New UCLA study on lobos’ historic range: A study from UCLA
demonstrates that Mexican gray wolves had a greater historic range than
previously known. The study shows that lobos roamed far to the north, including
into southern Colorado and southern Utah. The study is timely in light of the
fact that the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission’s main argument in favor of
passing an anti-wolf, anti-wildlife ban on Mexican gray wolf reintroduction is that lobos never
roamed in the Centennial State. The Commission will be voting on this
politically-driven wolf ban on Wednesday, January 13 at 4:00 pm. And we need
your help! We’re hosting briefings for folks who live in the Denver area who
want to attend the commission meeting next week. Even if you choose not to
speak, it’s important to pack the room with wolf supporters. If you can join
Defenders and other wolf advocates for the briefings and/or the commission
meetings, click
here for more information.
Don’t Kill Thousands of Coyotes and Wolves.
I have great news to share: we’ve won another legal victory in our efforts to end the Government’s War on Wildlife and rein in the cruel wildlife-killing program known as Wildlife Services.
Wolves in Washington state are safer from guns and traps in the new year because the court agreed with us that Wildlife Services failed to consider the ecological importance of wolves to the health of ecosystems in the state and across state borders.
Wildlife Services is a controversial program within the U.S. Department of Agriculture responsible for killing millions of wild animals every year, including wolves, grizzly bears, otters, foxes, coyotes, and prairie dogs, with almost no oversight or accountability. We are working to fundamentally change the program by shining a spotlight on its cruel activities and holding it accountable for failing to base decisions on sound science.
Guardians and our partners, represented by our friends at the Western Environmental Law Center, challenged Wildlife Services’ plans to kill wolves pointing out that it ignored science about the importance of wolves to healthy, thriving ecosystems. The judge ordered activities authorized by the plan to cease immediately and the program to conduct a new full-blown analysis of environmental impacts.
In 2016 we’ll be redoubling our efforts to end the Government’s War on Wildlife, targeting Wildlife Services’ activities across the West. Thank you for your support in this important campaign.
Oregon’s recent move to reduce protections for wolves is going to court.
On Dec. 30, three nonprofits filed a lawsuit challenging a November decision by the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife to remove gray wolves from the Oregon endangered species list.
The groups charge that the agency failed to follow the best available science on the health of the wolf population, “prematurely removing protections before wolves are truly recovered,” according to a statement from the Center for Biological Diversity, which joined Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands in taking the state to court. “With only about 80 known adult wolves mostly confined to one small corner of the state, Oregon’s wolf population is far from recovery.”
Gray wolves, which are native to Oregon, were once found statewide and numbered in the hundreds or thousands. But an active statewide eradication program, which paid bounties for dead wolves, wiped out the population between the early 1840s and the late 1940s. The current packs are descended from wolves that were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park and in the state of Idaho in the 1990s, whose populations have grown and spread westward.
Today’s Oregon wolves occupy only a small fraction of their former range. There were 81 known wolves in Oregon at the end of 2014, according to the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and of 16 packs counted in 2015, 13 had pups during the summer.
Removing the wolves—which continue to have federal endangered species protections—from the state endangered species roster didn’t affect how the animals are being managed in Oregon, according to a November statement from the wildlife agency. “Any take of wolves is highly regulated in Oregon, and the delisting does not mean additional take is now allowed,” the agency stated. “Hunters and trappers may not take wolves in Oregon at this time. The Wolf Plan does not allow for general season sport hunting of wolves in any phase of wolf management.”
But the move might pave the way for expanded wolf hunting if the species’ status under federal law changed in the future.
“Though Oregon’s Wolf Management Plan is working for all but the most anti-wolf interests, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is reigniting old conflicts by caving to political pressure and giving serious consideration to weakening basic protections for wolves, allowing ranchers the flexibility to shoot them if they are believed to be posing a threat to livestock,” Oregon Wild stated on its website.
The agency, however, called the decision to delist the wolf at the state level “a vote of confidence” in how the state was balancing the conservation of wolves with the concerns of ranchers.
Suit Challenges Removal of Protection From Oregon Wolves
With roughly 80 known individuals mostly
confined to one small corner of Oregon, the state's wolves are far from
"recovered" -- so the Center and allies have sued the Oregon Fish and Wildlife
Commission for removing state Endangered Species Act protections for the
intelligent canines.
The last wolf in Oregon was shot in the 1940s, and the state was void of wolves until 2008, when the Imnaha pack was established in northeastern Oregon. Now wolves are almost making a comeback there -- but they've only begun. Before protections were stripped in November, scientists wrote to the Commission attesting to this precarious status, saying a decision to remove protections would be "untenable" and "fundamentally flawed." About 20,000 other citizens spoke out in favor of retaining state safeguards.
"It's simply too soon to remove protections for Oregon's wolves," said the Center's Noah Greenwald. We sued last Wednesday with Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild.
Read more in The Register-Guard.
Wolf hunting and trapping is happening right now in
parts of the Northern Rockies. Wolves are being gunned down by hunters who
have paid as little as $11.50 to legally slaughter them. Even Yellowstone
Park wolves are at risk. Just this month, a well known, GPS-collared wolf from
Yellowstone's Junction Butte pack was reportedly killed when she ventured out of
the park boundaries and into Montana.
Help us keep up the fight to protect wolves in the Northern Rockies and around the nation with a $40 donation today. Thanks to a generous matching grant by our Board of Directors, your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar to maximize your impact on wolves.
We fought non-stop to defeat a legislative trick that would have stripped wolves in four states of protections. And we will fight with that same determination in 2016. Wolves in the Great Lakes and Wyoming dodged an enormous bullet with that victory, but they are still at risk. New Congressional leadership may take up that same misguided effort as early as mid-January and several anti-wolf state agencies have appealed to the courts for permission to resume the hunts.
The Endangered Species Coalition has field staff strategically located around the country to raise support for wolves. Our organizers in Oregon, Wisconsin, and the Northeast have one task this year--defend protections for wolves and build public support for their continued expansion into habitats they once occupied prior to near-total extirpation.
We need you in this fight to save wolves in 2016, Don. Your $40 end-of-year 100% tax-deductible donation today will be matched by our Board of Directors if we hit our fundraising goal of $13,000.
2016 will be another challenging year for wolf recovery and the Endangered Species Coalition is uniquely qualified to wage this fight. We have more than 300 member organizations and 150,000 activists and supporters like you, contacting decision makers online and offline. In 2015, we facilitated more than one million contacts into Congress, the Obama administration, and other offices in support of protecting wolves and other endangered species. Please help us fight to keep wolves and other endangered species protected and to defend the laws that protect them with a $40 donation today.
Thank you for your commitment to wildlife and wild places.
At the turn of the New Year, new series of Mexican gray wolf recovery
workshops
The Mexican gray wolf is the most endangered gray wolf in
the world. After being shot and poisoned almost to the point of no return, and
brought back from the edge of extinction by a captive breeding program, these
lobos deserve our best recovery efforts. They need the best science, the most
streamlined recovery planning process, and the speediest implementation of those
plans.
Unfortunately, what they are getting is something quite different. In December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began a series of closed-door Mexican gray wolf recovery planning workshops – which is puzzling because the Service already appointed a Mexican gray wolf recovery team for this purpose back in 2010. The team’s scientists provided recovery criteria and draft recovery plans based on peer-reviewed research and the best available science. The scientists determined that for Mexican gray wolves to avoid extinction, they would need at least three core populations — the current one in eastern Arizona/western New Mexico, one in the Grand Canyon ecoregion of Arizona and Utah, and one in northern New Mexico/southern Colorado. However, after all the scientists’ hard work, the Service suddenly suspended these recovery efforts and never finished the recovery plan. In light of these recommendations, the new series of workshops raises the question: Why start over? Does the Service have a credible basis for disagreeing with the science provided by the recovery team, or with what needs to be done to save the lobo? And why invite only state officials, instead of a range of stakeholders? Are they simply responding to state pressure to come up with a different plan that requires fewer wolves in fewer places? In response to the Service’s invitation to state officials, the governors of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah wrote a letter to Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewel, expressing their opposition to Mexican gray wolf recovery in their states. This should be no surprise, as each of the four states has at some time actively worked against wolf recovery. Arizona Game and Fish asked Congress to remove all federal protections for Mexican gray wolves when there were only 50 wild lobos in the entire world, and now forbids all releases of adult wolves in the state. Colorado is currently considering a ban on Mexican gray wolf reintroduction, with the Parks and Wildlife Commission expected to vote on the proposal this month. Similarly, New Mexico’s game commission recently tried to block all future lobo releases in the state. Utah has spent public funds lobbying to remove wolves from the federal list of endangered species, and has been aggressively hostile in voicing its disdain for hosting any wolf populations. The governors appear deaf to their citizens, the majority of whom overwhelmingly support wolves and wolf restoration. This is particularly clear in polling from New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado. Last year, when the Service was re-writing the rules for Mexican gray wolf management, it made last minute deals with states without the opportunity for public comment. One of these included capping the lobo population at levels too low for full recovery in Arizona and New Mexico. These new closed-door recovery planning meetings have the same potential for backroom bargaining at the expense of the lobos. One of the Service’s most important legal responsibilities is to ensure the recovery of endangered species like the Mexican gray wolf. Recently, they pushed back against New Mexico’s attempt to ban any new wolf releases. Now, the Service needs to demonstrate that same resolve, and make sure that state politics and posturing aren’t put ahead of wolf recovery. The post At the turn of the New Year, new series of Mexican gray wolf recovery workshops appeared first on Defenders of Wildlife Blog. |
Don’t Kill Thousands of Coyotes and Wolves.
Target: Ontario Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry, Bill Mauro
Goal: Do not allow hunters to kill thousands of wolves and coyotes.
Government officials in Canada want to launch a mass wolf and coyote cull by loosening hunting restrictions and allowing thousands of these animals to be shot and killed. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry of Ontario, Canada, has issued a proposal to change hunting regulations, increasing the limit on how many wolves can be killed and lifting limitations entirely for coyotes.
Hunters will no longer be required to purchase a special hunting “seal” and will also no longer be restricted to killing only one wolf per season. Instead, any hunter holding a small game hunting license will be allowed to kill two wolves per season and an unlimited number of coyotes. Statistics indicate that there are over 100,000 small game hunters in Ontario and unlike targeted culls where a specific number of animals are killed, this scenario would see innumerable animals slaughtered and wolf and coyote populations potentially decimated.
This move comes as a response to declining moose populations in Ontario, but rather than ban the sport hunting of moose and their calves or protecting moose habitats from intensive forestry, officials are choosing to allow wolves and coyotes to be murdered instead. Non-profit organization Wolves Ontario has stated that this proposal not only fails to address the decline in the moose population, it “continues to endanger at-risk eastern wolves” and “encourages the unregulated slaughter of coyotes.”
Moreover, this is the second major cull announced by the Ontario government in the last two months, with the first targeting black bears through a planned spring bear hunt. These moves have been rightly dubbed a “War on Wildlife” seeming as though Canada is recklessly putting its precious wild animals in danger by allowing them to be cruelly killed.
The general public can react to the proposed amendment to wolf and coyote hunting legislation until January 18. It is vital to speak up for these animals and show massive opposition to this cruel and destructive plan. Sign this petition to denounce this misguided proposal: thousands of coyotes and wolves need your voice.
Dear Minister Mauro,
I am writing to oppose your government’s plan to loosen hunting restrictions and allow thousands of wolves and coyotes to be shot and killed. Permitting any hunter holding a small game hunting license to kill two wolves per season instead of one and an unlimited number of coyotes will see countless animals cruelly slaughtered and their populations seriously endangered.
The decline of moose populations in Northern Ontario would be far better addressed by banning the sport hunting of moose and their calves—it is indeed shameful that killing a moose calf is still legal—and protecting moose habitats from intensive forestry.
Coming so soon after a plan to slaughter black bears in a spring bear hunt, this new proposal shows the Ontario government to be engaged in a destructive war on wildlife. Instead, lawmakers should be taking humane steps to preserve the region’s precious natural resources.
Allowing the unregulated slaughter of thousands of wolves and coyotes is not the solution. I urge you not to implement this thoughtless and ill-advised amendment to wolf and coyote hunting regulations.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo credit: D. Gordon E. Robertson
--------------------------
Don’t Allow Thousands of Hunters to Kill Country’s Last Wolves.
Target: Prime Minister of Norway, Erna Solberg
Goal: Save Norway’s last 30 wolves from being targeted and killed by over 11,000 hunters.
Norway’s endangered wolf population faces decimation at the hands of thousands of hunters. The government has awarded licenses to 11,571 people to shoot 16 animals. This is more than half the total number of wolves in the country, which is estimated to be lower than 30. This means that hunters outnumber the wolves 763 to one. These animals have no chance of surviving.
The decision to open up wolf hunting to the public this year was supposedly taken to protect livestock, despite the fact that the wolf population is so fragile and far too low to cause farmers any losses. Furthermore, international wolf expert Petter Wabakken believes that the wolf population is already being kept down by illegal hunting, explaining why their numbers are so disturbingly low.
The main pack of wolves lives in a designated habitat in the southeastern part of the country, but as soon as an individual wanders out of this area, he or she is fair game to be shot by thousands of trigger-happy hunters. The government has adopted the irresponsible policy of only allowing three litters of wolf pups to survive per year, clearly not enough to sustain a healthy wolf population in the country. Moreover, it is not clear how officials aim to identify and protect three breeding females from over 11,000 hunters if these wolves were to stray from their designated area.
Allowing this hunt to continue could mean the extinction of Norwegian wolves for good. Ask Norway to reconsider this reckless decision and revoke the hunters’ permits immediately.
Dear Prime Minister Solberg,
I am writing to oppose your government’s decision to open up the wolf hunting season to thousands of people this year. You are certainly aware that there are fewer than 30 wolves left in Norway, yet your government has awarded licenses to 11,571 people to shoot 16 of these animals. This is more than half the total number of wolves in the country. This also equates to hunters outnumbering the wolves 763 to one, meaning these animals have no chance of surviving, essentially spelling out the extinction of this beautiful and precious species.
I understand that this decision was taken in order to protect livestock. However, wolf numbers are far too low to cause farmers any losses. Furthermore, international wolf expert Petter Wabakken believes that the wolf population is already being kept down by illegal hunting, explaining why their numbers are so disturbingly low.
Norway’s wolf population is incredibly fragile, and the government’s policy to only protect three breeding females and their pups is both irresponsible and unclear. How are three specific individuals meant to be protected from 11,000 hunters were they to stray outside their designated habitat?
This hunt may be the last nail in the coffin of Norway’s wolves. Please reconsider this reckless decision and revoke the hunters’ permits immediately.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo credit: Skeeze
------------------------------
Stop fur farm from exploiting and killing Endangered Gray Wolves for Their Fur.
A fur farm disguised as an educational petting zoo wants to come to my home state. We need your help to close their business.
“Fur-ever Wild” sounds like a cute place to take the whole family. Described as an educational petting zoo, the Deadwood, SD location will include a chance to “pet-and-plays” with wolf puppies. They advertise it will only cost you $20 dollars for 20 minutes. For the puppies, it will eventually cost them their lives.
The wolf pups are trotted out for cute photos. Once the pups are too old to for the “pet-and-plays,” they will be transported back to Minnesota and eventually killed for their fur. The truth is “Fur-ever Wild” is just a side business of a fur farm. Before they make money on the furs of the animals, they exploit them for more profit at these petting zoos.
We must stand against such exploitation and cruelty. No matter where you live, we need your support.
Before the wolf pups are put in the arms of posing children and adults, they are taken from their mother after they are only days old. Their eyes haven’t even opened when they are removed. It’s a start of a horrible journey “Fur-ever Wild” won’t be broadcasting to their guests. When visitors give their $20 dollars they will have no idea they are financing the death of the very pups they want hold.
A business model built on breeding animals for such a fate in inhumane and should be stopped. Together we can stop “Fur-ever Wild” from expanding and send a message to similar businesses their time is up.
Tell Lakeville, MN to shut down “Fur-ever Wild”. Please sign and share our petition today.
To find out more information, please visit these recent news articles:
Previous articles: Minnesota Court of Appeals From the current lawsuit... "testimony from Petter that she was operating a "fur farm" and that every one of her animals would be skinned": http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Flaw.justia.com%2Fcases%2Fminnesota%2Fcourt-of-appeals%2F2015%2Fa14-945.html&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNG828JONQA1AIawXK4sP9wRMkd9UA
http://sunthisweek.com/2013/03/01/proposed-zoning-ordinance-changes-have-eureka-township-residents-questioning-what-animals-can-be-allowed/ http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/28913130/furever-wild-agricultural-farm-stinks-eureka-neighbors-say
Following a study on the dangers of hunting
policies enacted since protections for northern Rockies wolves were lifted, the
Center and four partners petitioned Tuesday to extend monitoring of these
wolves' status to help keep them safe.
Since 2009 when protections were first removed, more than 2,300 wolves have been killed by hunters or trappers in Montana and Idaho, both states having repeatedly increased hunting and trapping quotas and lengthened seasons in an effort to substantially reduce wolf populations. New research published in the journal Science recently found that the Fish and Wildlife Service and the two states have underestimated the impacts and risks of these increasingly aggressive wolf-hunting guidelines, which are almost certainly resulting in population declines. The feds are required to extend the time that the Service monitors the wolf population in such a situation -- but they haven't agreed to do so yet.
"The new research confirms what many scientists have been saying all along," said Center attorney Andrea Santarsiere. "Left unchecked, wolf numbers will continue to decline. The Service clearly needs to continue to keep an eye on them."
Get more from KIVI TV.
Petition Seeks to Extend Monitoring for Northern Rockies
Wolves
Following a study on the dangers of hunting
policies enacted since protections for northern Rockies wolves were lifted, the
Center and four partners petitioned Tuesday to extend monitoring of these
wolves' status to help keep them safe.Since 2009 when protections were first removed, more than 2,300 wolves have been killed by hunters or trappers in Montana and Idaho, both states having repeatedly increased hunting and trapping quotas and lengthened seasons in an effort to substantially reduce wolf populations. New research published in the journal Science recently found that the Fish and Wildlife Service and the two states have underestimated the impacts and risks of these increasingly aggressive wolf-hunting guidelines, which are almost certainly resulting in population declines. The feds are required to extend the time that the Service monitors the wolf population in such a situation -- but they haven't agreed to do so yet.
"The new research confirms what many scientists have been saying all along," said Center attorney Andrea Santarsiere. "Left unchecked, wolf numbers will continue to decline. The Service clearly needs to continue to keep an eye on them."
Get more from KIVI TV.
I have great news to share: we’ve won another legal victory in our efforts to end the Government’s War on Wildlife and rein in the cruel wildlife-killing program known as Wildlife Services.
Wolves in Washington state are safer from guns and traps in the new year because the court agreed with us that Wildlife Services failed to consider the ecological importance of wolves to the health of ecosystems in the state and across state borders.
Wildlife Services is a controversial program within the U.S. Department of Agriculture responsible for killing millions of wild animals every year, including wolves, grizzly bears, otters, foxes, coyotes, and prairie dogs, with almost no oversight or accountability. We are working to fundamentally change the program by shining a spotlight on its cruel activities and holding it accountable for failing to base decisions on sound science.
Guardians and our partners, represented by our friends at the Western Environmental Law Center, challenged Wildlife Services’ plans to kill wolves pointing out that it ignored science about the importance of wolves to healthy, thriving ecosystems. The judge ordered activities authorized by the plan to cease immediately and the program to conduct a new full-blown analysis of environmental impacts.
In 2016 we’ll be redoubling our efforts to end the Government’s War on Wildlife, targeting Wildlife Services’ activities across the West. Thank you for your support in this important campaign.
Activists Sue Oregon to Protect State’s Endangered Gray Wolves. Oregon wildlife officials took wolves off the state endangered species list in November.
On Dec. 30, three nonprofits filed a lawsuit challenging a November decision by the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife to remove gray wolves from the Oregon endangered species list.
The groups charge that the agency failed to follow the best available science on the health of the wolf population, “prematurely removing protections before wolves are truly recovered,” according to a statement from the Center for Biological Diversity, which joined Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands in taking the state to court. “With only about 80 known adult wolves mostly confined to one small corner of the state, Oregon’s wolf population is far from recovery.”
Gray wolves, which are native to Oregon, were once found statewide and numbered in the hundreds or thousands. But an active statewide eradication program, which paid bounties for dead wolves, wiped out the population between the early 1840s and the late 1940s. The current packs are descended from wolves that were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park and in the state of Idaho in the 1990s, whose populations have grown and spread westward.
Today’s Oregon wolves occupy only a small fraction of their former range. There were 81 known wolves in Oregon at the end of 2014, according to the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and of 16 packs counted in 2015, 13 had pups during the summer.
Removing the wolves—which continue to have federal endangered species protections—from the state endangered species roster didn’t affect how the animals are being managed in Oregon, according to a November statement from the wildlife agency. “Any take of wolves is highly regulated in Oregon, and the delisting does not mean additional take is now allowed,” the agency stated. “Hunters and trappers may not take wolves in Oregon at this time. The Wolf Plan does not allow for general season sport hunting of wolves in any phase of wolf management.”
But the move might pave the way for expanded wolf hunting if the species’ status under federal law changed in the future.
“Though Oregon’s Wolf Management Plan is working for all but the most anti-wolf interests, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is reigniting old conflicts by caving to political pressure and giving serious consideration to weakening basic protections for wolves, allowing ranchers the flexibility to shoot them if they are believed to be posing a threat to livestock,” Oregon Wild stated on its website.
The agency, however, called the decision to delist the wolf at the state level “a vote of confidence” in how the state was balancing the conservation of wolves with the concerns of ranchers.
Suit Challenges Removal of Protection From Oregon Wolves
With roughly 80 known individuals mostly
confined to one small corner of Oregon, the state's wolves are far from
"recovered" -- so the Center and allies have sued the Oregon Fish and Wildlife
Commission for removing state Endangered Species Act protections for the
intelligent canines.The last wolf in Oregon was shot in the 1940s, and the state was void of wolves until 2008, when the Imnaha pack was established in northeastern Oregon. Now wolves are almost making a comeback there -- but they've only begun. Before protections were stripped in November, scientists wrote to the Commission attesting to this precarious status, saying a decision to remove protections would be "untenable" and "fundamentally flawed." About 20,000 other citizens spoke out in favor of retaining state safeguards.
"It's simply too soon to remove protections for Oregon's wolves," said the Center's Noah Greenwald. We sued last Wednesday with Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild.
Read more in The Register-Guard.
Help us keep up the fight to protect wolves in the Northern Rockies and around the nation with a $40 donation today. Thanks to a generous matching grant by our Board of Directors, your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar to maximize your impact on wolves.
We fought non-stop to defeat a legislative trick that would have stripped wolves in four states of protections. And we will fight with that same determination in 2016. Wolves in the Great Lakes and Wyoming dodged an enormous bullet with that victory, but they are still at risk. New Congressional leadership may take up that same misguided effort as early as mid-January and several anti-wolf state agencies have appealed to the courts for permission to resume the hunts.
The Endangered Species Coalition has field staff strategically located around the country to raise support for wolves. Our organizers in Oregon, Wisconsin, and the Northeast have one task this year--defend protections for wolves and build public support for their continued expansion into habitats they once occupied prior to near-total extirpation.
We need you in this fight to save wolves in 2016, Don. Your $40 end-of-year 100% tax-deductible donation today will be matched by our Board of Directors if we hit our fundraising goal of $13,000.
2016 will be another challenging year for wolf recovery and the Endangered Species Coalition is uniquely qualified to wage this fight. We have more than 300 member organizations and 150,000 activists and supporters like you, contacting decision makers online and offline. In 2015, we facilitated more than one million contacts into Congress, the Obama administration, and other offices in support of protecting wolves and other endangered species. Please help us fight to keep wolves and other endangered species protected and to defend the laws that protect them with a $40 donation today.
Thank you for your commitment to wildlife and wild places.
