HuffPost: “Little Red Rider and the Big Bad Wolf Hunt”….

This is the cleverest of  titles but better yet the article delivers in every way. Brenda Peterson tells the sad tale of wolves betrayed via budget rider, sacrificed for Jon Tester’s Senate seat.

Now they are being hunted in two states, Idaho’s hunt is underway and Montana’s hunt starts today.  Wolves are paying the ultimate price, because  back room dealing stripped them of their ESA protections.  Good job Democrats. You’ve managed to gut the ESA, kick wolves to the curb and alienate much of your base support.

Priscilla Feral, President, Friends of Animals, describes what wolves are facing.

“What’s about to happen to gray wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming — who are a vital part of the ecosystem — is vile. Governors of those states are subjecting wolves to pogroms from the Middle Ages.”

She urges Americans to boycott all travel to these three trigger-happy states. And call our congressional representations to protest. Already there are “Howl-ins” and “Phone-ins for Wolves,” — people demonstrating from Idaho to Central Park. Consider this a call to community from the wolves to the humans. Now, they need our saving.”

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Little Red Rider and the Big Bad Wolf Hunt

Brenda Peterson

Posted: 9/2/11 01:25 PM ET

The wolf hunt that begins this week in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana is as grim as the Grimm’s fairy tale. Ever since the bloody wolf-delisting rider was slipped into a recent budget bill, this myth is driving wildlife politics. And it’s still the same ending: The wolf must die. The heroic hunter rescues the grandmother and little girl. Everyone lives happily ever after, except, of course, the wild wolf.

In the medieval mindset of Little Red Riding Hood, the fairy tale forest was a looming wilderness — a villain overshadowing the little village. Walking through the woods was dangerous. You never knew who might follow you home, devour and pretend to be your grandmother, and eat you alive.

This fairy tale was a time before humans domesticated nature, made tree farms out of forests and drove entire species, like the wolf, to extinction. This was before Alaskan wolf hunters in airplanes gunned down entire packs of radio-collared wolves. Before we poisoned, trapped, and shot wolves for sport. This was before we understood the science of wolves and their predator-prey balance that actually restores healthy ecosystems.

When the Brothers Grimm built their fairy tale of wolves on the original Perrault 17th century French folklore, they added a 19th century twist. The huntsman who saved Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother was not so much on a rescue mission as he was bent on earning the trophy of the wolf’s skin.

The huntsman is not a hero. It’s only the wolf skin he’s after. This modern evolution of the fairy tale is evident on any of the online wolf licensing sites as the 2011 hunt now begins. One outfitter advertises, “maximize your predator experience… add a fall black bear to your wolf hunt.” It offers a “proven predator calling technique” to lure the wolf, bear, mountain lion, coyote, foxes “and more” into your crosshairs. Blam! You got yourself a nice trophy, man. Something to brag about to your friends, to tell your kids the story of how you gunned down the big, bad wolf.

READ MORE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/wolves-endangered-species_b_942409.html

Wolf Zone	Harvest Limit	Number Harvested	Limit Remaining	Status	Hunting Season Dates
Panhandle				OPEN	Aug 30 – Mar 31
Palouse-Hells Canyon				OPEN	Aug 30 – Mar 31
Lolo				OPEN	Aug 30 – June 30
Dworshak-Elk City				OPEN	Aug 30 – Mar 31
Selway				OPEN	Aug 30 – June 30
Middle Fork				OPEN	Aug 30 – Mar 31
Salmon	40		40	OPEN	Aug 30 – Mar 31
McCall-Weiser		2		OPEN	Aug 30 – Mar 31
Sawtooth	60		60	OPEN	Aug 30 – Mar 31
Southern Mountains	25		25	OPEN	Aug 30 – Mar 31
Beaverhead	10		10	OPEN	Aug 30 – Dec 31
Island Park	30	1	29	OPEN	Aug 30 – Dec 31
Southern Idaho				OPEN	Aug 30 – Mar 31
TOTALS	165	3	164

9/3/11

THREE WOLVES KILLED IN IDAHO HUNT

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Photo: Courtesy Creative Commons

Chart: IDFG

Posted in:  Wolf Wars

Tags: wolf delisting rider, wolves betrayed, ESA gutted, Idaho hunt, Montana hunt, wolves suffer

Northern Rockies Wolves Not Recovered, No Matter What Ed Bangs Says….

Well I guess Ed Bangs is stepping down, after years of trying to delist wolves in the Northern Rockies. Makes absolutely no sense to me to spend all the time and money the feds did to reintroduce wolves only to work twice as hard to turn them over to the states to be hunted. Ed Bangs says wolves are recovered in the Northern Rockies with just 1700 animals in three states, inhabiting just 5% of their historic range? I don’t think so.

From the Ravalli Republic:

“….he decided the science showed that wolf populations had recovered enough to take them off the list of animals protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.“

What science??

The Great Lakes Region has over 4000 wolves, in a smaller land mass with millions more people, yet the puny wolf population in the Northern Rockies has been declared recovered because USFWS,  Western politicians, ranchers and hunters say so? Give me a break. Wait until the states get a hold of them and start hunting them. Then we’ll have the double whammy of Wildlife Services’ hunts and State run wolf hunts. That deadly combination killed off 500 wolves in the Northern Rockies in 2009, when wolves were delisted for the second time.  Now the states want to up the ante with wolf archery and back country rifle seasons. Does the image of the magnificent wolf full of arrows, to satisfy some trophy hunters blood lust, fill you with anger? How about Idaho’s plan to use baiting , calling, leg hold traps and snares on wolves in their hunts make you feel?  Of course Idaho might not wait for wolf hunts, they’ve got the Wolf Emergency Disaster legislation to fall back on.  And this is what the USFWS thinks is good for wolves?

Wolves are not recovered. They will never be recovered in the Northern Rockies because as soon as they are delisted the states will hunt them hard and their numbers will drop and we’ll be right back where we were before.

Wolves are not game animals and should not be killed for sport. They are extremely social animals with a love for family and extreme loyalty to their pack mates. Is this what we brought wolves back for, to turn them into rugs on someone’s floor? The USFWS knows the toxic atmosphere existing in the Northern Rockies concerning wolves, yet they think it’s such a great triumph to throw wolves under the bus, watch them delisted in the most underhanded way, in a budget rider for votes, than declare victory? I guess USFWS doesn’t mind the ESA was gutted just to get to wolves. Now any protected animal that’s “politically incorrect” can be delisted in an appropriations bill?

It’s a hollow victory and all the hoopla surrounding Ed Bangs retirement doesn’t change that. Wolves were betrayed by the Obama admin, USFWS and Congress.

“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” …Abraham Lincoln

Here’s a puff piece on Ed Bang’s retirement.

Adventures in wolf recovery ending for Ed Bangs as he retires from USFWS

http://www.ravallirepublic.com/news/state-and-regional/58888dfc-26c8-59bf-9a5e-d109ba30068a.html

This what wolves are in for. The haters are chomping at the bit!!

 Idaho and Montana prepare for wolf hunts

A congressional budget bill rider takes wolves off the endangered species list in the two states. Hunters are happy, but wildlife advocates are outraged.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-idaho-wolves-20110425,0,4671581.story?track=rss

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Photo: Courtesy All About Wolves

Posted in: Wolf Wars

Tags: Ed Bangs Retires, USFWS lets wolves down, hollow victory, wolves betrayed