Wolf Weekly Wrap Up

Calling All Idaho Wolf Supporters! This Monday: Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s (IDFG) Fish and Game Commission is holding a special meeting at 7 pm, this Monday, March 23 in Boise. At this event, IDFG, the agency responsible for overseeing wolf management in Idaho, will take public testimony on a host of wildlife issues. They recently announced that federal Wildlife Services gunmen aerially shot and killed 19 wolves in Lolo District of the Clearwater National Forest in February. This took place on U.S. national forest public land in order to artificially boost elk numbers to benefit sport hunters and outfitters. This is the second year that the Department has funded a wolf killing program for elk decline that is due in part to habitat changes, according to the department’s own scientific peer reviewers. This is our chance to stand up for our wolves and tell the Department that enough is enough! We also oppose the killing of wolves in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness and the Department’s renewed contract with Wildlife Services using Governor Otter’s Wolf Depredation Fund to further the killing of wolves in Idaho. Defenders’ national wolf expert, Suzanne Stone, will be there to testify in defense of Idaho’s wolves and any local residents are encouraged to do the same. If you’re an Idaho resident, please RSVP to the event. If you are not a local resident, but still want your voice heard, now is the time to sign our petition to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack that requests that he direct Wildlife Services agency to stop killing wolves on U.S. Forest Service lands just to inflate elk numbers!

Congress’ Continued Assault on Gray Wolves: News reports this week confirmed that Senator Johnson (R-WI) intends to introduce a bill that would legislatively remove gray wolves in the Great Lakes states and in Wyoming from the list of endangered species. This is the third congressional attempt to delist wolves in the Great Lakes and Wyoming this year. These attempts occurred in late 2014 after federal courts set aside rules delisting wolves in those regions and reinstated protections for wolves under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). Senator Johnson and others that have proposed similar bills are trying to override the species listing process – one that should be managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As many in Congress say these days, they are “not scientists” and Defenders opposes all congressional attempts to interfere with the species listing process. We feel strongly that science, not politics, should guide listing decisions. Click here to help support our efforts.

Utah’s Lawmakers Give Taxpayers’ Money to Anti-Predator, Anti-Wolf Lobbying: This week, some wonderful in-depth reporting revealed that Utah’s lawmakers appropriated $500,000 to activists engaged in lobbying federal officials to delist gray wolves nationwide. The article states that Big Game Forever – an extreme anti-predator organization – has received over $800,000 from Utah’s taxpayers since 2010, even though the organization has never revealed how they spend this money. Why are Utah lawmakers spending their own constituents’ limited tax dollars on aggressive lobbying efforts to delist wolves? Defenders’ Don Barry, Senior Vice President for Conservation Programs put it best in the article when he told the reporter that this effort is “mired in ‘residual hatred of predators’ that excludes any appreciation of the ecological benefits they provide as a keystone species. Congress is the least appropriate organization to get involved with these biological decisions. Where is their expertise? Whether a species is heading toward extinction is a scientific calculation. It is not a political one.’”

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The anti wolf rhetoric from politicians in Washington, D.C. is heating up like never before.
With Republicans in control of Congress anti-wolf legislation is gaining momentum. Just last month legislation was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to strip away Endangered Species Act protections for the gray wolf nationwide.
We need your help today to prevent a bloodbath from occurring.
The last time Congress meddled with wolves in 2011, anti-wolf politicians successfully attached a rider to a must pass budget bill that removed federal protection for wolves in Idaho and Montana, turning wolf management over to state game agencies. Within months the bloodshed started. Since that action, thousands of gray wolves have been slaughtered—many of them poisoned or trapped.
We can’t let Congress intervene again and sanction the killing of wolves everywhere they roam freely today.
I don’t want this to happen. I know you don’t want it to happen.
What’s been done to wolves is criminal—and you can help stop it. Please renew your membership today and stop the slaughter from spreading. Together we have the expertise, the wisdom, and the commitment to succeed in standing up for wolves.
You may feel like a minority, but know that the voice of the American public is on our side. One recent poll showed that two-thirds of Americans love wolves and believe they deserve Endangered Species Act protections. You and I aren’t the only ones that love and want wolves protected.
So please renew your Guardians’ membership with a gift of $50, $100, $250, so we can ensure this Congress doesn’t expand the killing of wolves coast to coast.
Wolves need heroes like you to be leaders in defending them and giving them the freedom they need to roam free and thrive.
Your gift today, will enable us to prevent Congress and the Obama Administration from prematurely stripping federal protections for wolves, expand our focus to ensure wolves return to Colorado, and go to court to improve protection for the critically imperiled Mexican gray wolf.
I know that you care about the fate of the wild. Join us by renewing your 2015 support for Guardians today.

Mass Wolf Killing by Mad Scientists

Demand an Ethics Review in Alberta, Canada!

It is well-known that oil and gas, and logging industries are causing habitat destruction and with that, the further decline of the already endangered woodland caribou in Alberta, Canada. However, in a horrific seven-year long "study," a group of scientists deliberately massacred hundreds of wolves with the most brutal methods—aerial gunning and painful poisoning (strychnine)—to see if these actions would boost the endangered Little Smoky woodland caribou population.

579 wolves gunned down from helicopters, and 154 wolves and 180 other animals torturously poisoned in the name of "conservation"

Researchers Dave Hervieux, Mark Hebblewhite, Dave Stepnisky, Michelle Bacon, and Stan Boutin conducted the study, for which a total of 733 wolves were deliberately gunned down or poisoned, while an additional known 91 ravens, 36 coyotes, 31 foxes, 8 marten, 6 lynx, 4 weasels, and 4 fishers also fell victim to the researchers' choice of strychnine-laced baits.

Click here to read more and to take action.