Our World and Everything in It

This is pretty gruesome to watch but I think it’s necessary to see the unethical, unfair sport of aerial hunting that has been promoted throughout Alaska by Sarah Palin. It is from Defenders of Wildlife.

This policy has basically fueled the wolf hunting program in Idaho. Why Idaho?

Check out this list:

Dirk Kempthorne is former governor of Idaho and rushed into his appointment by Bush as Secy. of the Interior.  The Secy. of Interior is over the USFWS.

Matthew J. Hogan, the former chief lobbyist for Safari Club International, is Acting Director of the USFWS.

Safari Club International, according to sourcewatch.com, consistently lobbies against the intent of the Endangered Species Act.

Butch Otter, governor of Idaho, is known for his desire to be the first person to take a shot at a wolf.

Sarah Palin graduated from the University of Idaho in 1987. She is the biggest catalyst in Alaska, along with SCI, for aerial hunting as a method for predator management—wolves. 

What is it with Idaho and their bloodthirst for wolves? Less wolves more hunting for people? What a totally unfair premise. It’s also a stupid act as it goes against a healthy balanced ecosystem. Wolves take care of the ever growing population of coyotes many people continue to mistake for wolves as one in the same. They are not. Coyotes are scavengers. They are usually killed by wolves for intruding on the wolves’ food. If hunting is used to replace the wolves, there will be little to no carcasses left for coyotes. Coyotes will begin to come into people’s yards as their population grows and wolf populations diminish from overkill. I had a lady comment elsewhere that people in Vermont are sympathetic to wolf hunts, and proceeded to tell me about problem coyotes in her yard. See what I mean?

Also, rangers in Yellowstone Park presented a pro-wolf video for Public TV that I watched. They showed all of the new tree, shrub, and grassy areas that were evolving because the wolves were balancing the overabundance of deer and elk that kept eating particular plant species to the ground. Over a course of time, one area went from a predominantly grassy plain to what appeared to be the beginning of a forest.

Obviously, hunting was unable to control the abundant population of deer, elk, and other vegetarian mammals.

Watch the video if you can. I could not. I do not call this hunting, and neither do real hunters. There is a place for legitimate hunting in America. This is not legitimate, nor is the reason for predator control in the extreme like aerial hunting.  Elk and deer populations in Idaho are beyond their limits based on state’s records. And Palin’s pressure to continue excessive hunting of wolves via plane/helicopter in Alaska as a form of predator management to preserve elk and caribou populations, is a complete contradiction to the detrimental outcome of elk and caribou populations within ANWR if drilling is allowed.

As someone with a daily environmental blog, I’m more than interested in Sarah Palin. Environmentalists have known about Palin for quite some time. And it’s those environmental groups that were targeted first for attempting to protest at the RNC. 

There is much footage out there of the emptied EarthJustice bus of protestors left by the side of the road by the Minneapolis police. It appears to be overkill and ridiculous with at least 10 police cars surrounding the bus as if it carried felons escaping prison. What a display of force to stop protestors for the environment. From many accounts, the Republicans had plants inside of these types of groups to report what, when, and how they would be going about protesting at the convention in order to stop them from reaching their destination. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/31/raids/.

This is frightening for the U.S.A. More news has shown up on video on websites of outright abuse. One article stated that 3 homes where protestors were staying were entered by police SWAT teams. Citizens banned for peacefully assembling in protest, especially before they do so is a direct hit on our constitutional rights and perpetrated by our own federal government. SWAT teams? Just a tad bit of overkill. Obama’s bigger convention didn’t utilize SWAT teams or infiltrators. When I saw a GOP rep head butt, yes, head butt an ABC reporter, well, how juvenile, not to mention mean.

It’s not right. Without protestors, many citizens are being denied, albeit short term, the facts of Palin’s horrible environmental decisions and her ruthless record of predator management, which is the aerial killing of wolves.  Besides that, the state of Alaska under Palin sued the USFWS to keep the polar bear off the endangered list stating that their numbers have increased and they are a stable population.

I’ve already given the definition of endangered in another blog. The meaning should resonate with Palin since she has a BA in journalism and knows well that it means: “exposed to danger.” If anything could be more exposed to danger it would be the wildlife of Alaska under Palin and her buddies (SCI) Safari Club International who believe it’s their right to hunt any animal, endangered or not. SCI still pushes to allow hunting polar bears.

Palin stands strong against lobbyists, maybe, but only the lobbyists of her choice, because on the other hand she sought millions in earmarks for Wasilla, Alaska. Environmentalists have known that she’s bad news for our environmental future with a script right out of the mouths of big oil—drill more.

  http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/09/01/Palin_making_use_of_hated_earmarks/UPI-34181220275668/.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=6c588f46-da6e-4816-a4be-789a4836b478

As a Democrat, I couldn’t be happier with this pick. I had to laugh when it was said her campaign for governor was run on “ethics.” OMG!

Wait until the large environmental groups disclose her ethics.  For example Rodger Schlickeisen of Defenders of Wildlife issued this statement already about Palin’s destructive environmental policies:

“Sarah Palin, whose husband works for BP (formerly British Petroleum), has repeatedly put special interests first when it comes to the environment. In her scant two years as governor, she has lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska’s coasts, and put special interests above science. Ms. Palin has made it clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming. Her most recent effort has been to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, putting Big Oil before sound science. As unbelievable as this may sound, this actually puts her to the right of the Bush administration.”

To be to the right of the Bush/Cheney regime is a scary thought. That’s pretty far out there. Sarah Palin is a scary thought for wildlife. Alaska’s predatory management program is barbaric. I recently blogged about 14 wolf cubs shot in the head on the spot after an illegal stakeout by Alaskan Wildlife Agency employees? Bears have been added to the predatory list now. Funny how wolves and bears have always been a part of the Alaskan landscape, but now they are intolerable. Animals in Alaska do not have a friend at the governor’s house.

I don’t think Sarah likes living things as much as money. That will come out sooner or later. Cruelty is not a nice trait to see in a woman. 

Sad to say, despite door-to-door grass root efforts that got 75,000 voters in Alaska to the polls to vote to permanently stop the aerial assault on wolves, the initiative failed.

Those lovely guys at Safari Club International, who think it’s their right to shoot and kill just about ANYTHING, lobbied for the kill, and talk about a pro-active government/lobbyist relationship in Alaska. Coldhearted Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska paved the way and added $400,000 out of the state’s coffers to keep the kill going. After Ted Steven’s indictment, I think everyone should direct more attention toward Alaska.

The reason the assault on wildlife continues, is that sport hunting is a main industry in Alaska, therefore, Alaska will slaughter predators to preserve that game for humans to hunt for fun and Alaska’s profit. But the predator management system is out of control according to residents of Alaska. http://www.wolfsongnews.org/news/Alaska_current_events_1626.htm

It looks like the taste of blood is irresistible after all. The current predator management in Alaska includes bears too. Are we going to start killing the bears because they eat too many salmon and it interferes with sport fishing?

What I want to know is what are the great white hunters are going to kill when the population of critters is diminished not only by hunting but by loss of habitat from industry and global warming, and the many diseases that are going to crop up in the future as a result?

People are already being hunted. I posted a blog about hunting albino human beings in Tanzania. And the bushmeat trade is near cannibalism in my book.

It’s as if the example we’ve been given over the past decade by the Bush/Cheney group has infiltrated our spirit here in America, and the example continues off of our shores. How are we to tell Canada not to club baby seals, or Japan to quit whaling and butchering dolphins, when we’re slaughtering our own wildlife everywhere? And everyone knows it’s for the MONEY!

This type of cruelty is a growing concern to me. If we have a generation of kids that never enjoy nature by stepping away from the Internet long enough to go outside, it’s not hard to imagine that empathy, sympathy, and responsibility for nature, all the traits that are supposed to put humans a step above the animals, will be gone

If this cruelty continues against innocent wildlife, where a hunter can just walk up to a den of small pups and plug each one in the head with a bullet without flinching, my prediction that seniors will live in gated communities in the future for safety sake is just a generation away.

We must break the growing cycle of cruelty against nature for our own human sake.   

I just did a blog about our becoming accumstomed to violence, killing, and guns. Then I read my e-mail that STATE WILDLIFE AGENCY PERSONNEL in Alaska illegally staked out a breeding den/area for wolves, and aerial shot and killed 14 of them. The wolves were parents to 14 little pups. They shot all the pups in the head at close range.

View this video of 4 week old wolf pups and imagine plugging the cute little things in the head. It takes a heartless person to do this.

http://www.everythingwolf.com/sitewide/videolib/p1020310.wmv  

On the same website as the video, I read about people adopting wolf cubs, and even potty training wolf cubs. This is counter to the image of wolves as blood thirsty, indiscriminate killers.  

http://www.everythingwolf.com/forum/threadview.aspx?thread=1340p1.   

The big execution in Alaska was to boost caribou populations. There are approximately 950,000 caribou in Alaska. How many caribou do we need? What’s the target, a million?

 http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/notebook/biggame/caribou.php.

Alaskans are outraged over this aerial killing movement and are moving to “end the Board of Game’s barbaric aerial hunting of wolves through a ballot measure,” according to Defenders of Wildlife. Defenders website has a drive that ends today to help this ballot initiative with new ads. It also said that: “On August 26th voters can pass this ballot measure and band this awful practice before another deadly season begins.”

Defenders of Wildlife is “helping Alaskans for Wildlife, a coalition of local grassroots activists, hunters, and citizens who secured the 55,000 signatures to put this measure on the ballot. Already, they have reached thousands of voters across the state with their hard-hitting mailings.”

Collecting 55,000 signatures is a daunting task in the heart of hunting territory like Alaska, but everyone involved is close to meeting their goal of collecting $80,000 and running ads that will get voters out to vote for this ballot measure. The ads essentially say, “Real hunters don’t shoot wildlife from airplanes.”

I think aerial hunting is gutless. I also think shooting helpless pups is heartless. And I’m starting to think humans need to be kept in check more than animal populations. We’re starting to show our animalistic tendencies far too much, forgetting about empathy and compassion for all living things in our world.

http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/press_releases_folder/2008/07_23_2008 _statement_regarding_illegal_killing_of_14_wolf_pups_in_alaska.php

 I heard on ABC news this morning that the deer population has gone from 330 thousand to 30 million deer. The news had video coverage of deer walking right inside the door of a house and jumping through a picture window. There was video after video of deer in homes and businesses in different urban areas too. The question was to shoot or not to shoot?

The deer invading everything from homes to yards to downtown stores are usually young deer that don’t know any better and have no fear of humans. Consider also that one village with homeowners up in arms over deer munching on their landscapes has a population of only 20,000 that decided to live in an area with 2,000 deer. So who is invading whose territory? 

And why are we eradicating natural predators like wolves? Seems like we’re not going about this right. We have the wolf depicted as a ravenous carnivore that threatens a dwindling DEER and elk population, as well as, people, children, and pets. Except the deer are hardly dwindling. There are more than enough deer to go around for double the wolf population. Wait until the coyotes follow the deer. Wolves keep coyotes down too.

Simple solutions have been offered to use a speaker instead of a gun for both deer and wolves. Deer have a keen sense of hearing, and certain tones will repel them. Wolves honor another wolf’s call over territory. A strange wolf call will repel them.

A speaker system, instead of a gun to kill what we deem invaders, seems like the sanest solution for now, at least until we figure out who the real invaders are.

 http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=5478591&page=1

Good news! A federal judge “has restored endangered species protections for wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies,” according to Defenders of Wildlife.

This kinda throws a wrench in the proposed sport hunting of wolves by the likes of Butch Otter, Governor of Idaho, who vows to fight the decision. Ron Gillette, Idaho’s Anti-Wolf Coalition leader predicts a war.

Anti-Wolf Coalition sounds silly somehow, doesn’t it, like the “wolves-are-at-our-doors” campaign commercial? It’s just another generation that wants to eradicate wolves as a form of sport hunting.

For now the wolves are protected and Defenders says it plans to:

Make the case in court to restore full protections for these endangered wolves;

 

Pay for guard dogs, range riders, turbo fladry fencing and other non-lethal wolf management strategies to keep livestock and wolves safe; and

Combat distortions and misperceptions about wolves to build tolerance and understanding for the vital role that wolves play in healthy ecosystems.

It’s too bad this new protection came too late to save “Limpy,” the park’s icon.

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.