Our World and Everything in It

The polar bears made the list! I can’t believe the Bush administration finally listened to the courts. Dirk Kempthorne, Secy. of the Interior, begrudgingly gave in. He made it emphatic that this will in no way affect efforts to drill in the Arctic. He is one of Bush’s handpicked cronies that continuously pits the environment, animals, and their habitat against industry.

Kempthorne’s remark that he wasn’t stalling on adding the bears to the endangered list in lieu of the sales of big oil leases is a crock if you followed the story. Heck, he looked to put the bears on the list way back in 2006. http://www.doi.gov/news/06_News_Releases/061227.html. What ever took so long?

Even though the bears made the list, the problems are not over. Prepare for more slight of hand dealings by the Bush Administation.

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http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2008/2008-05-14-10.asp

A U.S. District Court judge has ordered the Bush Administration to stop stalling on adding polar bears to the endangered species list. The Endangered Species Act requires that the decision be made on the latest scientific evidence. And the evidence gets clearer everyday. The deadline for this order is May 15^th. If it’s ignored it’s back to court.

The NRDC, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Greenpeace sued the Bush administration because it violated the law by missing its January deadline to add animals to the endangered list and is still dragging its feet while continuing to sell oil leases in the Arctic area. Can the dots get any bigger.

This administration is catering to oil, ignoring the Supreme Court’s warnings, appointing cronies for his cause in departments like the Dept. of the Interior, the EPA, etc., and most of all ignoring our petitions, as well as science. There is little doubt we have been lied to about climate change also.

Now it’s up the Dept. of the Interior to decide about the list, and Secy. of Interior, Kempthorne has already ignored thousands of petitions relative to all types of wildlife abuse. And this judge says he’s already in violation of the law already. What a guy! If the deadline is ignored, it’s back to court.  

Quite frankly, I wouldn’t keep pushing the envelope with the courts. They’ve been pro-environment lately with the U.S. Supreme court ruling against the EPA that they will use their authority to regulate CO2 emissions from autos. The U.S. Court of Appeals was angry when it vacated the EPA’s Clean Air Mercury Rule, calling its cap and trade program for mercury nothing but moving the pollution around, and ditto for vacating the EPA’s Incinerator Rule. The outcome of that court session cost the coalburning industry big time. In less than two years the EPA must come up with new standards for mercury emissions relative to the coal industry, no cap and trade allowed.

And now the courts are drawn into the Endangered Species arena where Earthjustice has stopped the wolf kill that failed to be stopped by the Dept. of Interior despite scientific data, and this current court action on behalf of the polar bears filed by the NRDC. CBD, and Greenpeace. I’d be looking over my shoulder for a big boot if I were Kempthorne. On behalf of the animals, I hope he gets it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24369059/

The Bush Administration is at it again. They are still trying to push the carry/use of concealed weapons and loaded firearms in our national forests and state parks. Don’t we have enough gun issues? Everyone other than POACHERS has been happy with the ban for 78 years now. Reagan opened the can of worms that now threatens to open wider to allow people to shoot firearms in our parks and forests. “Firearms were first banned in national parks in the 1930s in a bid to curb poaching. The current rules, implemented under President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, allow visitors to national parks and refuges to possess firearms so long as they are ‘rendered temporarily inoperable or are packed, cased or stored in a manner that will prevent their ready use.’” http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2008/2008-05-01-10.asp.  This is a ludicrous law that invites illegal use of firearms, because why bother carrying a gun at all?  How would you like to be the first to get shot, or your dog? I have a feeling this ties in with the eradication of wolves somehow, because Dirk Kempthorne, Secy. of the Interior is involved.

Allowing guns and firearms into parks is dangerous and just encourages poaching again. I’ve already read reports of the attacks by poachers on the black bear populations in the U.S.  Much like poachers in Africa, that are desperate, poachers in this country are killing off our black bears for sale of their gall bladders on the black market in Asia. We know better. We’re supposed to be a big moral nation. Somehow that morality disconnects from all things nature, where we take no responsibility for our actions that affect the environment or creatures in it. We treat animals horrendously. Ditto for air, water, and earth then believe God will take care of things.

God is not a puppeteer. To believe so is the relinquish a very important principle, that of free will.  He gave us charge of the earth’s domain and we pollute it, and then claim huge, quick changes are natural or rather supernatural. But we’re over the limit with pollution the effects of which are showing up everywhere. We can clearly see that this administration is pushing us to the point of harm relative to air, water, land, health and safety. Everything seems to be particle per unit to the limit anymore. We push the envelope for how much damage we can do without really getting massively sick. Capping and trading and shifting pollution around, like people I ran into that advocated letting BP dumping excess ammonia into Lake Michigan because the EPA signed off on it, and it created a few jobs.  Now we know that the EPA in our country is in trouble, and Indiana is gaining more jobs by becoming more environmental versus allowing companies like BP to stretch pollution to the limits . 

We’ve had far too much faith in the decisions of our government in lieu of following the faith of our spirit where we have a conscience about all we do and how it affects our brother, not just in this nation, but on other continents. Instead, we just sit back and let the current administration push the environmental envelope toward disaster for the love of money, an earthly commodity with finite use. And now there this push to add loaded firearms to the list of disservices perpetrated against our forests/parks, and animals/habitats? Just what we need.

To allow more guns in public areas to a population that isn’t getting the idea of brotherly love, let alone extending that love to all living things by sustaining a clean, healthy environment for all , is out right dangerous and only invites more evil not good.

From my e-mail, I read that Earthjustice attorneys filed a case to stop the wolf slaughter in the northern Rockies. A coalition of environmental and animal rights groups like the NRDC, the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the Humane Society urged Earthjustice to use its legal expertise to stop the killing immediately and “compel the federal government to reinstate Endangered Species Act protections for wolves until true recovery is achieved.

This didn’t come out of the blue. Earthjustice filed intent to challenge the decision to take wolves off the endangered list, but the USFWS didn’t answer. So now they go to court because as Earthjustice charges: “The USFWS failed to take into account basic principles of conservation biology, disregarded its own policies, and departed from past practice in delisting the wolf.” And Earthjustice will argue in court that the USFWS

used an outdated and biologically inadequate standard for determining the number of wolves that must be protected in order to maintain a genetically viable population;

ignored the agency’s own requirement that wolves in the northern Rockies’ core recovery populations must be connected and interbreed before they can be deemed recovered; and

failed to take into account that state laws that currently govern the fate of the wolves in the absence of federal protections allow unregulated wolf killing.

What angers me most about this is the time and expense that goes into something like this that shouldn’t have happened in the first place in the U.S. of America. You know from my postings that petitions with signatures in the thousands hit the USFWS before the delisting, as well as, thousands of phone calls. Washington went ahead anyway, a total disregard for their responsibility to us—again. And none of this will bring Limpy or the other 19 wolves back.

I’ve already blogged that Idaho and Wyoming’s own state statistics show elk and deer populations are far over the limit for their species. The proper scientific limit for wolves to be secure from extinction should be near 3000, yet the number 1500 seems to be the norm for these states to begin to eradicate wolves because they pose a threat to deer and elk populations???

The hunt has already begun. Defenders of Wildlife states: “Locals have organized weekend eradication “wolf hunts” to kill any wolf that they find. One group tracked a wolf for 35 miles on snowmobiles before shooting it dead.” Now that’s real sporting. You know we’ve had a war going on for how long, isn’t that enough blood thirst for most Americans, or has it heightened the sense of the kill for some so much that they can’t turn it off? On the other hand, has it desensitized us to pain, suffering, and death that we just bury our heads anymore? To look forward to killing animals that are clearly being eradicated for no viable reason except for the sport is an indication of a nation’s decline in my book.

But the biggest testament to a nation’s decline is knowing full well we’re being lied to about many, many things, and doing nothing about it, even something that could be championed like this wolf slaughter issue. A study by the Dept. of Agriculture proved wolves are not attacking cattle in huge numbers either. And this N.Y. Times article just 2 years ago shows how badly the wolf populations were suffering from the parvo disease. It shows a pack of new wolf cubs that died shortly after the picture was taken. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/national/15wolf.html So in 2006, the gray wolf population declined from disease, yet two years later wolves are out of control?  What a pack of lies, and the liars head up departments in our U.S. government.

A lot of people think no big deal. But it was a big deal when the first gray wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone not very long ago. The rangers there have good things to say about the balance the wolves restored to the forest. As part of this reintroduction and study, many wolves are numbered, their packs have names, and some of the wolves have been viewed so much they gained notoriety and names, like Limpy, number 253M. Defenders says: “Limpy was many things to many people – to wolf-watchers, he was the hobbling member of Yellowstone’s famous Druid Peak Pack. To Utahans, he was the first wolf to be seen in the state for more than 70 years.”

For wolf novices the Druid Peak Pack was the second pack introduced to Yellowstone from Canada, and one of the most observed. Check out one girls sighting at her visit to Yellowstone and her video of the Druid pack on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNeFetdSHrQ. We’re talking tourism and educational fodder here.

I don’t know if the girl saw Limpy with hind legs that were crippled in a fight. No matter now, Limpy was shot dead in Wyoming on elk feeding grounds the first day wolves were taken off the endangered list. Remember elk numbers are beyond where they should be in these states. The wolves were out doing their job. Limpy obviously wasn’t speedy enough as a cripple. Two other wolves were shot with him.

So what we have here is the beginning of a slaughter perpetrated by lies from U.S. officials to practically eradicate a species that have only reached half their peak. Meanwhile, people have posted pictures on You Tube and commented on their trips to Yellowstone and the opportunity to see the notorious wolves.

You know what this reminds me of? Natives in Africa, deprived of an education, with very little means of sustenance for survival that kill endangered species in order to take the habitat over for farming, as well as, eat the bushmeat. Once the natives are taught that protecting the animals brings tourism to the area to view the animals, and all types of new income opportunity is opened to them, they embrace it wholeheartedly and the animals begin to flourish under the native’s good stewardship.

What’s the excuse for the states of Idaho, and Wyoming? They are neither stupid nor starving, but appear to be shooting themselves in the foot relative to tourism by killing the wolves, or there are ulterior motives worth a heck of a lot more money. It can’t be the hunting industry. It will only flourish from wolf hunts for so long. A few hunting seasons and the wolves will be gone, and then what’s to shoot? Oh yeah, all those excessive deer and elk populations.

My best guess for ulterior motives still lies with Bush’s plan to reverse the Roadless Rule, where Idaho might find themselves stripped of a heck of a lot more than the wolf population. If that happens, the second largest forest in America will slowly disappear from mining, drilling, and logging. Wolf hunters could face eminent domain issues in the future and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

Click on Defenders at the right to sign a petition to stop this senseless slaughter.

As for Limpy, he’s famous.  Just search “Limpy the Wolf” on the internet. There are pages of urls for him.

I’m back on about wolves because I see 56 wolves were recently aerial hunted and killed in Alaska where there is an all out onslaught against them by Governor Sarah Palin. It’s not just the wolves she’s attacking. Defenders of Wildlife revealed that Palin:

· Introduced legislation that could deny more than 50,000 Alaskans the right to vote on aerial killing of wolves and bears.
· Has condoned a $400,000 state-funded propaganda campaign to convince Alaskans to support the state’s shooting of wolves and bears from airplanes — even though wildlife biologists from around the world say that it is scientifically unfounded.
· Nominated her high school basketball coach a man with no wildlife management experience to sit on the state’s powerful Board of Game.
· Proposed a $150 bounty to spur wolf killing in specified management zones.

Palin’s high school basketball coach? The frightening thing is her name has come up as a possible pick for McCain’s vice president. Obstructing democracy in America is especially bad. Using state funds to sway citizens doesn’t sound right either. Alaskans voted down wolf hunting two times already. I found this website with an interesting video about the sport hunting going on in Alaska:
http://current.com/items/88811075_end_aerial_wolf_hunting.

The wolf reduction program in Alaska relies on the premise that wolf numbers must be kept down because wolves are rivals for food, and there are people in Alaska who hunt for food. Considering the wolves in Idaho and Wyoming haven’t made a dent on elk and deer populations there, I can’t imagine that wolves threaten the vast Alaskan bounty. According to current.com, “sport and trophy hunters take up to 73% of prey in areas where aerial wolf hunting has taken place.” And what about oil drilling? It threatens wildlife far worse, yet the $4 per gallon gasoline threat we’re hearing about will propel the oil industry to drill in Alaska. Due to oil drilling there will be loss of habitat for the food animals that sustain the subsistence hunters everyone is worried about and are therefore killing wolves. This is a contrived program. If Gov. Palin is so concerned for the citizens that need to hunt for food, why is she ignoring the majority of citizens that voted wolf hunting down?

It gets worse. Alaska is the model for Idaho and Wyoming. Over 200,000 people in the U.S. petitioned against Bush’s plan to take wolves off the endangered list. Now Bush attempts to strip wolves of federal protection. Secy. of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, whose department oversees the action against wolves, was formerly Governor of Idaho where he pushed to get state control over wolves. And now Butch Otter, another wolf-hater is governor there. Interesting how that works isn’t it? Kempthorne goes from Idaho to head a Federal Agency and now there is a greater and growing interest in killing   wolves. When Kempthorne moved up, did he bring his agenda, or did he move up because of his agenda?

This is the worst. According to NRDC in the March/April issue of “Nature’s Voice,” the federal government spent “taxpayer dollars to purchase two planes for the express purpose of gunning down wolves and other animals from the air in Wyoming.” Seventy five percent of Wyoming residents objected to Wyoming’s wolf hunting plan

It’s pretty clear that the maneuvering against wolves began quite a while ago and is just now coming to fruition. The wolves are innocent. I can’t believe the current onslaught taking place against all types of animals. It’s really noticeable. If we simply sit back and wait until this administration is out of office, it will be too late for too many species. So far Defenders of Wildlife, NRDC, Earthjustice, and many more organizations have been avidly defending wolves in court, in ads, and in education.  Support this fight by contacting your rep. The slaughter is totally unnecessary, we’re being lied to again, and our money is being used in support of it. Tell your rep that.

It’s really weird how getting sick can break a person’s momentum. I was used to writing about 5 blogs per week, writing an essay or two along with that, and working on a book of all things. I get sick and bam, I’m perfectly contented to lay around in my jammies and watch reruns of “Cheers, Frazier, Just Shoot Me, Three’s Company, Reba…” and makeover programs for houses and people. I can see how America slips right into a comfort zone by not listening to one iota of news, not turning on any intelligent programs, not picking up Time Magazine, U.S. News and World Report, or Rolling Stone, or any of the myriad of environmental stuff like I get daily in the mail. It’s really pretty easy to be blind and numb to the world. But I did check my e-mail and that served as a pretty big tell all. I saw that the wolves were de-listed from the protected list. I immediately read about the backlash from doing that. Anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 phone calls lit up the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and big organizations like Earthjustice have already moved to take that decision to court. Gotta love all those organizations I’ve listed as links. They are on it immediately. I got e-mails that said “the fight has just begun!” I hope Earthjustic ties that decision up until Bush/Cheney are out of office.  

I got an e-mail back from Representative Dingell about the wolves too. Both he and Carl Levin don’t just e-mail back, they usually e-mail back some pretty good information about new bills that just hit the house or senate floor that pertain to whatever subject I’ve written about. For instance: Representative Dingell is one of the authors of the Endangered Species Act, and he’s very concerned over the decision to de-list wolves. He went on to say that on March 9, 2007, Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced H.R. 1464, the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act of 2007, which would assist in the conservation of rare felids and rare canids, including gray wolves, by supporting and providing financial resources for conservation programs. H.R. 1464 has been referred to the House Natural Resources Committee. He assured me that while he did not sit on this Committee, he would take my comments into consideration should the bill come before him. Boy it takes a long time for a bill to move.  

As I went on through my e-mail I found that Senator Debbie Stabenow is one of a handful of legislators that is working out the details of our new Farm Bill. Defenders of Wildlife wanted their members to call her about protecting habitat for the Swift Fox and other endangered species with the Farm Bill. Well since she’s a Michigan Senator and I found out she’s on the Farm Bill committee, sick or not, I called Lansing. This Farm Bill is so important to finally put a moratorium on those stinking CAFO’s, diversify our crops more, to quit putting high fructose corn syrup in all of our food, to reward farmers for good stewardship of their land like crop rotation, organic farming, and give subsidies to farmer’s to use part of their land for wind or solar energy so that if their crops suffer due to poor weather they still have income from alternative energy sources. Yep I spouted off all of it. Hey they want to hear from us. Well maybe not Bush/Cheney, or Kempthorne, Secy. of the Interior because so far they’ve paid little to no attention to petitions or phone calls about the wolves or aerial hunting. Some of the petitions I signed were for over 25,000 signatures, yet they turned a blind eye and ear to us anyway. Figures.  

All in all I got quite a lot of news just reading my e-mail. I see that Arctic drilling is still threatening the polar bear habitat and that conservation groups are arming for that battle while Bush continues to stall on whether or not to list the polar bear as an endangered species. Like I said before oil vs. polar bear, guess who’s going to die, unless we can keep the oil men at bay until they’re out of office. It’s going to be quite a year of fighting for the environment since the last leg of this administration is still 10 months long. 

The last e-mail I read today got me off my duff to start blogging again. I was reading Motley Fool about investments and there is a new kind of nuclear plant that is being built. I’ve never heard much about this type of plant and it peaked my interest. It seems there are plans for over 20 of these across the country. I’m going to read up on it and blog about it tomorrow. “They,” whoever they are, claim that these plants don’t use as much uranium fuel and there is less spent fuel in the end. My husband said that he read “they,” whoever they are, are digging out areas in the Nevada desert to dump the spent fuel from nuclear reactors “they” plan on building. Just something else I’ve got to know about, along with that deep well “they” are digging somewhere in Michigan to inject CO2 into. You know, I’m starting to feel better already.  There is a bunch of new stuff happening I just have to know about. A little vacation from the news is kind of nice, but I guess I’m just too curious, and a whole lot mistrustful of things that happen when I’m not paying attention to ever give up my interest in our world and just about everything in it.

“We were in fully open ocean, dozens of miles from the ice pack, in a sort of half-fog at what passes for dusk around here, when a 10 foot wide chunk of ice flowed past. It was visible for maybe 15 seconds - the only ice we’d seen for days. On it: a polar bear, just drifting wherever the ocean wanted to take him” http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2008/2008-02-11-01.asp.

I quoted that to say this. As the polar bear waits to get on the Endangered Species List, a decision that comes from the Department of the Interior, the polar bear’s habitat continues to disintegrate. It is practically wide-open seas according to the same article, and “the polar ice cap has reached its lowest extent in recorded history.” The summer Arctic may be ice-free as soon as 2040 and polar bear populations will decrease by two thirds. Out of an estimated 22,000 bears, that means over 14,500 polar bears will die. The one that floated by the Coast Guard Cutter is just one example that they won’t be afforded a quick death.

Many animals are at the mercy of the Department of the Interior lately, the wolves, and now the polar bears. The polar bear’s biggest and most volatile habitat is in the Chukchi Sea. Despite an outcry from native Eskimos, environmental groups, animal welfare organizations, a lawsuit, and citizens from around the world, the Chukchi Oil leases are going through as per the Dept. of the Interior. Royal Dutch Shell, and Conoco Phillips, you know the oil company that is supposedly investing in a green future like BP, plan to bid on the leases.
 
According to a Wall Street Journal Article Conoco Phillips said that “listing the polar bear as threatened ‘is not warranted’ based on the bears’ current population numbers. Listing them as threatened ‘will have an adverse impact on the oil and gas industry and people that live in the Arctic.’ Well I feel real sorry for the oil and gas industry, don’t you? Exxon Mobil netted $75000 per minute in 2006 and we should feel for the oil and gas industry and the heck with the polar bears? We’ll be on that soon-to-be extinct list too if ignoring ethics in favor of money, money, money keeps up.
 
The idea here is prevention. There are 22,000 bears, the Arctic is already open water so bear numbers will soon be declining rapidly without frozen land to walk and hunt. The Dept. of the Interior should put the bear on the list immediately to stop a catastrophic loss of most of that population, but waits instead using the bear’s current numbers to validate the delay. Meanwhile, the Dept. of Interior rushes to OK the auction of some 30 million acres in one the most pristine parts of the sea, a major polar bear habitat, for oil drilling?

I’m sorry but in a business situation the Department of the Interior’s single authority in both the protection of a clearly endangered species of animal like the polar bear and the very lucrative sale of the polar bear’s habitat for the purpose of drilling for oil presents a conflict of interest. And the delay in adding the polar bear to the Endangered List is an obvious morally unethical decision by a dubious Secy. of Interior, Dirk Kempthorne.

For Kempthorne, Conoco Phillips, and anyone else like President Bush that doesn’t appear to understand the English language, the word endangered means: exposed to danger, in peril. ENDANGERED DOES NOT MEAN ALREADY DEAD! The polar bear is in danger, and definitely in peril with a ruthless administration like this one.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120208255421639257.html?mod=googlenews_wsj.
http://world-wire.com/news/0802060002.html

This week the senate will vote whether to allow guns in national parks. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but that by itself ruins the idea of a “park” to me. So I’m strolling through the park enjoying the peace and tranquility but hear gunshots instead. Was it a misfire; did someone get shot; is someone poaching? So much for the organic feel I get from the word “park” knowing that in the deepest areas of the woods a real nut gets to carry a gun, shoot someone that happens by, and bury them all in one neat tidy place. OK, a little dramatic, but it still doesn’t seem right. 

Gun legislation points to the NRA and sure enough they are pushing this Coburn amendment. Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican wants to allow state law rather than federal law to govern the carrying and transportation of firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges, according to (ENS) Environmental News Service today. Already I see 50 different gun laws. Even people that want to carry a gun to a park will be confused. I realize Republicans favor states authority and less federal rule, but too many different rules are a reason this is not feasible. And why carry a gun at all? I don’t get it? This looks suspiciously like illegal hunting where you’re only guilty if you’re caught. And the only thing raising a ruckus relative to illegal hunting right now is wolf hunting. This amendment will obviously encourage opportunistic poaching. Curious.

What’s more peculiar about this amendment is that there is no reason offered as to why carrying a gun in a national park is necessary or relevant to anything since hunting is either controlled or prohibited in the parks. The ENS article went on to say:

On February 1, the Association of National Park Rangers, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, and the U.S. Park Rangers Lodge, Fraternal Order of Police wrote a joint letter to U.S. senators urging them to reject the Coburn amendment. ‘Senator Coburn’s amendment could dramatically degrade the experience of park visitors and put their safety at risk if units of the National Park System were compelled to follow state gun laws,’ warned the rangers and retirees.

The ENS article also said that the Coburn amendment actually “forbids the Interior Secretary from enforcing ‘any regulation that prohibits an individual from possessing a firearm in any unit of the National Park System or the National Wildlife Refuge System…,’ and that On December 14, 2007, a group of 39 Republican senators along with eight Democrats wrote to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne urging repeal of these regulations because they are ‘confusing, burdensome and unnecessary.’” These senators think it’s unnecessary to have laws that prohibit carrying loaded firearms where people hike, bike, and camp? One standardized federal law is confusing as compared to 50 different state laws? And the federal laws are burdensome to whom, the NRA? Hmm.
 
That just about says it all doesn’t it? We have a curious amendment that allows the states to do what they want in national parks like carry loaded guns while the federal government is told to butt out. The people who spend most of their lives in national parks, the rangers, write a letter advising against Coburn’s amendment, that it is not a good thing for the parks. But in the meantime the NRA gets 47 senators to urge the federal government to get rid of its regulations relative to possessing a firearm anyway. Wonder how much this cost the NRA? If this amendment passes it will cost the parks their reputation for tranquility and peace, and a place of REFUGE for wildlife that’s for sure, not to mention campers. It’s probably going to cost something else down the line in the way of natural resources too.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2008/2008-02-12-091.asp.
 
 

In honor of Native American Wolf Moon Month our Federal Fish and Wildlife Service “made it much easier to kill wolves in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Rockies region — even while they remain protected under the Endangered Species Act,” according to Defender’s of Wildlife. Nice tribute to our heritage huh?

Defenders went on to say that Secy. Kempthorne changed a rule that makes it easier to kill wolves in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming and allows the slaughter of wolves in the region of Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies. All the states need to do is PROVE that wolves are a MAJOR CAUSE of the inability for elk and deer to meet state management goals. Goals include how elk herds move about or behave. So wolves can be trapped or shot by wildlife officials if elk or deer move about differently. That’s a pretty big weight to hang around a little ole wolf neck and if the officials hang around the perimeter of Yellowstone long enough surely a wolf will stick its neck out and get it shot off.

I’m interested in the part that says PROVE. Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming should have a really hard time proving wolves have lowered the numbers of elk in those states since Idaho’s Fish and Game reported elk populations at all time highs, 20% above management objectives for 2006. Wyoming’s elk numbers were 9000 over the state’s objective in 2006. In 2004, Montana had an elk population of over 100,000. So if herds are down, who’s the culprit?

On Ralph Maughn’s Wildlife News website, Bob Hoskins commented Sept. 4, 2006: “The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has been making a concerted effort to reduce elk numbers through late season, cow-calf hunts over the last decade to bring the herds down to objective. In most herds in western Wyoming, these targeted hunts have been successful. When you hear in the press that wolves are killing Wyoming elk by the score, recognize that the claim is absolutely false. Worse, Wyoming G&F knows that it’s false. The fact is Wyoming’s hunters have been killing elk by the score in these late season hunts, by design. Many late season hunts will continue this coming hunting season.

He went on to say there is nothing wrong with the reduction program but quit blaming disappearing elk on the wolves. It’s a lie! This story is repeated in a USA article where biologist John Vucetich of Michigan Tech University in Houghton says wolves have been wrongfully blamed for a decline elk populations around Yellowstone in Montana. They studied weather, hunting, and wolves as factors.  Yellowstone has seen 7 years of drought and 1997 winter that killed many elk. They found the weather and hunting to blame for elk decline. Another biologist, Canadian Mark Boyce of the University of Alberta, and colleagues reached the same conclusion. They have an upcoming paper reporting that: “Montana increased the ‘hunter harvest’ quota on elk that leave Yellowstone grounds, issuing a higher-than-ever 2,882 hunting permits in 2000. A decline in the elk herd was thus guaranteed, Boyce says, even if wolves were not present.

So the poor wolves play the fall guy in all of this. Government officials and hunting lobby groups are the real menace. And all of it is unnecessary. Local ranchers partnering with Defenders of Wildlife to “expand their use of non-lethal wolf control measures” experienced no wolf-related livestock losses at all this grazing season. They believe “practical, inexpensive and non-lethal methods help reduce losses and conflicts while promoting better cooperation between ranchers, state and federal land managers and wildlife conservationists.”

According to Friends of Animals, Idaho’s Fish and Game Service “based the plan for the aerial gunning of wolves on a “trend count” in the Clearwater region, relying on astonishingly unscientific data in which eight cows were reportedly killed by wolves in the area.” The Dept. of Agriculture’s very scientific study of “collared” wolves living on the perimeter of cattle fields resulted in only 8 cattle kills total over 3 years time. Hmm?

Government officials are officially caught in lies again. None of the state’s involved have proof that wolves are lowering their elk populations drastically. They’ve been caught over-hunting and blaming the wolves. Ranchers have non-lethal alternatives that are affective and have been reimbursed for their losses by charitable organizations anyway. So there is no reason whatsoever for these wolf hunts especially aerial killing. You know with a war going on I’ve got to wonder the waste of energy for aerial hunters just looking to kill something. They need redirection. Know what I mean?

Check out the latest video of a disgusting wolf aerial hunt at: http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/ads_and_psas/tv_ad_to_stop_aerial_hunting.php.

As for changing the laws making it easier to kill wolves, tell Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne that the rule change for hunting wolves is unacceptable. I personally would tell him more than that, and have.

https://secure.defenders.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=943&autologin=true&s_einterest=C3C4&s_Affiliate=savewolves_&JServSessionIdr004=4gy70ytnm2.app26a

About Idaho’s elk population and hunters: http://www.friendsofanimals.org/news/2007/july/help-stop-the-bush-a.html.

About Wyoming’s hunting laws and elk decline due to hunters: http://wolves.wordpress.com/2006/04/08/wyoming-elk-numbers-are-9000-over-states-objective/.

About the USA Today article and Canadian biologist’s report that hunters are to blame for elk population decline: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2005-11-21-elk-yellowstone-mystery_x.htm.