Wolf Weekly Wrap-Up

Two More Mexican Gray Wolves Released into the Wild: This week, wildlife biologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released two captive Mexican gray wolves into the Arizona wild. The hope is that this pregnant female and her mate will contribute some much needed genetic diversity to this critically endangered population of wolves. Recovery efforts began in Arizona and New Mexico in 1998, after the species was pushed to near extinction in the 1970s. Today, thanks in part to the success of this captive breeding program, there are 109 wolves living in the wild in the Southwest. Defenders wants to see more wolves released into the wild to increase the genetic diversity – just like the Service did this week. Next, the Service needs to develop a detailed, long range plan for releasing many more wolves, and a science-based recovery plan, for which these rare wolves have waited almost 40 years.

© ODFW
Oregon Officials Consider Reducing Protection for Wolves: Today, the Oregon Wildlife Commission is hearing from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife about the status of Oregon’s wolves. Under the state’s Wolf Management Plan, ODFW is required to present a biological status review of wolves to the Commission after the state has successfully maintained at least four breeding pairs for a period of three years in eastern Oregon, a benchmark that was passed earlier this year. Based on the information presented, the Commission will evaluate several policy options, including whether state Endangered Species Act protections are still warranted for the species. A final decision is not expected before August 2015.

Wolves are not fully recovered in Oregon and Defenders strongly believes that removing or weakening protections for wolves is premature. Oregon has a great deal of unoccupied wolf habitat and significant threats to the species remain. Losing protections would make it easier to kill wolves and reduce emphasis on proactive, nonlethal methods to reduce conflicts with livestock operations. Defenders’ staff will testify in front of the Commission, and are working to help ensure that it conducts a neutral and unbiased review of the information presented, and makes a decision for wolves that is based on the best available science, not on politics.

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Mendocino County Suspends Contract with Rogue Federal Wildlife-Killing Program

County Will Review Tactics of Wildlife Services, Which Kills Millions of Wild Animals Annually
For immediate release:
Contact:
Megan Backus, Animal Legal Defense Fund
Amey Owen, Animal Welfare Institute
Amy Atwood, Center for Biological Diversity
Kimiko Martinez, Natural Resources Defense Council
Camilla Fox, Project Coyote
coyote-howl-cc-dan-dzurisin-article-image-220pxMendocino, Calif. — In response to legal pressure from a coalition of animal protection and conservation groups, Mendocino County officials agreed today to suspend the renewal of the county’s contract with the notorious federal wildlife-killing program known as Wildlife Services, pending an environmental review that will include consideration of nonlethal predator control methods. The county’s decision came after the coalition, and a Mendocino resident, filed a lawsuit against the county in November for violating the California Environmental Quality Act. As a result of that agreement, the coalition has agreed to dismiss its lawsuit.
Mendocino County’s previous $142,356 contract authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program to kill hundreds of coyotes, as well as bears, bobcats, foxes and other animals in the county every year, without assessing the ecological damage or considering alternatives.
Today’s agreement was set in motion in July 2014, when the coalition, which includes Animal Legal Defense FundAnimal Welfare InstituteCenter for Biological DiversityNatural Resources Defense Council, and Project Coyote, urged the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors to terminate the taxpayer-funded contract with the Wildlife Services program and conduct a legally-required environmental review. As part of that settlement, the county has agreed to fully evaluate nonlethal predator control alternatives submitted by the coalition. The benefits of nonlethal tactics like those used in Marin County will be highlighted during a coalition presentation by Project Coyote’s Camilla Fox on May 5. The community is encouraged to attend.
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Background
Nearly 15 years ago, Marin County replaced its Wildlife Services contract with a nonlethal predator control program that decreased predation by 62 percent at one-third the cost. And in 2013, in response to a letter from the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Sonoma County’s Board of Supervisors opted not to renew that county’s contract with Wildlife Services.
In California, 80,000 animals are trapped and killed each year by Wildlife Services on behalf of commercial agriculture. Nationwide, Wildlife Services has spent approximately $1 billion over the past 15 years to kill 1 million coyotes and a host of other wild animals. In 2013 alone, it killed at least 4 million animals. And former employees have reported that the program dramatically underreports the number of animals killed. Peer-reviewed research shows that such reckless slaughter of animals, particularly predators, causes broad ecological destruction and loss of biodiversity.
Wildlife Services has been the subject of increasing controversy in recent years. Its employees have drawn public attention to the program’s routine acts of reckless cruelty. One was charged with animal cruelty for intentionally maiming his neighbor’s dog with a steel-jaw leghold trap. Another posted pictures on social media of his hunting dogs mauling coyotes caught in traps. More than 120,000 people signed an online petition demanding this employee’s termination and requesting an investigation into reports of animal cruelty by other Wildlife Services employees. The program is currently under investigation by the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General.
The coalition was represented in the lawsuit by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
Copies of the complaint and settlement are available upon request.
BREAKING: New bill could be a death sentence for wolves

Our worst fears are coming true.
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 April 30th, your donation will go twice as far for wolves and other wildlife you love.
These bills could be a veritable death sentence for thousands of wolves. And it would be a premature and tragic end 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.
Crisis: Red wolf extinction emergency. 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. 
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 earlier this year 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.
Gray wolf pc Wikimedia Commons RetronThe 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.
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.

Fewer than 100 wild red wolves are left.

By all indications, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is standing by as wild red wolves slip away into extinction.
But what’s most devastating is that this tragedy is 100 percent preventable.
red wolf (captive) (c) B. Bartel/USFWS
Since 1980, FWS has been tasked with returning red wolves to the wild. But now they’re dragging their feet in ways that could amount to abandoning the program altogether. Critical staff vacancies are going unfilled. Critical field work is being skipped. And most telling of all – there has not been a single red wolf released into the wild in years.
Red wolves once roamed from Pennsylvania to Florida. Almost hunted to the brink of extinction, red wolf recovery efforts have been sporadic for decades. Today, fewer than 100 animals survive in the wild in a small part of eastern North Carolina.
And now, under pressure from North Carolina special interests, FWS appears ready to abandon this recovery program altogether!
Defenders will take whatever action is necessary to stop this tragedy.
We’ve simply come too far to give up on these magnificent creatures – there is no excuse for walking away now. 
Help ensure continued protections for wolves across the lower-48 states! You can make a difference by writing to Obama administration officials to urge them not to drop federal protections for wolves across much of the United States.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed lifting federal Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves across nearly the entire lower-48 states. This would be a disastrous setback for gray wolf recovery in the United States.
The recovery of gray wolves is an American success story, from their reintroduction in the northern Rocky Mountains to their comeback in the western Great Lakes states. But there are few, if any, gray wolves in the vast majority of their former range. If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removes gray wolf federal protections, wolves in the Pacific Northwest, California, the southern Rocky Mountains, and the Northeast will face even more difficult odds than they do already.
It is critical that the administration not proceed with a blanket national delisting of the gray wolf, when wolves are still missing across so much of the U.S. landscape.
Urge President Obama and Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell to maintain protections for gray wolves in the lower-48 states.