Female Grizzly Eating Grass Yellowstone National Park USFWS
We all knew it was coming. The USFWS wants to delist the Yellowstone grizzly bear. But they’ll have a fight on their hands because Native Americans are pushing back. I wish they’d taken a stand for wolves but at least they’re coming together for the Great Bear.
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Native Americans Fight to Keep the Grizzly Bear on the Endangered Species List
Grizzly Bear – Photo Jim Urquhart/Reuters
By John R. Platt
OCT 27, 2015
Tribal groups say a move to remove protections for the spiritual touchstone of native culture threatens their sovereignty.
Has the grizzly bear recovered enough in Yellowstone National Park to be removed from the protection of the Endangered Species Act?
The federal government and some state agencies seem to think so. For more than a year now, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has been moving toward delisting grizzly bears. There are about 750 bears living in and around Yellowstone, well above the 136 that lived there when the government protected the Yellowstone population in 1975.
Native American groups, however, argue that the bears have not recovered and that any proposal to remove protections or trophy-hunt the animals ignores tribal sovereignty and culture. Some tribes even call it cultural genocide.
“The grizzly was and remains the physical manifestation of the spirit of the earth, to me, and many others,” said R. Bear Stands Last, cofounder of Guardians of Our Ancestors’ Legacy, a coalition of nearly 50 tribes from six states that have come together to oppose the grizzly bear delisting.
The bears play an important role in the culture for many tribes in the West. “The grizzly was the first two-legged to walk upon this land,” Bear Stands Last said. “The grizzly is a teacher and was, in essence, the first medicine person who taught the curing and healing practices adopted by many peoples.”
Even with that cultural history, the push to delist the bears moves forward. The FWS has sent out two rounds of letters to several tribes, but GOAL said that does not meet the standards for the tribal consultationsthat are required under the Endangered Species Act and other laws. Last December, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe passed a formal resolution opposing the delisting proposal.
“FWS has made no serious attempt to adhere to the established consultation protocols and mandates, all of which are clearly established and are integral to the trust responsibility held by the federal government toward tribal nations,” said Bear Stands Last.
Agency spokesperson Ryan Moehring said the FWS has offered to consult with 48 tribes and has held five government-to-government meetings. It also plans a tribal webinar and conference call on Nov. 13 to “listen to their concerns and answer questions.”
Grizzlies did briefly lose their endangered species status in 2007, but a court ruling in 2009 returned it after finding that the bears’ food sources, such as whitebark pine nuts, were at risk. Bear Stands Last said nothing has improved in Yellowstone.
“It is not only the decimation of whitebark pine and cutthroat trout; there are also various berry subsets declining due to climate change,” he said, noting that pushes grizzlies further outside the park in search of food, which puts them in further conflict with humans.
The BORGare coming for wolves. The Hive Collective is mobilizing its wolf hating troops to pressure the USFWS to delist wolves across the US. The take-over of America’s wolves is being led by the usual suspects: Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT), Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Sen. John Barasso (R-WY). A letter sent to Dan Ashe, USFWS Director, on March 22, 2013, implored him to remove wolves from the Endangered Species List ACROSS THE LOWER 48. 72 members of Congress signed off on it, mainly House Republicans with a smattering of Senate Republicans and a few Democrats thrown in.
Wolves reside in just nine states: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and sometimes California (with OR7 drifting in and out) and have been harassed, tortured, brutalized and hunted in the last four years, since the Spring of 2009 when our newly elected President Obama and his rancher Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, stripped wolves in the Northern Rockies and now the Great Lakes of their Endangered Species Protections.
The reason for this increasingly brutal war against wolves is simple, they want wolf recovery stopped dead in its tracks, quite literally. They want wolves gone forever and are pulling out all the stops to get the job done. It’s wolf extermination all over again!
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ORIGINAL LETTER AND SIGNATURES
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March 22, 2013
The Honorable Dan Ashe
Director
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20240
Dear Director Ashe:
We understand the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is in the process of reviewing the Endangered Species Act (ESA) recovery status of the gray wolf in the lower 48 States and is preparing to announce the delisting of the species. We support the nationwide delisting of wolves and urge you to move as quickly as possible on making this a reality. We were supportive of the USFWS decision in 2009 when most wolves were delisted in the Northern Rocky Mountains, again in 2011 when wolves in the Great Lake States were delisted, and the 2012 delisting in Wyoming. It is unfortunate that these decisions were met with lawsuits from environmental activists.
Wolves are not an endangered species and do not merit federal protections. The full delisting of the species and the return of the management of wolf populations to State governments is long overdue. As you know, State governments are fully qualified to responsibly manage wolf populations and are able to meet both the needs of local communities and wildlife populations.
Unmanaged wolves are devastating to livestock and indigenous wildlife. Currently State wildlife officials have their hands tied any time wolves are involved. They need to be able to respond to the needs of their native wildlife without being burdened by the impediments of the federal bureaucracy created by the ESA. During the four decades that wolves have had ESA protections, there has been an uncontrolled and unmanaged growth of wolf populations resulting in devastating impacts on hunting and ranching in America as well as tragic damages to historically strong and healthy herds of moose, elk, big horn sheep, and mule deer.
As you consider these much needed changes to federal protections with regard to the gray wolf, we urge you to expand the delisting of the species to all of the lower 48 states. It is critical that the states be given the ability to properly manage all of the species within their boundaries.
Sincerely,
Sen. Signers
Orin Hatch (R-UT)
John Barasso (R-WY)
John Cornyn (R-TX)Mike Crapo (R-ID)
Mike Enzi (R-WY) Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND)
Dean Heller (R-NV)
Mike Lee (R-UT) Joe Manchin (D-WV)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
James Risch (R-ID)
John Thune (R-ND)
David Vitter (R-LA)
House of Representative Signers:
Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
Doc Hastings (R-WA)
Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
Dan Benishek (R-MI)
Rob Bishop (R-UT)
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
Kevin Brady (R-TX)
Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)
Howard Coble (R-NC)
Tom Cole (R-OK)
Mike Conaway (R-TX)
Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
Steven Daines (R-MT)
Ron DeSantis (R-FL)
Jeff Duncan (R-SC)
Stephen Fincher (R-TN)
Bob Gibbs (R-OH)
Sam Graves (R-MO)
Bill Huizenga (R-MI)
Duncan Hunter (R-CA)
Bill Johnson (R-OH)
Steve King (R-IA)
John Kline (R-MN)
Doug Lamalfa (R-CA)
Bob Latta (R-OH)
Blayne Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
Kenny Marchant (R-TX) Jim Matheson (D-UT
Patrick McHenry (R-NC),
Candice Miller (R-MI)
Jeff Miller (R-FL)
Mick Mulvaney (R-SC)
Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
Kristi Noem (R-SD)
Alan Nunnelee (R-MS)
Steve Palazzo (R-MS) Collin Peterson (D-MN
Mike Pompeo (R-KS)
Jim Renacci (R-OH)
Reid Ribble (R-WI)
Dennis Ross (R-FL)
Paul Ryan (R-WI)
Steve Scalise (R-LA)
David Schweikert (R-AZ)
Austin Scott (R-GA)
Pete Sessions (R-TX) Terri Sewell (D-AL)
Adrian Smith (R-NE)
Steve Southerland (R-FL)
Chris Stewart (R-UT)
Steve Stivers (R-OH)
Steve Stockman (R-TX)
Marlin Stutzman (R-TX)
Glenn Thompson (R-PA) Tim Walz (D-MN)
Randy Weber (R-TX)
Lynn Westmoreland (GA)
Rob Wittman (R-VA)
Don Young (R-AK)
“Democrats are highlighted in red
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THE DELISTING MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS!
This is where the rubber meets the road. Every wolf advocate who reads this blog, who follows Wolf Warriors and Howling For Justice, every animal rights blogger, anyone and everyone who cares about wolves, please stand up now and be counted. You must take action, this is happening very swiftly. Spread this post far and wide!!
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TAKE ACTION
From Center For Biological Diversity
Tell President Obama: Keep Wolves Protected
Wolves across the country need your help now. The Obama administration is poised to make a decision before the end of the year to lift Endangered Species Act protections for wolves across the United States, including the Pacific Northwest, southern Rocky Mountains, Northeast, and elsewhere — this could happen any day.
The Endangered Species Act has protected wolves in the lower 48 states since 1978. Recovery programs for wolves in the northern Rockies and Great Lakes have been a success, but the job of returning wolves to the American landscape is still far from complete.
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 resulting in hundreds of wolves dying. State management programs are as gruesome as they are ineffectual.
In the next few months, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will propose to remove protections for gray wolves nationwide—even in places that are critical to their long-term survival, such as Colorado, California, New Mexico, and Utah.
If federal protections are removed, migrating wolves from Yellowstone to states like Colorado and California will face an arsenal of guns, poisons, and traps.
Departing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has promulgated the most regressive wolf policy in America since wolves’ restoration in the mid-1990s. Under Salazar the Interior Department has systematically removed federal protections wherever gray wolves exist, including the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes states.
Now Salazar wants to go one dangerous step further and remove protections for wolves in places where they’ve yet to be recovered, including Colorado, the most important biological link in WildEarth Guardians’ continental vision of having wolves living free from Canada to Mexico.
Except for a handful of brave, southern-migrating individuals, gray wolves have been absent from the Southern Rockies region since the 1940s. The Salazar proposal will remove the last hope of recovery and unleash the shotguns and sniper bullets on wolves all across the West.
We think Secretary Salazar’s proposal is illegal, unethical and out-of-touch.
Most citizens and westerners care about restoring wolves and understand the ecological benefits they create by their presence on the land.
Giving authority to states like Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico to manage wolves will be an unmitigated disaster. Just like Northern Rockies states, we know that state hunting agencies will wage jihad towards native carnivores, and their policies will be merciless to appease two user groups: the livestock industry and unethical sport-hunters.
DO NOT DELAY! POWERFUL FORCES ARE WORKING AGAINST WOLVES WHO WANT TO SEE THEM DESTROYED. THOUSANDS OF WOLVES HAVE BEEN KILLED SINCE THEIR DELISTING IN 2009. DON’T ALLOW HUNTING AND RANCHING INTERESTS, OR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, WHO PUSH THEIR AGENDA, TO DESTROY THE REMAINING WOLVES LEFT IN THE US. NOW IS THE TIME TO STAND UP FOR WOLVES. NO MORE EXCUSES, NO MORE COMPLAINING. LETS’ GET BUSY!!!!
Contact your Senator or Representative directly and tell them you want wolves protected! The persecution of these helpless animals must stop! The hysteria has reached critical mass! Wolves are being exploited for political gain by those who seek to curry favor with ranching and hunting interests. Speak out for wolves, we are their voice!
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US Capitol Switchboard Toll-free Numbers 1-866-220-0044
1-877-762-8762
This blog is dedicated to the memory of Wolf 253, the beloved Yellowstone Druid wolf named Limpy, who was shot and killed in March 08, on the very day ESA protections were lifted for the gray wolf, by the then Bush Administration.
Previous Posts
Speak For Wolves – Yellowstone 2015
Petitions To Sign
Protect America's Wolves! Click To Sign Petition
RELIST WOLVES - Click To Sign
STOP THE TORTURE OF WOLVES IN OUR FORESTS - Click To Sign!
Boulder White Clouds Council
Exposing The Big Game
Footloose Montana
Friends of the Clearwater
Lockwood Animal Rescue Center
Louise du Toit
LUPUSLAETUS
Mercy For Animals
Northern Idaho Wolf Alliance (NIWA)
Predator Friendly®- Because Wildlife Matters
Project Coyote
Project: Wolf
The Nature Conservancy
The Ravensong Group
WildEarth Guardians
Wisconsin Wildlife Ethic-Vote Our Wildlife
Wolf And Wildlife Studies: Jay Mallonee (Independent Wolf Biologist)
Wolf Song of Alaska
Wolves in english ! Les loups en anglais !
WWP's Gray Wolf Page
Yellowstone To Yukon Conservation Initiative
