 – 10:52 pm

Second of three parts

Like the prow of a ship, the Granite Mountains rise sharply from the creamy-white playa of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

Here, in rugged terrain owned by the American public, a little-known federal agency called Wildlife Services has waged an eight-year war against predators to try to help an iconic Western big-game species: mule deer.

With rifles, snares and aerial gunning, employees have killed 967 coyotes and 45 mountain lions at a cost of about $550,000. But like a mirage, the dream of protecting deer by killing predators has not materialized.

“It didn’t make a difference,” said Kelley Stewart, a large-mammal ecologist at the University of Nevada, Reno.

For decades, Wildlife Services, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has specialized in trapping, poisoning and shooting predators in large numbers, largely to protect livestock and, more recently, big game.

Now such killing is coming under fire from scientists, former employees and others who say it often doesn’t work and can set off a chain reaction of unintended, often negative consequences.

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Unforgiving Snares and How They Work

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/30/4452212_a4452108/wildllife-services-deadly-force.html

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Long struggles in leg-hold device make for gruesome deaths

By Tom Knudson

tknudson@sacbee.com

Published: Sunday, Apr. 29, 2012 – 12:00 am | Page 15A

Last Modified: Wednesday, May. 2, 2012 – 10:52 pm

No tool in Wildlife Services’ arsenal kills more non selectively – or slowly – than the leg-hold trap.

Since 2000, more than 90 species of wildlife have died by mistake in agency traps, including pronghorn antelope, mule deer, river otters, swift foxes, badgers, porcupines and federally protected bald eagles, government records show.

But whether animals are caught accidentally or not, they often struggle for days and die of exposure, injuries and other causes long before a trapper returns to the site.

And this is the agency Montana is going to entrust Montana wolves?

I’m proposing a write-in campaign to the 81 Senators who sold wolves out in the Northern Rockies and delisted them via budget rider. All US Senate Democrats voted for this horror except three, Wyden, Leahy and Levin. I will have more on the write-in campaign soon. We must hold them accountable for what they did and let the world know that Democrats, who say they support the ESA, betrayed wolves, while President Obama signed the bill into law. Obama has delisted wolves twice since he took office, a feat even George Bush couldn’t accomplish.

Now is the perfect time to hold them responsible for throwing wolves under the bus. There’s an election in just 2 1/2 months. We must demand they correct the terrible wrong perpetrated against wolves, letting them know wolves must be placed back on the Endangered Species list, where they won’t be subjected to wolf hunts and brutal state management. We can remind them if they choose to do nothing we won’t pull be pulling the lever for them come November.

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Photo: Courtesy James Balog

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Montana wolves, Wildlife Services War on Wildlife

Tags: Wildlife Services, persecution of Montana wolves, MFWP, stand up for wolves, Michael Robinson, Center for Biological Diversity

Published in:

on August 23, 2012 at 5:54 pm Comments (19)
Tags: Center for Biological Diversity, MFWP, Michael Robinson, persecution of Montana wolves, stand up for wolves, Wildlife Services

The Amazing Journey and Sad End of Wolf 314F

May 31, 2012

This important story deserves a repost. The little Montana wolf didn’t have to die. She traveled so far searching for a mate, only to be poisoned for her efforts. Wildlife Services and it’s cache of deadly toxins must be abolished!!

UPDATE: January 10, 2011

I posted this sad tale 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.

The organization Predator Defense has been trying for years to ban this deadly compound along with Sodium Cyanide, used in M-44s. So far they have been unsuccessful in their bid to do so. Maybe now people will wake up and realize they must pressure Congress to ban these deadly poisons FOREVER.

Apparently Compound 1080 is banned in Colorado, which would make 314f’s death an illegal killing.

This is a sad day for me to learn how the little 20 month old 314f died. Her epic journey to Colorado, ended in an agonizing death at the hand of Compound 1080.

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Bill to Ban Two Deadly Agents Stalled in Congress

http://www.predatordefense.org/

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From Predator Defense:

Help Us Ban Compound 1080

“From its inception, Predator Defense has fought for a worldwide ban on the deadly poison called Compound 1080. Unfortunately, our bill to ban it is stalled in Congress.”

http://www.predatordefense.org/1080.htm

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2009 Colorado dead wolf was killed by poison . . . the notorious 1080

by RALPH MAUGHAN on JANUARY 10, 2011

http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2011/01/10/colorado-wolf-1080-poison/

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“Two Killers that Need to Go: The Case Against Poisoning our Wildlife and Pets”

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It’s not just used in the US. “New Zealand uses 80% of the world’s production of 1080” compound.

1080 Compound New Zealand’s Deadly Toxic Poison of Choice

http://www.careydillon.com/unpurenzfinal/poisons.html

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The Amazing Journey and Sad End of Wolf 314f

October 10, 2009

Her journey ended in February 09 on a lonely hillside in Colorado called “No Name Ridge, where her bones were found. Nobody is saying how she died. The investigation into her death is ongoing.

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