WILDLIFE BIOLOGISTS LOOKING FOR OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE GENETICS OF HIGHLY IMPERILED MEXICAN GRAY WOLVES
Dances with Wolves Screenwriter Michael Blake Passes Away
Few people know of Oscar winning screenwriter Michael Blake’s contributions to wolf recovery beyond his role as the author and screenwriter of the award winning film Dances with Wolves. Blake was also involved with wolf reintroduction efforts in Yellowstone and Idaho at a crucial turning point in the mid-90’s. His public support and advocacy for wolf recovery was critical in thwarting congressional interference that would have prevented wolf populations from recovering in the region. We hope that Blake’s contribution to gray wolf recovery will always be remembered as vividly as his famous film.
Congress Continues its Campaign Against Wolves
Congress’ animosity towards wolves burns brighter by the day. Since January, Representatives have introduced three separate bills in the House of Representatives to delist gray wolves in certain states. On top of that, last week 36 Representatives signed a letter to U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Dan Ashe, requesting the Department move forward with its proposal to remove federal protections for wolves across most of the lower 48 states. The Service’s delisting rule was originally proposed in June of 2013. A final decision on the proposal was delayed after the Service received more than one million comments in opposition to the rule, the highest number of submissions ever to the agency on an endangered species issue. It is unclear when or if the Service will attempt to finalize a national gray wolf delisting rule. We feel strongly that science, not politics, should guide listing decisions and we oppose all congressional attempts to interfere with the species listing or delisting process. You can help us by also telling Congress it must keep politics out of wolf recovery!
The recent news that Mendocino County is re-evaluating its contract with the federal wildlife-killing program known as Wildlife Services barely caused a ripple in the West Coast news cycle.
But for biologists like me who have dedicated their lives to studying the most responsible ways to manage the nation’s wildlife, the county’s decision to pause and consider using nonlethal methods of controlling their wild animal populations offers a glimmer of hope.
In 1948 I was a field assistant state biologist in California doing research on the widespread impacts on wildlife of the poison known as 1080. The indiscriminate killer not only left foxes, coyotes and other animals dying torturous, convulsive deaths for more than 24 hours but resulted in the deaths of raptors and other nontarget animals that fed on tainted carcasses.
It wasn’t long thereafter I ran a Wildlife Services trapper off my family’s property above Napa Valley.
Protecting the long-term heritage of our nation’s wildlife has been at the heart of my life’s work. In the early 1970s I was involved in a series of initiatives to protect American wildlife, including being an author of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. One of the important challenges at that time was trying to stop our government from slaughtering our native wild animals – by the millions.
Virtually all of the animals were killed not because scientific research indicated it was an effective management technique but simply because the livestock and agriculture industries wanted them dead.
In an effort to curb the unnecessary killing, a policy I authored stopped the use of poisons in animal control and outlined science-based steps to manage wild animals. This policy was reinforced in 1979 under the Carter administration. But gains were short-lived as subsequent administrations reverted to archaic “preventative” policies designed to simply kill as many potential “problem animals” as possible.
Chilling 2014 “kill” numbers released this month by Wildlife Services reflect how much work is left to be done.
The agency reports killing 2.7 million animals during fiscal year 2014. That means that just since 1996 Wildlife Services has shot, poisoned and strangled by snare nearly 30 million native animals.
Despite increasing calls for reform, the latest kill report indicates the reckless slaughter of wildlife continues, including 322 gray wolves, 61,702 coyotes, 580 black bears, 305 mountain lions, 796 bobcats, 454 river otters, 2,930 foxes, three bald eagles, five golden eagles and 22,496 beavers. The program also killed 15,698 black-tailed prairie dogs and destroyed more than 33,309 of their dens.
Effecting change in Wildlife Services’ activities became even more difficult in 1986 when oversight of its activities was transferred from the Interior Department to the Agriculture Department. During that transition, the Agriculture Department did not follow the routine practice of establishing specific rules governing how Wildlife Services was to operate. As a result, the agency’s activities are not guided by the kind of legally binding regulations that typically structure other federal agencies and require transparency.
But change can come from local communities as well.
The wise decision in Mendocino to stop and consider the consequences of the wildlife killing came in response to legal pressure from a coalition of animal protection and conservation groups. But in choosing to pause and determine the best course forward, officials there remind us that we can stop the killing in the places we live, if we so choose.
To be sure, we’ve got a long way to go. In California, 80,000 animals are trapped and killed each year by Wildlife Services on behalf of commercial agriculture.
But Marin County showed Wildlife Services the door nearly 15 years ago, replacing its Wildlife Services contract with a nonlethal predator control program that decreased predation by 62 percent at one-third the cost.
And in 2013, after a nudge from the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Sonoma County’s Board of Supervisors opted not to renew that county’s contract with Wildlife Services.
Now Mendocino County can step up and set a responsible example of how to manage wildlife in a way that reflects the basic rules of science, reason and moral decency.
Lee Talbot is a former head of Environmental Sciences for the Smithsonian Institution who served as chief scientist of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality for Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. He is currently a professor of environmental science, international affairs and public policy at George Mason University and environmental adviser to the World Bank, United Nations agencies and foreign governments.
Speak out against efforts to strip protections from Oregon wolves.
As a fifth generation Oregonian, it is important to me that wolves be welcomed home to their historic habitats across the state. Wolf recovery is just beginning to take hold, with wolves like the famous OR-7 known as Journey dispersing from northeastern Oregon to my childhood stomping grounds in the Rogue River Siskiyou National Forest.
Journey and his partner and pups now form the first wolf pack in southern Oregon in over eighty years, aptly dubbed the “Rogue pack.” Please join me in taking action today to ensure Oregon’s wolves have a future.
Wolves in Oregon pc OR Dept FWFor the most part, Oregon is a leader in wolf recovery, conflict prevention, and conservation. Most Americans value native wildlife and see the return of wolves to Oregon as a conservation success story.
But wolves have enemies in Oregon, just like they do across the country, and that faction is trying to remove state legal protections that wolves need to survive.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission is considering whether to strip wolves of state Endangered Species Act protections. Doing so would leave wolves vulnerable to hunting and poisoning.
We can’t let a vocal minority, fueled by misinformation and fear turn back the clock on wolf conservation. Please act today to keep Oregon’s wolves protected.
Wolves are just beginning to retake their rightful place in the wilds of Oregon, with only 77 wolves roaming the state. Oregon’s wolves are a long way from meaningful recovery, and they still need protections.
Tell state decision-makers you value wolves and other native wildlife, and want to see wolves protected. With your support, wolves will continue to reclaim their native landscape, creating a more wild and beautiful Oregon.
- author: Marybeth Holleman - Coauthor of Among Wolves, Anchorage, AK
- target: U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell
- signatures: 128,479
we've got 128,479 signatures, help us get to 129,000 by July 4, 2015
Update #1 May 8, 2015
About this Petition
The wolf population in Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve has plummeted to its lowest level in the park's historical record, due in part to wolf hunting and trapping inside the park and on state lands along the park boundary. Along with Yellowstone, Denali used to be the best place in the world to observe wolves in the wild - but sighting a wolf today is rare. We are calling on U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to immediately halt all wolf killing inside Denali park, and secure a permanent no-kill buffer along the park boundary from the State of Alaska.
Denali National Park, a six-million-acre International Biosphere Reserve, is visited by over 500,000 people from all over the world each year. These visitors come to see North America’s highest peak, its wilderness, and its wildlife—especially wolves.
However, while almost half the visitors to the park used to see wolves, now only about six percent do. The wolf population has dwindled from 143 to 48 in seven years. These losses have not only diminished the chance to see wild wolves, but have also undercut the integrity of the entire ecosystem—much of which is designated wilderness. While the park’s primary purpose is to “protect intact the globally significant Denali ecosystems,” it is failing to do so.
Sign the petition to the Secretary of the Interior to help save these wolves immediately!
Unlike most national parks, hunting and trapping is allowed on many Alaska national park lands - a political concession made in 1980. In addition, as wolves and other wildlife cross invisible park boundaries onto state lands, they are hunted and trapped for “sport” by a few local residents.
The continued killing of Denali wolves has severely disrupted family group integrity, behavior, continuity, and ecology. Unlike deaths from natural causes, hunting and trapping most often kill alpha wolves, whose deaths frequently lead to the disintegration of the entire family group. In 2012, the trapping of the pregnant alpha female wolf from the Grant Creek group—who were most often seen by visitors—led to the group declining from 15 wolves to only 3 that summer.
Subsequent losses to wolf family groups contributed to a decrease in wildlife viewing that is perhaps unprecedented in the history of the entire U.S. national park system. As a result, hundreds of thousands of tourists have been deprived the extraordinary opportunity to see wolves in the wild.
Both the Park Service and the State of Alaska have denied repeated public petitions in the past seven years asking for a halt to wolf killing in and around Denali. Meanwhile, wolves continue to vanish from one of the nation’s largest and most iconic national parks.
We therefore call on Secretary Jewell to immediately do two things:
1. Order the superintendent of Denali National Park to close all wolf killing in the entire park and preserve, and;
2. Acquire a permanent wolf buffer conservation easement from the State of Alaska along the northeastern boundary of Denali, where most hunting and trapping occurs. This easement can either be purchased by the U.S. government, or transferred from the state in exchange for an equal-valued federal easement or asset elsewhere.
If you'd like to learn more about Denali's famous wolf family groups, check out our book, Among Wolves.
And, after signing the petition, please also consider contacting these officials directly:
Secretary of Interior Sally Jewel: secretary@ios.doi.gov
Superintendent of Denali National Park Don Striker: don_striker@nps.gov
Alaska Governor Bill Walker: governor@alaska.gov
Alaska Fish and Game Commissioner Sam Cotten: sam.cotten@alaska.gov
A new anti-wolf bill was just introduced, adding Washington State, Oregon and Utah to the growing list of states where Congress is trying to force wolves off the Endangered Species list.
This bill wouldn’t just strip federal Endangered Species Act protections – it would prohibit the states from offering wolves certain vital protections. Even if they wanted to.
With bills attempting to delist wolves in four other states, these bills could be the nail in the coffin for gray wolf conservation in the Lower 48.
Because of this impending crisis, our Board of Directors has stepped up and from now until May 8th, your donation will go twice as far for wolves and other wildlife you love.
Our Board of Directors will match your donation, dollar-for-dollar, up to a total of $200,000 between now and May 8th.
These bills could be a veritable death sentence for thousands of wolves. And it would be a premature and tragic end to 20 years of progress for wolf conservation.
And it’s not only wolves. Every day brings fresh horrors from anti-wildlife forces. Driven by big money special interests, extremists in Congress have unleashed a torrent of proposals that could:
Relax restrictions on trade in elephant ivory in the midst of the worst poaching crisis in years;
Pave the way for oil and gas drilling in the fragile coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge; and
Restrict access to the courts to enforce the protection of animals listed under the Endangered Species Act.
You Are the Reason There’s Hope.
While special interest groups are shoveling money into the prospect of plundering our wildlife and wild lands, your urgent donation helps us fight back.
With your help, we’re:
Fighting on Capitol Hill to urge key members of Congress to oppose these reckless attacks on our wildlife and wild places;
Defending the Endangered Species Act to ensure our most vulnerable wildlife is protected;
Mobilizing grassroots activists by the tens of thousands to defend our natural heritage;
Educating the public and urging action against these harmful attacks; and
Much, much more.
We can’t lose this fight. Won't you stand with us?
And remember – your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar – up to a total of $200,000 until May 8th.
Thank you for all you do for the wildlife we love. We’re counting on your continued support.
