Has Another Wolf Made It to
California?
There's news about the possibility of a new wolf
in California. The state wildlife department has released new evidence -- not
yet conclusive -- that there may be a wolf in Lassen County. The information
includes photos from four trail cameras between August and May and a hair sample
from one of the sites. The fact that the animal persisted through the winter in
this remote location leads agency officials to believe the animal is likely a
wolf.In late 2011 a wolf called OR-7 was the first of his kind to enter the Golden State in nearly a century -- a radio-collared wolf that dispersed to California from the Imnaha pack in the northeastern part of his home state, Oregon. He has since found a mate and has had litters of pups for three consecutive years. Another wolf family, dubbed the Shasta pack, was confirmed last year in California's Siskiyou County.
"We're crossing our fingers that another wolf has arrived in this state as part of the ongoing recovery of wolves across the West," said the Center's Amaroq Weiss. "Wolves continue to prove what scientists have said all along -- that California has great habitat for them." Read more in our press release.
USDA's Wildlife Services Has Killed Hundreds of Idaho Wolves
Additional Contacts:
Travis Bruner, Western Watersheds Project (208) 788-2290
Andrea Santarsiere, Center for Biological Diversity, (303) 854-7748
Gary Macfarlane, Friends of the Clearwater (208) 882-9755
Brooks Fahy, Predator Defense (541) 937-4261
Talasi Brooks, Advocates for the West (208) 342-7024
Andrea Santarsiere, Center for Biological Diversity, (303) 854-7748
Gary Macfarlane, Friends of the Clearwater (208) 882-9755
Brooks Fahy, Predator Defense (541) 937-4261
Talasi Brooks, Advocates for the West (208) 342-7024
BOISE, Idaho— Five conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal court today challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services’ killing of gray wolves in Idaho.
The agency killed at least 72 wolves in Idaho last year, using methods including foothold traps, wire snares that strangle wolves, and aerial gunning from helicopters. The agency has used aerial gunning in central Idaho’s “Lolo zone” for several years in a row—using planes or helicopters to run wolves to exhaustion before shooting them from the air, often leaving them wounded to die slow, painful deaths.
The agency’s environmental analysis from 2011 is woefully outdated due to changing circumstances, including new recreational hunting and trapping that kills hundreds of wolves in Idaho each year, and significant changes in scientific understanding of wolves and ecosystem functions.
Wildlife Services does most of its wolf-killing at the behest of the livestock industry, following reports of livestock depredation. For example, five wolves were killed outside of Hailey, Idaho in July 2015 for allegedly attacking sheep. Documents indicate that Wildlife Services has even attempted to kill wolves in the newly-designated Boulder-White Clouds Wildernesses. But Wildlife Services does not consider whether livestock owners took common-sense precautionary measures to avoid conflicts with wolves such as lambing indoors.
“Wildlife Service’s wolf-killing program is senseless, cruel, and impoverishes our wild country,” said Travis Bruner of Western Watersheds Project. “Killing wolves for private livestock interests is wrong, especially on public lands, where wildlife deserves to come first. In addition, new science shows that it does not reduce conflicts long-term.”
“Wildlife Services has never even bothered to consider how much mortality a healthy wolf population can handle,” said Andrea Santarsiere of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Recent research indicates the state may be overestimating wolf populations—something Wildlife Services must consider before killing more wolves.”
“It is long past time that we base wildlife management decisions on the best available science, not on antiquated, disproven anti-wolf rhetoric,” said Bethany Cotton, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians. “Wildlife Services needs to come out of the shadows, update its analyses and adopt practices in keeping with modern science and values about the ethical treatment of animals.”
The agency also kills wolves for the purported benefit of elk herds, including in the Lolo zone.
“The campaign waged against the Lolo’s native wolves in the name of elk is reprehensible. Science shows that the elk decline there is due to long-term, natural-habitat changes, not impacts from wolves,” said Gary Macfarlane of Friends of the Clearwater. “It is particularly galling that Wildlife Services is targeting wolves that mostly live in Wildernesses or large roadless areas. These, especially, are places where wolves should be left alone.”
“Wildlife Services, formerly called Animal Damage Control, has been criticized for over fifty years by some of our nation’s leading predator biologists. It has a long, documented history of violating state and federal laws, and even its own directives,” said Brooks Fahy, executive director of Predator Defense. “Idahoans and the American public deserve a guarantee that federal programs like Wildlife Services are using the most up-to-date scientific information available.”
The five conservation organizations are asking the court to order Wildlife Services to cease wolf-killing activities until it prepares an up-to-date environmental analysis of its wolf-killing program. The groups—Western Watersheds Project, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Clearwater, WildEarth Guardians and Predator Defense—are represented by Advocates for the West and Western Watersheds Project attorneys.
Read the complaint here.
The agency killed at least 72 wolves in Idaho last year, using methods including foothold traps, wire snares that strangle wolves, and aerial gunning from helicopters. The agency has used aerial gunning in central Idaho’s “Lolo zone” for several years in a row—using planes or helicopters to run wolves to exhaustion before shooting them from the air, often leaving them wounded to die slow, painful deaths.
The agency’s environmental analysis from 2011 is woefully outdated due to changing circumstances, including new recreational hunting and trapping that kills hundreds of wolves in Idaho each year, and significant changes in scientific understanding of wolves and ecosystem functions.
Wildlife Services does most of its wolf-killing at the behest of the livestock industry, following reports of livestock depredation. For example, five wolves were killed outside of Hailey, Idaho in July 2015 for allegedly attacking sheep. Documents indicate that Wildlife Services has even attempted to kill wolves in the newly-designated Boulder-White Clouds Wildernesses. But Wildlife Services does not consider whether livestock owners took common-sense precautionary measures to avoid conflicts with wolves such as lambing indoors.
“Wildlife Service’s wolf-killing program is senseless, cruel, and impoverishes our wild country,” said Travis Bruner of Western Watersheds Project. “Killing wolves for private livestock interests is wrong, especially on public lands, where wildlife deserves to come first. In addition, new science shows that it does not reduce conflicts long-term.”
“Wildlife Services has never even bothered to consider how much mortality a healthy wolf population can handle,” said Andrea Santarsiere of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Recent research indicates the state may be overestimating wolf populations—something Wildlife Services must consider before killing more wolves.”
“It is long past time that we base wildlife management decisions on the best available science, not on antiquated, disproven anti-wolf rhetoric,” said Bethany Cotton, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians. “Wildlife Services needs to come out of the shadows, update its analyses and adopt practices in keeping with modern science and values about the ethical treatment of animals.”
The agency also kills wolves for the purported benefit of elk herds, including in the Lolo zone.
“The campaign waged against the Lolo’s native wolves in the name of elk is reprehensible. Science shows that the elk decline there is due to long-term, natural-habitat changes, not impacts from wolves,” said Gary Macfarlane of Friends of the Clearwater. “It is particularly galling that Wildlife Services is targeting wolves that mostly live in Wildernesses or large roadless areas. These, especially, are places where wolves should be left alone.”
“Wildlife Services, formerly called Animal Damage Control, has been criticized for over fifty years by some of our nation’s leading predator biologists. It has a long, documented history of violating state and federal laws, and even its own directives,” said Brooks Fahy, executive director of Predator Defense. “Idahoans and the American public deserve a guarantee that federal programs like Wildlife Services are using the most up-to-date scientific information available.”
The five conservation organizations are asking the court to order Wildlife Services to cease wolf-killing activities until it prepares an up-to-date environmental analysis of its wolf-killing program. The groups—Western Watersheds Project, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Clearwater, WildEarth Guardians and Predator Defense—are represented by Advocates for the West and Western Watersheds Project attorneys.
Read the complaint here.
Feds Kill Wolves, Foxes, Bobcats and Bears -- Help Stop Them -- 385 dead wolves, 284 mountain lions, 731 bobcats, 3,437 foxes and 68,905 coyotes.
That's last year's slaughter tally of America's deadliest government program, Wildlife Services. The new numbers are out: In 2015 its guns, traps and poisons took the lives of more than 3.2 million animals.
Help us end this ongoing massacre with a donation to the Stop Wildlife Services Fund.
Also killed by this secretive arm of the USDA: 21,559 beavers, 559 falcons, 480 black bears and 492 river otters. The program destroyed 59,000 prairie dog burrows and 492 coyote dens, suffocating an untold number of pups; it even admitted to wiping out nearly 900 dogs and cats -- though one whistleblowing employee revealed "we were actually told not to report dogs we killed because it would have a detrimental effect on us."
Wildlife Services is out of control, but it has no greater foe than the Center for Biological Diversity -- we're fighting county by county, state by state to shut the program down and save our wildlife from this butcher bureaucracy. Your donation to the Stop Wildlife Services Fund is a powerful way to help.
Wildlife Services executes its killings under a veil of secrecy, but the truth of its methods has been leaking out. Many of the reported animal deaths were cynically termed “unintentional” -- resulting from the reckless use of indiscriminate traps. These include a cruel cyanide trap called the M44 that baits animals to bite or nuzzle it, then poisons them, causing terrible suffering.
With the help of our members and allies, we recently ended Wildlife Services' contract in Mendocino -- the California county whose old-growth forests have been the site of thousands of killings. Now we're moving to shut it down in Monterey County as well, establishing a legal precedent that will turn off the money tap for these hired animal-killers.
We've also just filed suit in Idaho, where Gov. Butch Otter has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to Wildlife Services to liquidate wolves. We're going to court to shut that down, too.
We know how to put an end to the slaughter, but we'll need your help. Battling this shadowy butcher bureaucracy in the courts won't be easy -- so we're grateful to have you by our side. You can help us take down this killing machine with a gift to the Stop Wildlife Services Fund today.
After
less than two years of peace, Wyoming’s embattled wolves may once again be under
the gun.
You
may recall that after the federal government turned wolf management over to
Wyoming in 2012, more than 200 wolves were killed across the
state.
Defenders
has fought tirelessly over the years to maintain Endangered Species Act
protections for wolves in Wyoming – but now there's a very real
possibility that they could once again be delisted. This would immediately open
the way for a fresh round of killing.
The
two years of state management were bloody:
-
Under Wyoming's brand of "wolf management," 85 percent of the state was designated a "predator zone," literally a free-fire zone where anyone could kill any wolf at any time and for any reason.
-
Among the early victims of Wyoming's killing spree was a magnificent Yellowstone wolf known as "06." The matriarch of the Lamar Canyon Pack, 06 drew wolf-watchers from around the world. Her death just a few miles outside the Yellowstone National Park boundary was a tragic loss.
Wyoming’s wolves won a desperately
needed reprieve in 2014, when Defenders and our conservation partners went to
court and won a ruling that restored federal protections for
these wolves.
But
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is appealing the court’s 2014 decision, and
anti-wildlife extremists have launched a massive anti-wolf offensive which
includes successfully adding provisions that would delist Wyoming wolves to
must-pass bills now advancing in Congress.
And if they win, wolves will
die.
Defenders
is fighting in court, on Capitol Hill and on the ground in wolf country to keep
wolves safe. Your support makes these efforts possible.
