Wolf Rally – Coeur d’Alene, Idaho (August 30, 2012)

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td9P-wZZa8I%5D

Published on Sep 13, 2012 by brooksfahy

“One year after wolves lost federal protection, over 40% of the wolf population has been killed by trophy hunters and trappers in Idaho and Montana. A total of 545 wolves were killed for fun in these two Northern Rocky states. Watch this video to learn more about wolves and help stop the war on wildlife.

“Watch the story of Bella, a husky who lost her leg in a snare that was set in Idaho by a trapper from Wildlife Services at this link:”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxMlQA3V6A0&feature=relmfu

===

Special thanks to Predator Defense, Northern Idaho Wolf Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, Footloose Montana and all dedicated wolf advocates who made this rally a success. The rally was well covered by the media and made the Los Angeles Times, my good friend Ann Sydow (NIWA) was mentioned in the LA Times article.

It’s our hope this video, produced by Brooks Fahy of Predator Defense, will inspire you to hold your own rally in defense of wolves. They need our voices to save them from brutal state kill/management. While I type this wolves are being bow hunted in Montana and stalked in Idaho. In Montana an 83 pound male wolf was killed outside of Glacier National Park in the North Fork of the Flathead, arrowed to death. It made the front page of the Hungry Horse News ( a weekly Montana newspaper in the Flathead Valley.)

===

C-Falls bowhunter takes wolf

Posted: Wednesday, September 12, 2012 8:15 am By CHRIS PETERSON Hungry Horse News |

http://www.flatheadnewsgroup.com/hungryhorsenews/article_464a30b6-fce4-11e1-9b89-0019bb2963f4.html

===

Our wolves have been hijacked for blood sport. The wolf reintroduction has turned from a success story into a nightmare, thanks to the Obama Administration, his rancher Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the US Senate Democrats, led by Harry Reid D-Nevada. They sold wolves out in the Northern Rockies to boost Sen. Jon Tester D-MT chances of re-election and hold onto their slim Senate majority.

During the contentious budget battle of Spring 2011,  Senator Tester slipped a wolf delisting rider, that prohibits judicial review, into a must pass budget bill. Every Senate Democrat voted for it save three, Wyden, Leahy and Levin.  The very same Democrats who pretend to be  supporters of the ESA weakened it, by stripping wolves of their Endangered Species protections and turning them over to hostile state management, all for a few votes.

To add insult to injury the USFWS under the Obama administration delisted wolves in the Great Lakes (Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin). Minnesota and Wisconsin immediately planned wolf hunts for 2012/2013 but the Wisconsin hunt was challenged in court. Judge Anderson granted an injunction to stop the hunt because Wisconsin wanted to allow hunters to use up to six dogs to hunt to wolves to their deaths.  A Michigan state representative has introduced legislation to allowing wolf hunting. This is the dire situation wolves find themselves in. Wyoming is planning to allow wolves to be shot-on- sight in 80% of the state,  as of October 1, 2012 but faces legal challenges from two coalitions of environmental groups.

Please remember on November 6, 2012 what the US Senate Democrats did to betray wolves. If your Senator is not Wyden, Leahy or Levin  vote them out of office.  We cannot allow politicians to play fast and loose with our wildlife.

===

Wolves not endangered in Rockies? Activists arm for fight

By Kim Murphy

September 4, 2012, 5:38 p.m

On Aug. 30, activists held a rally in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to memorialize the more than 540 wolves killed in Idaho and Montana wolf hunts since the species was removed from the endangered list in those states in 2011. Last year’s tally in Idaho alone was 379 wolves — not counting wolves killed by government wildlife agents seeking to prevent livestock predations.

“Of the 379 wolves killed in last year’s hunt, 40 were puppies, 56 suffered in leg-hold traps before being killed, and another 67 choked to death in snares,” Ann Sydow of the Northern Idaho Wolf Alliance, one of six organizations sponsoring the rally, said in a statement.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-wyoming-wolves-20120904,0,2035222.story 

===

Video: Courtesy Brooks Fahy

Photo: Courtesy Hungry Horse News

Tags: Wolf Rally Coeur d’Alene Idaho, Predator Defense, NIWA, Friends of the Clearwater, Footloose Montana, trapping, wolf slaughter, Hungry Horse News,  Montana wolf hunt, Idaho wolf hunt

Trapped, Tortured Wolf Did Not Die In Vain….

A trapper posing for the camera  with a  wounded wolf in the background caught in  a leghold trap  (Photo Courtesy Earth Island Journal)

The picture has now become iconic. A beautiful, black wolf, caught in a leghold trap, wounded, STILL ALIVE, blood soaking the snow around him, holding his injured foot off the ground, with the face of a trapper mugging for the camera.

The situation had become something of an arena sport because the trapped wolf was shot at by “hunters” just  having a little “fun”??  What a blast (pun intended) that must have been for them to fire on a trapped, defenseless animal?  Right?? Whoever shot at that wolf should be charged with a crime, this was animal torture and cruelty at its worst.  BUT, was what they did anymore cruel than trapping the wolf in the first place? Who knows how long he’d been tethered to that trap without food or water, frightened, shot and bleeding?

Initially the photo was downloaded from a trapping website and  posted on Footloose Montana’s Facebook page, which received hundreds of comments. On Monday Footloose received a vile, threatening email which prompted them to contact the authorities.

As sad as this story is the picture exposed the cruelty and torture of  the wolf for all to see, having the opposite effect of that which it was intended.  His image has become the face of the repulsive, ugly practice of trapping. It’s not a sport, it’s  medieval torment that belongs in the 5th century,  NOT in a civilized society.

  With his suffering exposed, will this animal’s tragic final moments on earth, caught on camera, finally be the  wake up call for America to say NO MORE??

===

Photos of live, trapped wolf prompt threats to Missoula-based group

March 29, 2012
Written By John S. Adams

HELENA — A Missoula-based anti-trapping organization said it received a threatening email this month after the group posted graphic photos on the Internet of a live Idaho wolf caught in a foot-hold trap.

READ MORE:

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20120330/NEWS01/203300316/Photos-live-trapped-wolf-prompt-threats-Missoula-based-group?odyssey=tab

===

The Predator Persecution Complex

The Perverse Logic of Wolf Hunts

by GEORGE WUERTHNER

The hysteria that surrounds wolf management in the Rockies has clouded rational discussion.  Wolves are hardly a threat to either hunting opportunity or the livestock industry.

ELK NUMBERS ABOVE OBJECTIVES

For instance, the Wyoming Fish and Game reports: “The Department continues to manage to reduce Wyoming’s elk numbers. The total population of the herds with estimates increased by 16 percent in 2009 and is now 29 percent above the statewide objective of 83,640 animals.”

Things are similar in Montana. Populations have grown from an estimated 89,000 animals in 1992 prior to wolf recovery to 140,000-150,000 animals in recent years.

In Idaho we find a similar trend. According to the IDFG 23 out of 29 elk units are at and/or above objective. Hunter success in 2011 was 20%: one in five hunters killed an elk.

Wolves are clearly not a threat to the future of hunting in any of these states.

READ MORE:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/30/the-perverse-logic-of-wolf-hunts/

===

Wolf Torture and Execution Continues in the Northern Rockies

by James William Gibson – March 28, 2012

Montana Anti-Trapping Group Gets Death Threat for Releasing Photos

On March 16, a Friday, a US Forest Service employee from Grangeville, Idaho, laid out his wolf traps. The following Monday, using the name “Pinching,” he posted his story and pictures on www.Trapperman.com . “I got a call on Sunday morning from a FS [Forest Service] cop that I know. You got one up here as there was a crowd forming. Several guys had stopped and taken a shot at him already,” wrote Pinching. The big, black male wolf stood in the trap, some 300-350 yards from the road, wounded—the shots left him surrounded by blood-stained snow. Pinching concluded his first post, “Male that went right at 100 pounds. No rub spots on the hide, and he will make me a good wall hanger.”

READ MORE:

http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/wolf_torture_and_execution_continues_in_the_northern_rockies/

===

Photo: Courtesy Earth Island Journal

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Trapping Wolves, Animal Cruelty

Tags: Animal cruelty, animal torture, evils of trapping, suffering wolf, Footloose Montana, Earth Island Journal, Great Falls Tribunedotcom