Image of the Day

Call of the Pack, a photo by Tristan Findley on Flickr.

Image of the Day

Grissom-Male, a photo by cathmads on Flickr.

Meet the New Hope for the Mexican Wolves

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Although the parents of these two Mexican gray wolf pups fell victim to a past policy that locked down (or worse) wolves suspected of three attacks on livestock, F1046 and M863 are still helping to keep the flame burning for endangered lobos. 

The couple had four pups in late spring at a special captive-breeding facility in California, the California Wolf Center announced. The center is home to some 17 Mexican gray wolves, and pups born there may one day go on to lead a life in the wilds of Arizona and New Mexico.

Special breeding facilities, like the California Wolf Center, have been instrumental in saving lobos from extinction. From 1977 to 1980, five Mexican wolves — only one female — were captured in Mexico and brought to these centers, where biologists began the delicate task of mating them to avoid severe inbreeding and to strengthen their genetic diversity.

Thanks to the success of this effort, some 50 Mexican wolves now roam the wild — all of them either born in captivity or descended from captive-bred wolves.

Aside from checkups with a veterinarian, the pups will have little contact with people so that they hold on to an instinctual fear of humans — a trait that will help them avoid conflicts if they are released into the wild.
But you can catch a rare glimpse of these adorable animals in the above video, courtesy of the California Wolf Center.

Story courtesy of Defenders of Wildlife-click here for their website

The UK Wolf Conservation Trust - Working to Keep Wolves in the Wild

(Many thanks to the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife resource for first publishing this info in the US--they're great folks--please support their efforts!)

Jun 28, 2011

A UK first - Arctic Wolves arrive!

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Category: General

We're delighted to announce the arrival of a wolf subspecies new to the UK, the Arctic wolf (canis lupus arctos). The three cubs, three months old, arrived earlier today on a flight from Canada and are getting used to the surroundings in their new home.
The cubs came to us from Parc Safari in Québec and we have two males and a female, named after Labradorian Inuit words for snow and ice.
The males are called Massak (pronounced "mas-sack") which means "soft snow" and Pukak (pronounced "poo-cack") which means "fine snow". The female is Sikko (pronounced "seeko"), which means "ice".
For a background to the wolves and their characters, see our Wolf Print article (PDF format).
We'll have a page with more information soon, but in the meantime here's a photo of one of the wolves leaving their travelling crate.

















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Feds Ignore Mexican Wolf Science for 10 Years; Endangered Animals Have Paid Steep Price for Mismanagement

For Immediate Release, June 28, 2011 Contact: Michael Robinson, (575) 313-7017 Feds Ignore Mexican Wolf Science for 10 Years; Endangered Animals Have Paid Steep Price for Mismanagement SILVER CITY, N.M.— This week marks the 10-year anniversary of the release of the Paquet Report by a blue-ribbon panel of independent scientists who urged that management of endangered Mexican gray wolves be changed “immediately” to ensure urgently needed “dramatic improvement” in wolf survival and reproduction rates. Instead, for 10 years the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which had convened the scientists (led by renowned wolf biologist Dr. Paul C. Paquet), has offered excuses as to why it has not yet made the requisite reforms. As a result, the report’s warning that “the wolf population will fall short of predictions for upcoming years” has come to pass, putting the Mexican wolf at increasing risk of extinction due to genetic inbreeding caused by too few wolves that are too closely related to each other. “A decade has gone by with no action from the government,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has long advocated for the wolves. “The result has been that the Mexican wolf population limps along every year and never grows to the point where its long-term viability can be ensured.” The 86-page Paquet Report — officially titled Mexican Wolf Recovery: Three-Year Program Review and Assessment — recommended that the Fish and Wildlife Service “Immediately modify the final [reintroduction] rule (Parsons 1998) and develop the authority to conduct initial releases into the Gila National Forest” in New Mexico. The area makes up three-quarters of the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area but biologists can only release wolves there that have been previously captured from the wild after having been released into Arizona’s smaller portion of the recovery area, or after having been born in the wild in Arizona or New Mexico. (Forty-seven of the 50 wolves that could be counted in the wild in January of this year were born in the wild; just three were born in captivity and released.) The portion of the recovery area in Arizona, on the Apache National Forest, has limited room for additional releases because territorial wolf packs already occupy the best habitats; this year’s half-million-acre Wallow fire has further limited possibilities for releases in Arizona. The provision in the 1998 reintroduction rule limiting initial releases to Arizona stems from the greater political clout that ranchers in New Mexico wielded at the time. No other endangered animal’s management is limited by state lines. The Paquet Report also recommended: “Immediately modify the final rule to allow wolves that are not management problems to establish territories outside the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area.” This reform, also not yet implemented, would bring management to the same standards as that for other endangered wildlife, including wolves elsewhere that are not persecuted unless they are causing tangible problems. However, the Fish and Wildlife Service has bound itself to remove Mexican wolves that establish territories wholly outside the recovery area, even if the wolves are on national forests and are not preying on livestock. “Wolves can’t read maps drawn by politicians,” said Robinson. “The Fish and Wildlife Service should change its rule to allow Mexican wolves to roam freely, just like other wildlife, and should give itself the authority to release wolves from captivity into New Mexico. Otherwise, in another 10 years we may not have any Mexican wolves in the wild.” Background Wolves help keep prey species healthy by preying on less fit animals, provide carrion for scavengers such as eagles and bears, and even help the growth of trees through scaring away browsing elk that eat saplings. They also enhance survival of foxes and pronghorn by killing coyotes, which wolves see as competitors. The Mexican gray wolf is a genetically unique subspecies of gray wolf believed to be the oldest lineage of wolves in North America. The reintroduction program began in 1998 and was projected to achieve an initial population goal of 100 wolves, including 18 breeding pairs, by the end of 2006, and for the numbers to rise after that. Instead, at last count in January 2011 there were 50 wolves and only two breeding pairs in the wild. Scientist have documented inbreeding depression in the wolves, which is causing lowered birth and pup survival rates. These problems are exacerbating the negative demographic effects of ongoing mismanagement. All wolves in the western United States, including Mexican wolves in the Southwest, were exterminated from the wild through a federal program of trapping, poisoning and killing pups in their dens between 1915 and 1945. Wolves from Mexico and Canada continued to migrate to the United States in subsequent decades, but were killed. In 1950, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began exporting U.S.-government-produced wolf poison to Mexico (as well as to Canada) and assigned employees to work in Mexico to set up a systematic wolf-poisoning program there — a lethal form of foreign aid. As a result, by the time President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into law in 1973, few wolves survived in Mexico. Five wolves were live-caught for emergency captive breeding between 1977 and 1980; three of these were successfully bred, along with four other wolves already in captivity. No wolves have been confirmed alive in the wild in Mexico since 1980.

Image of the Day

2010-01-22-10h35m30.272P1541l, a photo by A.J. Haverkamp on Flickr.

Hudson Bay Wolf

Image of the Day

Tibetan Wolf, a photo by bnilesh on Flickr.

Germany--A Country Gone to the Wolves

June 27, 2011

By PATRICK MCGROARTY

The rumble of tanks and the report of heavy artillery have given way after six decades in the rolling hills east of Frankfurt to more soothing tones: the gentle neighing of wild horses. Przewalski's horses, as they are called. The last breed of horse never to have been domesticated.

Journal Report

Read the complete Germany report.

These horses once ranged from Southern Europe to Mongolia. Today, a herd of nine roams at Campo Pond, a 250-acre former U.S. military training ground here in western Germany.
They are here only temporarily, assembled from zoos across Germany and beyond, awaiting transfer to the Asian steppe as part of an international effort to boost their remaining numbers there.

Better for Animals

In the meantime, they are part of a growing taxonomy of wildlife reasserting itself in Germany as numbers of people decline and conditions of natural habitats improve.

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Christoph Goebel

Przewalski's horses have never been domesticated.

According to government statistics, Germany's population, hit by falling birth rates, has shrunk by 700,000 from a high around 82.5 million in 2002, and could fall to under 65 million by 2060.
Local forests, rivers and grasslands, meanwhile, have benefited from intensive environmental restoration and adoption of less-polluting methods by factories and power plants.
To those with a direct hand in the return of some species, like Przewalski's horses, it's a dream come true.
"They're almost like unicorns, like white elephants," says Christoph Goebel, leader of the federal forestry office that is overseeing the Campo Pond project from nearby Schwarzenborn. "There's a special magic to seeing them—it gives you goose bumps."
Other once-vanished species regaining their footings include wolves and bears, which were hunted out of German forests centuries ago but now feast on exploding populations of deer and wild boar.
Salmon, too, formerly choked from their Rhine River spawning beds, are swimming and jumping again thanks to an aggressive cleanup of the river and surrounding areas.
Nature's triumph can be a nuisance for Germans obliged to commune with a growing number of wild neighbors. In 2006, Germans were captivated by the exploits of the first wild Eurasian brown bear to be spotted in the country in almost two centuries.
Initially dubbed "Bruno," the bruin soon earned a second nickname as "the problem bear" after he made a habit of raiding Bavarian sheep herds, chicken coops and beehives.
After an unsuccessful attempt by Finnish trackers to tranquilize and relocate him, local hunters shot and killed him. His stuffed carcass is now on display at a Bavarian museum, where he towers over a toppled beehive inside a glass display case.
A less dramatic struggle between man and beast is playing out in eastern Germany, where a number of wolf packs roam the forests and fields—to the delight of environmentalists and the horror of many hunters and farmers.
"Shepherds we can help. You can go to them and say, 'We support you, we'll help you live with the wolves,' " says Ilka Reinhardt, a biologist who has tracked the wolves since 2002 for government authorities. "But the minute there's one wolf, hunters say there are too many and claim that there isn't enough game left for them to hunt."

Salmon in the Rhine

But wildlife isn't flourishing just in the east and Bavarian countryside. Below the surface of the Rhine, the shipping thoroughfare that sustains Germany's industrial heartland, cleaner manufacturing methods and the fading imprint of coal mining have encouraged the return of the Atlantic salmon.
Tens of billions of euros have been spent improving the water quality and building a series of fish ladders that allow the salmon to maneuver around dams to swim upstream.
Making the river safe again for salmon and eels is as good for people as it is for the fish, says Ben van de Wetering, secretary general of the Cologne-based International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine.
Mr. McGroarty is a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires in Berlin.

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Wolves Still Divisive as States Prep for Hunts

By Matthew Brown, Associated Press , 06-26-11

 

BILLINGS – Public opinion on gray wolves remains sharply split as Montana and Idaho wildlife officials prepare to resume hunts for the predators after Congress removed their endangered species protections.

Montana State Fish, Wildlife and Parks commissioners are due to meet July 14 to adopt a quota of 220 wolves to be killed during fall rifle and archery hunts.

Idaho's hunt is scheduled for adoption in late July. Final details still are being worked out.

More than 450 people submitted comments on the Montana proposal in recent weeks. They ranged from calls to sharply increase the quota and allow trapping and poisoning of wolves, to pleas for a less-aggressive approach so the wolf population could further expand.

There were an estimated 566 wolves in Montana at the end of 2010. Once this year's pups are factored in, wildlife officials say the fall hunt will reduce the number by 25 percent to approximately 425 wolves.

Dozens of individuals and livestock and hunting groups said the proposed quota was too low. They warned that the predators' population would quickly rebound, leading to more attacks on cattle and sheep and further reductions in elk herds that are pursued by wolves and hunters alike.

"This vicious cycle will continue to allow too many wolves to prey on our remaining, already low (deer and elk) populations," said Patrick Byrne of Anaconda.

But others said a large wolf population is needed to restore balance to the natural landscape by cutting down on overgrazing by elk and culling sick and weak animals from big game herds.

Norman Bishop of Bozeman suggested the Northern Rockies region could support up to ten times more wolves than the current population of 1,651 in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington.

"Let the wolves perform their keystone role in ecosystem recovery," Bishop wrote.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim said the state had tried to strike a balance between conserving wolves and controlling their numbers to address attacks on livestock and big game. He added that would mean reductions in wolf populations in some areas.

Out of more than 240 people who submitted original comments either by letter or e-mail, roughly two-thirds were in favor of the hunt or wanted it expanded, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. The remaining one-third wanted the hunt cancelled or urged restraint in the setting of quotas.

A mass email campaign generated by Defenders of Wildlife generated 215 comments in opposition.

Responses came from as far away as South Africa and the United Kingdom, with some of the most extreme comments from outside the region.

A commenter who signed an email as "Barry from California" referred to wolves as "hounds of hell" and said their reintroduction was instigated by subversives bent on "destroying our nation."

Barbara Laxson of Mansfield, Texas decried the "senseless killing of God's creation."

"What are you crazies doing up there in the beautiful state of Montana?" Laxson wrote.

There were just a few dozen wolves in Montana when the federal government began reintroducing wolves from Canada to the Northern Rockies in 1995.

Environmentalists used lawsuits to keep the animals on the endangered list for a decade after the population reached the government's recovery target of 300 wolves across the region.

In April, Western lawmakers inserted a rider into the federal budget bill that lifted the animal's Endangered Species Act protections. It was the first time Congress had circumvented the law. The action drew more lawsuits from environmentalists that are now pending before U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula.

Plaintiffs contend the Congressional rider violated the constitution because it was crafted specifically to undermine Molloy's earlier rulings on wolves. It's uncertain when Molloy will act on the latest suits, which potentially could lead to the cancellation of this fall's hunts.

Molloy three times rebuffed the government's prior efforts to lift protections for the species. He allowed a hunt to take place two years ago while one of the earlier lawsuits was pending.

Hunters killed 72 wolves in Montana in 2009 and 188 in Idaho. Idaho's season was extended to March 31, 2010 but hunters still fell short of reaching a 220 wolf quota.

Idaho wildlife officials will present their 2011 hunt proposal in the next few weeks. Adoption of season regulations and quotas will come at the state game commission's July 27-28 meeting, said Idaho Fish and Game Deputy Director Jim Unsworth.

Unsworth said his agency, too, is hearing strong views on the hunt from the public — opinions that he said grew more extreme during the protracted legal battle over their endangered status.

"The anxiety dropped an incredible amount in 2009 when we had a season and I expect that to occur again," he said. "But there's some people that try to keep the debate going as long as they can."

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Image of the Day

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Plan to kill N. Idaho wolves having little success

By: The Associated Press | 06/25/11 

 

A plan by state officials to kill up to 60 wolves in north-central Idaho to protect elk herds has had little success so far, after aerial gunners and now state officials and hunting outfitters report limited results.
A reported six wolves have been killed so far, five by aerial gunners in May before that method was abandoned because of low success due to the wolves being in thick timber.
An Idaho Department of Fish and Game conservation officer shot another wolf near Powell on July 18.
"I would have thought we would have had more, but that is it," Dave Cadwallader, supervisor of the department's Clearwater Region, told the Lewiston Tribune.
State officials want to kill up to 60 wolves in the region, leaving about 20 or 30, after the Obama administration removed the predators from Endangered Species Act protections earlier this year.
With the aerial gunning from a helicopter having less success than officials hoped, officials have turned to hunting outfitters and their guides in the Lolo Zone. They were authorized to shoot wolves during the spring bear hunting season, but that hasn't panned out.
"Most of the outfitters I have talked to just aren't seeing any wolf activity," Cadwallader said.
State officials near Elk City have also been authorized to shoot wolves after numerous complaints, but Cadwallader said the wolves aren't being seen as frequently.
"I think it's the time of year," he said. "The elk have moved out and are calving and the wolves have moved on."
Estimates put Idaho's wolf population at 705, but officials with Fish and Game said the number after this year's litter of pups may exceed 1,000.
In May, Fish and Game began selling wolf hunting tags for $11.50 to Idaho residents, one day after the predators were taken off the endangered species list. Out-of-state hunters will have to shell out $186 for a wolf permit.
Idaho officials are in the process of setting quotas and rules for this season's wolf hunt.
Hunters took to the backcountry two years ago to hunt wolves after the predators were delisted the first time. Hunters killed 188 wolves during that first public hunt, short of the state limit of 220.
Officials in Montana are also gearing up for a wolf hunt this fall.
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Information from: Lewiston Tribune, http://www.lmtribune.com

Image of the Day

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fridayschild68/5406169576/" title="red wolf by fridayschild68, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5137/5406169576_cbc2f0312d_z.jpg" width="640" height="512" alt="red wolf"></a>

31/365
January 31, 2011

This is Graham, one of the Red Wolves at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma. Red Wolves are highly endangered, and the Point Defiance Zoo has been key in conserving the species. Graham and his mate, Ocean Blue, are at the beginning of their mating season, and hopefully there will be some pups in the coming months.

Image of the Day

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/billheadphotography/3983268255/" title="DSC_3699Wolves by billheadphotography, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2654/3983268255_2269007711_z.jpg" width="512" height="640" alt="DSC_3699Wolves"></a>

Ecosystem home to endangered wolves, owls and fish hit hardest by hot, historic Ariz. wildfire

By Associated Press, Published: June 23

PHOENIX — The largest wildfire in Arizona history left a charred landscape of blackened forest, burned-out vehicle hulks and charred fireplaces as it destroyed more than 30 homes. It also inflicted a serious toll on an ecosystem that’s home to numerous endangered species.
The flames spared three packs of endangered Mexican gray wolves but likely killed at least some threatened Mexican spotted owls as it roared through more than a half-million acres of a pristine forest on the New Mexico border.

( Humberto Rodriguez, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service / Associated Press ) - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists and volunteers use nets to remove two species of trout from a creek in the Chiricahua National Forest near Elfrida, Ariz., in this photo made on June 17, 2011. Unlike some major wildfires that inflict a serious human toll, perhaps the biggest impact from the largest wildfire in Arizona history will fall squarely on an ecosystem that’s home to numerous endangered species.

Though some spots were untouched or had only undergrowth burn, the effect of the human-caused Wallow fire will last for decades because it burned so hot in many areas that it completely denuded the landscape, forest specialists said.
“The natural fires are good for a healthy forest, but these fires — where the debris has been allowed to build up and it just hasn’t been addressed — they come out very hot and just scorch everything. As soon as the monsoon shows up, there’s a potential for a lot of soil to move,” said Tom Buckley, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokesman.
Forest managers are warning homeowners in the White Mountains to get flood insurance immediately because summer storms will likely create severe runoff.
It’s part of the steep human cost from the 832-square-mile blaze that continues to churn through thousands of new acres per day in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.
The fire destroyed 32 homes and four rental cabins. The charred skeletons of vacation homes are physical reminders of disrupted lives and bygone memories. For many Arizona desert dwellers, the mountains provided an escape from the heat for generations.
The Wallow fire was 61 percent contained on Thursday but still slowly growing on the south and southeast flanks.
Two other major fires are burning in the state. The 44-square-mile Monument fire near Sierra Vista, Ariz., has destroyed 57 homes. Authorities lifted an evacuation order for an estimated 200 to 300 homes Thursday, but about 300 remain evacuated. The 348-square-mile Horseshoe Two fire atop southeastern the Chiricahua mountains has destroyed nine homes in the world-renowned bird watching area.
The three wolf packs in the Apache-Sitgreaves all had pups and were in or near their dens when the fire that broke out on May 29 roared through, said Jim Paxon, a spokesman for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Firefighters on the ground have seen two of the packs moving around with their pups. Radio collars on the three adults in the third pack show they are alive, but the status of their pups remains unknown because they are in an area still too hot for ground crews to enter.
“They’re there, and functioning, and able to persist and take care of their pups,” Paxon said. “We feel very confident that our wolves are out there and they’ve all got pups, and that’s a good thing.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday it had not confirmed the pups survived.
The wolves were reintroduced into Arizona and New Mexico beginning in 1998. Managers had hoped to have more than 100 in the wild by 2006, but the count stood at 42 at the beginning of 2010.

The spotted owls are another matter.
Crown fires in overgrown forests have become the greatest cause of unusual losses for the birds, and 73 protected nesting areas were burned in the fire, said Beth Humphrey, Apache-Sitgreaves biologist. There are 145 protested nest sites in the entire 2.1 million acres forest.

Any nestlings or eggs caught in the fire were surely lost, although mortality among adults was likely limited, Humphrey said.
“We don’t know the severity of the impacts of those owl sites,” Buckley said. “Fires don’t burn evenly, so we have a lot of hope that some survived.”
Fish and Wildlife is looking to see if prey for the wolves and owls will return quickly enough to let the animals stay in their regular areas.
The burned forest supports more than a dozen other endangered or threatened species, including snails, frogs and fish. Dozens of other species live in the forest that aren’t rare, including bear, deer, antelope and a herd of elk that, at about 6,000, is among the state’s biggest.
Only two dead elk have been found, Paxon said. A yearling calf had to be euthanized because its hooves were badly burned.
“These ungulates, the elk and the deer and the antelope, they’re a whole lot smarter than people are when it comes to evacuations,” Paxon said.
“When they feel heat, they will move away from heat toward a cooler area, and generally that’s perpendicular to the way the fire’s going. If it’s not a huge fire, they often circle around and come back in. If it is a pretty widespread fire front, they simply get out in front of that and go over the hill into the next drainage.”
The next round of damage will come once summer rains hit. The National Weather Service is warning of major flash floods and debris flows even with a 15-minute-long moderate downpour.
A 23-square-mile fire outside Flagstaff, Ariz., last June led to severe flooding from summer rains that inundated more than 80 homes and led to the drowning death of a 12-year-old girl.
The flooding from the Wallow will kill fish, since it will carry major flows of ash and sediment and clog streams. Decades-long efforts to restore endangered Apache and Gila trout to the streams that flow from the mountain will be hurt.
Already, plans are being made to pull pure Apache trout from streams where it is expected they will die, to preserve the lineage, said Julie Meka Carter, native trout conservation coordinator for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. They could be put in other streams or placed in hatcheries for as long as three years, until the ash and sediment flows subside.
“The forest will be very changed, very, very different,” said Apache-Sitgreaves forest supervisor Chris Knopp.

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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/14599003@N06/5861327422/" title="Arctic wolf with puppies by 'Ebe, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5221/5861327422_91a96e4aa2_z.jpg" width="480" height="640" alt="Arctic wolf with puppies"></a>

Oil sands activity, not wolves, threatens Canadian caribou

June 22, 2011 

Four years of research has found that exploration and mining of Canada's oil sands appear to pose a much greater threat to the remaining herds of Alberta's caribou than does being eaten by packs of wolves.
The findings, by a team of Canadian and U.S. researchers, caution Alberta authorities against pouncing on a proposed quick fix: killing off wolves to save the caribou from extinction.

"Wolves are eating primarily deer," said Samuel Wasser, director of the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington. He and other researchers from the University of Alberta and Montana State University made that discovery by analyzing wolf scat found by specially trained dogs. 
The dogs, using their keen sense of smell, helped researchers collect thousands of samples of frozen wolf, moose and caribou scat over an area of about 1,000 square miles in Alberta's oil sands just south of Fort McMurray. An analysis of the samples that scrutinized the animals' diets, stress hormones and other telltale clues offered  conclusions different from those of previous studies.

Among other things, the researchers found that caribou populations may not be crashing as fast as feared. Yet the fuzzy-antlered creatures are under serious nutritional and psychological stress -- though not from wolves.
The problem appears to arise in winter, Wasser said, when the sodden ground freezes solid and oil workers fan out with heavy equipment that would bog down in the warmer months. This happens to be when caribou have slim pickings in terms of food, relying on lichen to sustain themselves. They prefer open areas where they can see predators, and that's exactly where many of the oil-exploration roads are located. The resulting noise and bursts of human activity make the caribou particularly wary and cut into the time they need to paw through the snow to find enough to eat.

"We are recommending that high-use roads be moved out of the open-flat areas," Wasser said.
The study, published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, suggests that modifying driving patterns and other human activity would be much more effective at preserving the caribou than would killing the wolves.

Top photo: A hauler lumbers through an oil sands field north of Fort McMurray, Canada. Photo credit: Adrian Wyld / Canadian Press
Bottom photo: Marvin, using his superior sense of smell, leads handler Samantha Herzog in the hunt for wolf, caribou and moose scat in Alberta. Photo credit: Center for Conservation Biology.

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Pups with Collars!

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Image of Today and Yesterday

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</a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mali42/5171691799/" title="Arctic Wolf in White by Mali42, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4147/5171691799_b09b6aa32b_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="Arctic Wolf in White"></a>

Oregon lawmakers revive bill compensating ranchers, others for livestock killed by wolves

Published: Monday, June 20, 2011, 5:48 PM     Updated: Tuesday, June 21, 2011, 5:57 AM

By Michelle Cole, The Oregonian

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/File

SALEM -- A bill compensating ranchers for livestock killed by wolves was revived in the Oregon Legislature Monday and sent on its way to a House floor vote.

Earlier this year lawmakers heard emotional testimony on several proposals addressing the migration of the gray wolf back to Oregon. The most controversial of the proposals would have made it easier to kill wolves.

House Bill 3560 doesn't go that far. But it does direct the Oregon Department of Agriculture to establish and implement a wolf depredation fund providing $100,000 to be used for grants to counties dealing with wolf issues.

The proposal was a top priority for agricultural groups but it had been sidelined in committee since April. It has been resurrected in the final days of the 2011 session following negotiations involving conservationists, cattlemen, the farm bureau, tribal officials and the governor's office.

"I have been working on this since 2005," said Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner. "This is historic. Each side gave a little bit."

The gray wolf is an endangered species in Oregon but wildlife managers report the population is slowly growing in the Northwest. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates there are fewer than 20 wolves in the state, though that may not include pups born in April.

To date, state officials have confirmed 41 livestock losses due to wolves, with the last confirmed kill occurring on June 5.

Since 1987, Defenders of Wildlife has paid western ranchers more than $1.4 million for confirmed livestock kills. But last year the conservation group ended its long-term compensation program after Congress approved new federal money for the same purpose.

Defenders extended its compensation program in Oregon until September to give the state time to set up a fund of its own.

Smith said negotiators held at least a dozen meetings before they could agree on a compensation plan.

The re-written version of House Bill 3560 would establish a "Wolf Management Compensation and Proactive Trust Fund" to compensate farmers when it can be confirmed that a wolf has killed their livestock or when there is "probable cause" to think a wolf was involved.

The bill also provides training and financial assistance for non-lethal wolf control.

Justin Martin, a lobbyist for Defenders of Wildlife, says the compromise ensures there are resources available to help manage wolves' return.

"It's good for wolves, good for conservationists, good for farmers and ranchers and good for Oregonians," he said.

The bill must pass both the House and Senate but now appears to be on a fast-track, clearing the Joint Ways & Means Committee by unanimous, bipartisan vote.

Smith said this is likely the only wolf bill to get a floor vote this year.

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People who bought wolves and wolf hybrids charged

BY ANDREW WELLNER
Frontiersman
Published on Saturday, June 18, 2011 

 

MAT-SU — Two of three people named in a warrant to search Wolf Country USA as possible purchasers of wolf hybrids from the Palmer-area business have been hit with criminal charges.

Renee M. Ciccarelli, 25, of Wasilla and Anchorage resident Calvin Hubbard, 57, were both charged with possessing a wolf hybrid without a permit, according to Alaska State Trooper press releases. Ciccarelli was charged Friday, Hubbard on Monday. Wolf Country USA was raided on Thursday.

A third person, Nicholas Ciccarrelli, 28, of Wasilla, was hit with an identical charge also on Friday. Hubbard’s first court appearance is set for July 22. The Ciccarellis will first appear July 28.

One of 40 wolves peeks through the fence at Wolf Country USA Thursday afternoon. (ROBERT DeBERRY/Frontiersman)

According to an affidavit Alaska Wildlife Trooper Sgt. Katrina Malm filed in order to get the warrant to search the 25-year-old tourist attraction just outside of Palmer on the Glenn Highway, both Rennee Ciccarelli and Hubbard appeared on troopers’ radar as they were closing in on Wolf Country.

Wildlife trooper Sgt. Doug Massie first talked to Hubbard on Jan. 11 when, three days prior, the animal in question bit a person. Hubbard told Massie he bought the animal at Wolf Country. The price, Massie later learned, was $500, though the co-owner of the attraction, Werner Schuster, allegedly told the animal’s co-owner, Janice Wasillie, that he usually sells them for $800.

Ciccarelli had his run-in with troopers a month later when Massie interviewed a woman about her 6-year-old son being attacked by a wolf-like animal in August 2009. Troopers initially classified it as a dog bite. Attorneys in a resulting lawsuit sent away for DNA testing. The tests showed the animal was part wolf. The bitten boy’s father told Massie he assumed the animal came from Wolf Country.

Nicholas Ciccarelli does not appear in the search warrant affidavit. A third owner of a wolf hybrid that allegedly came from Wolf Country, Ronald T. West, has already been charged and convicted of illegally possessing a wolf hybrid after his animal got loose and killed a neighbor’s dog.

West received a one-year suspended imposition sentence, meaning he doesn’t have to serve any time and may not even have a conviction on his record so long as he does well on parole. He had to pay $50 plus the cost of detaining the animal and shipping it to a wolf facility Outside.

As for Schuster and his wife, Gail Schuster, troopers have not filed any charges against them for owning wolves or wolf hybrids. Thursday’s action was just to get DNA samples from the animals, which troopers and Alaska Department of Fish and Game tranquilized to complete the procedure.

Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said that even though the animals may look like wolves, troopers have to be certain before they can proceed.

Schuster has said he doesn’t believe there is such a thing as a pure wolf or a pure dog, for that matter. He said the gene pools have mixed so much that to call an animal a wolf and another a dog is an arbitrary distinction. All dogs and all wolves, in Schuster’s view, are wolf hybrids.

Peters said at the time that although the possession of the animals without a permit has been illegal for years, the law has been unenforceable since DNA tests couldn’t distinguish well enough between wolves, wolf hybrids and dogs.

A state Fish and Game spokeswoman said the Schuster case could set a precedent in Alaska for how the state will handle such cases.

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Critics fear wolves poached past brink of survival

The time it took to investigate a Twisp family in a wolf-poaching case may have led to more poaching and to the eventual end of the state's first confirmed pack in 70 years, a conservation group says.

By K.C. Mehaffey

The Wenatchee World

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TWISP, Okanogan County — The time it took to investigate a Twisp family in a wolf-poaching case may have led to more poaching and to the eventual end of the state's first confirmed pack in 70 years, a conservation group says.
When federal authorities began investigating Twisp ranchers Bill White, his son, Tom, and daughter-in-law Erin in March 2009, the Methow Valley's Lookout Pack included an estimated 10 wolves.
By this month, when the Whites were indicted by a federal grand jury on numerous charges, the pack had dwindled to just two animals, the alpha male and a young adult.
"How many of those wolves were killed in that two-year period? Was the poaching continuing?" asked Jasmine Minbashian, special-projects director for Conservation Northwest. "Whatever caused the delay — and I don't know what did — could have been the death knell for the Lookout Pack."
She said swift action would have sent a message to the anti-wolf community that wolf poaching is not tolerated.
Joan Jewett, spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said she understands that some people feel it took longer than it should have to convene a grand jury.
"I don't know exactly when we gave it to the U.S. Attorney's Office, nor can I give you any examples of what they looked at that might have slowed it down," she said. "Suffice it to say, we always do as thorough an investigation as possible, and sometimes that takes time. We want to make sure our investigation is as solid as it can be."
News that some members of the state's first documented wolf pack in 70 years had been poached came out in March 2009, after state and federal wildlife officers searched both of the Whites' homes looking for evidence to connect them to a bloody wolf pelt shipped from Omak to Canada in December 2008.
It took federal prosecutors an additional year and three months to convene a grand jury for federal charges.

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Groups Challenge Killing Of Oregon Wolves

June 17, 2011

Glenn Vaagen

 

BEND, OR -- About a dozen conservation groups are protesting the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's decision in May to kill two gray wolves responsible for killing livestock in the northeast portion of the state. The groups say there are non-lethal methods to keep the wolves away from domestic animals. Wally Sykes, an wolf advocate with Northeast Oregon Ecosystems, said those who have installed fladry fencing have reported good results.
"This usually stops wolves. So, whereas last year there were quite a few calf deaths in the calving areas, this year there were none. Wherever there was fladry, there was no wolf depredation. So, that was a big improvement."
The groups also say ODFW has granted more kill permits to ranchers and farmers than wolves that are in the state. They say these permits should be revoked, and that wolf recovery be the top priority. ODFW's Michelle Dennehy said the agency does not intend to revoke these permits, and notes they are only given to people who are also using non-lethal methods to keep cattle safe.
"Ranchers have the right to kill a cougar that's damaging their livestock, or to kill a bear, or to kill a coyote. With wolves, without this permit, they can't do anything to protect their property. And we believe it's important to give them a tool to protect their property."

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Wildlife officials kill 4 wolves believed to have been involved in depredations near Darby

• THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  
• June 17, 2011

DARBY, Mont. — Wildlife officials say they have killed the last two of four wolves believed to have been involved in livestock depredations on a ranch in the Sapphire Mountains east of Darby.
Liz Bradley, a wolf management specialist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, says federal Wildlife Services agents killed the wolves during a helicopter hunt Thursday and put a radio collar on another yearling male near the CB Ranch.
Earlier this month, government trappers caught and euthanized two other wolves in the Divide Creek pack. FWP issued a kill permit for up to four wolves from the pack several weeks ago after the death of a calf on the ranch was determined to have been caused by the predators.
The Ravalli Republic reports the CB Ranch, which is owned by former Intel Corp. CEO Craig Barrett, paid for Thursday's helicopter operation.
___
Information from: Ravalli Republic, http://www.ravallirepublic.com

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Conflict Over Northern Rockies Delisting for Wolves Extends to Pacific Northwest

By LAURA PETERSEN of Greenwire

Published: June 16, 2011

While the battle over Northern Rockies gray wolf management has been most visible in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, wolf issues are also heating up in the Pacific Northwest as Washington and Oregon strive to manage small but growing packs.

Environmentalists are blasting Oregon wildlife managers for killing two wolves last month, dropping the state's wolf population to 17. The state also has issued 30 permits authorizing land owners to kill wolves caught attacking livestock or dogs.
Meanwhile, Washington is struggling to develop a recovery and management plan that satisfies both wolf advocates and opponents as wolves move back into the state, which is now home to three confirmed packs.
Gray wolves in the eastern third of Washington and Oregon were removed by Congress from the federal Endangered Species List in May along with wolves in Montana, Idaho and parts of Utah. The Northern Rockies delisting measure was inserted into a last-minute budget deal funding the federal government through the rest of the fiscal year (Land Letter, May 5).

However, wolves are still protected by federal law in Wyoming and in the western two-thirds of Oregon and Washington. State law also protects wolves in the two Pacific Northwest states, where the animals were once abundant before being extirpated as ranching and farming expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
But as Rocky Mountain wolves slowly recovered after the late 1970s, some of the animals began to trickle into the Pacific Northwest, giving rise to conflicts between ranchers, property owners and wildlife advocacy groups "When wolves came into Oregon, they came into a different political, social and ecological landscape," said Rob Klavins, wildlands advocate for Oregon Wild. "We had a hope Oregon could do better than places like Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, and up until last year we had this feeling of 'all right, we can avoid the wolf wars.'"

'Wolf hysteria'
 
But last week, Oregon Wild joined a coalition of 11 groups in writing to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife accusing the agency of violating its management plan and state law by baiting wolves back to the site of reported depredations and failing to adequately document and publicly share information about non-lethal measures taken to prevent depredations before issuing kill permits.
The agency also has approved the killing of a third wolf and distributed at least 30 take permits to livestock owners.

The coalition requested that the take permits issued to ranchers be suspended until some of their concerns are resolved. But so far, Oregon regulators have no plans to do so.

Michelle Dennehy, an ODFW spokesperson, said regulators are adhering to the state's 2005 wolf management plan, which calls for establishing four breeding pairs -- defined as a mated male and female that produce two pups that survive to their first birthday -- but also allowing for the killing of wolves that are witnessed attacking livestock or dogs.


"We need to meet our conservation mandate, but we also have to address chronic livestock losses when they occur," Dennehy said.
Oregon's wolf management plan earned qualified support from both environmentalists and ranchers when it passed six years ago, in part because the plan requires that non-lethal actions be taken to deter wolf predation before sanctioned killings can occur.
Until last month's two wolf takings, only two wolves had been killed in Oregon for livestock depredation since 2005.

But, Klavins said, "Last year, some wolves were seen on private property, and we started to see the beginnings of wolf hysteria.
"What started to happen was every single dead cow was of course a wolf kill ... when further investigations were showing that for the most part that wasn't the case," he added.
Anti-wolf sentiment appears to be growing in the region, with some critics describing wolves as "four-legged piranhas of the West," even though depredation accounts for a small fraction of livestock losses. In 2010, fewer than a dozen cows and calves were killed by wolves compared to 55,000 lost to disease, weather and other causes, Klavins said.

Wolf advocates say they are concerned about an emerging "campaign of misinformation and fear" about wolves, and they criticized Oregon wildlife regulators for failing to counter anti-wolf rhetoric with sound public education and outreach, as is called for in the management plan.
"The agency is a lot more interested in dealing with the crisis of the day and assuaging local political pressure than they are in actually conserving the species," Klavins said.
But Dennehy refuted such claims, emphasizing that the agency is not giving carte blanche authority to shoot wolves and is "working very carefully to protect" the state's two breeding pairs.

'Forced compromise'
 
The wolf debate is also coming to a head in Washington, where a draft management plan (pdf) that has been in the works for five years is expected to be adopted by the end of the year.
The first draft plan was released in 2008, and after 19 public meetings and 65,000 comments, the Washington Office of Fish and Wildlife released a revised plan last month. The plan calls for 15 breeding pairs to be split up over various parts of the state, and those pairs must successfully breed for three consecutive years before wolves can be delisted under state law. While the state has three wolf packs, only one has a confirmed breeding pair so far.

The plan represents a delicate compromise between conservationists and livestock producers on the state's citizen Wolf Working Group, which was established in 2007 to help craft the plan. However, both groups are far from satisfied.

Scientific peer reviewers called the number of breeding pairs in the Washington plan "arbitrary and capricious," noting that the number is too low to achieve the plan's primary goal of a self-sustaining and viable population. They did not offer an alternative number.
Wolf advocacy groups have called for a higher number of breeding pairs, but they are not optimistic that state regulators will amend the plan before sending it to the state Fish and Wildlife Commission for final approval.

"We want a recovery and management plan that reaches the goal of a self-sustaining and viable wolf population," said David Graves, Northwest program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association. "We're not sure if the current plan will meet that goal. But at the same time, we want a plan that can receive some broad support across the state."
Livestock producers, on the other hand, are worried that 15 breeding pairs -- which could translate to between 97 and 360 wolves statewide -- are too many. They have called for eight breeding pairs and to establish a population cap.
"This plan has too many wolves and does not focus enough on the management component," said Jack Field, vice president of the Washington Cattlemen's Association and working group member. "I want to see the management happen on a much sooner level."
Much like Oregon's plan, the proposal allows for wolves to be killed if caught in the act of killing livestock so long as non-lethal measures have been taken to avoid depredation. Field said it will be difficult for ranchers to meet such criteria.

While originally supporting the 2008 compromise, Field reversed his position last week at a two-day working group meeting. "It's more of a forced compromise with a gun to your head when you go to the table and you're the only one that has anything to give up," Field said.
But like Graves, Field said he does not anticipate the plan will change much between now and August, when the Office of Fish and Wildlife is scheduled to present the plan to the state wildlife commission. The commission will hold three public hearings in the fall, and make a final decision on the plan in December.
While the commission has the authority to change the document, Graves said he hopes it doesn't cave to political pressure after the public spent years building something that is at least palatable.
"We don't want the Fish and Wildlife Commission to get a hold of the plan and make some drastic changes that aren't supported by science and cause even more unhappiness with the plan," he said.

Click here to read Oregon's wolf management plan.
Click here (pdf) to read Washington's draft wolf management plan.

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Last 2 Divide Creek wolves killed for depredations on Darby-area ranch

By DAVID ERICKSON Ravalli Republic missoulian.com | Posted: Friday, June 17, 2011 

DARBY - The last two of four Divide Creek pack wolves involved in recent livestock depredations on the CB Ranch in the Sapphire Mountains east of Darby were killed by federal Wildlife Services agents during a helicopter hunt Thursday, according to cattle manager Jeff Snavely.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials had issued a kill permit for up to four wolves from the pack several weeks ago after the death of a calf on the ranch that was determined to have been caused by wolves.
"They removed two wolves today, so we are done with that control action," said FWP wolf management specialist Liz Bradley. "They removed an adult male and a yearling male today, and also radio-collared another yearling male near the ranch. We authorized the removal of four wolves from the pack, so we are done for now unless there are any further problems."
Bradley couldn't give specific details on how the wolves were killed, other than to say it was by federal Wildlife Service agents by helicopter.
Earlier this month, government trappers caught two other wolves in the pack and euthanized them, one of which was wearing a radio collar.
Snavely said the CB Ranch, which is owned by former Intel Corp. CEO Craig Barrett, paid for the helicopter operation.
"We footed the bill for them to fly to fill our wolf quota," he said.
On the west side of U.S. Highway 93, government agents aren't having as much luck catching wolves from the Trapper Peak pack that were involved in the death of a horse on Two Feathers Ranch, about 1 1/2 miles south of Darby.
Five permits were issued to the landowner there, but none of the wolves have been caught. Montana FWP Warden Lou Royce said he believes only two wolves from the Trapper Peak pack are still alive from the group that was involved in the death of the horse.

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Endangered Wolf Center needs help as Center's offspring are threatened by Arizona fire

By Ryan Schuessler, Beacon intern
Wed., 6.15.11
The Mexican gray wolves in Arizona have faced their fair share of challenges, and just as they're making a comeback after being hunted to the point of extinction in the wild, they're facing another hardship: one of the hottest, fastest, most intense wildfires in Arizona history. Photos provided by the Endangered Wolf Center A wolf and pups The plight of the Mexican grays hits home for many in St. Louis. The group of about 50 wolves, the only wild Mexican grays in the world, can trace their ancestry back to the Endangered Wolf Center in Eureka. "They're on their own," Regina Mossotti, director of animal care at the Endangered Wolf Center, said. "They're unable to send people in there because the fire is so intense." According to Mossotti, the wolves have been pulling through, although their habitat has been burned. Of the three packs in the fire zone, one alpha was just recently released from the center and now has a litter of puppies. "They're avoiding the fire pretty well," Mossotti said. "They're moving around to where it has been and are re-denning. They're doing great." The center is able to track the adult wolves because they wear radio collars, which allow the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the center to see where the wolves are moving. The puppies, however, cannot be tracked. "These wolves have amazing instincts, and we have to trust them to know what to do," Mossotti said. In addition to the puppies born in the wild this year, the center also had its own new arrivals last month. On May 1, a wolf at the center had the fourth litter of Mexican grays born in captivity this year, and the staff is taking advantage of this opportunity. Being one of just two facilities with newborn Mexican grays in the country, the Endangered Wolf Center is working with the Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a collar that puppies can wear as they grow, so individuals like the new litter in the fire zone can be tracked. The center's puppies already wears the collars, which, if all goes according to plan, will grow and expand as the puppies grow and not have to be removed. If the collars work, the Fish and Wildlife Service will be using them next year, says Mossotti. The goal is to ultimately release the puppies into the wild, and they'll already have an edge that most Mexican grays born in captivity do not. According to Mossotti, the puppies are part of a multigenerational pack, including parents, a litter of siblings born last year (called "yearlings") and then the puppies. Wolf puppies playing "The yearlings and puppies get a lot of pack interaction they wouldn't usually get in captivity," Mossotti said. "The yearlings learn how to take care of puppies, and that allows them to act better in the wild." However, despite being born and raised in captivity, the animals at the center are not overexposed to human interaction. "Wolves are much more scared of people than we are of them," Mossotti said. "When we go into the enclosures to clean or repair them, they're as far away from us as they can possibly be. There's definitely a misconception from the big bad wolf." A POINT OF PRIDE Founded in 1971 by Marlin Perkins of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, the Endangered Wolf Center is a breeding facility exclusively for endangered canine species. Today it houses swift foxes, African wild dogs, maned wolves, Mexican gray wolves and red wolves. "After (Perkins) retired, he thought the one animal in need of help was the wolf," Mossotti said. "Their numbers were dwindling, and they were misunderstood." Today, while wild wolves are making a comeback, their numbers are still dwindling. Red wolves were once found in Missouri and much of the Midwest, but today only about 100 are wild in North Carolina. Mexican gray wolves are found in the Arizona and New Mexico border region, and only about 50 are wild today. These two species are the two most endangered candids in the world, and Mexican grey wolves are the most endangered mammals in North America. "In the 1980s, they caught the last Mexican grays in the wild," Mossotti said. "In 1998, they started releasing them again. A lot of them came from the center, including the first female to give birth in the wild." Every Mexican gray wolf in the wild today can trace its ancestry back to the Endangered Wolf Center. Mossotti, who is a life-long St. Louisan, first started working at the center as an intern before going to graduate school and returning as director of animal care. "For me, as a St. Louisan, I wish I had known about the center when I was younger," she said. 'WE'RE IN A CRISIS' The center, a non-profit organization, sees about 40,000 visitors a year and relies solely on private donations, tour fees and summer camps for financial support. The center just finished its first summer camp. "Kids love it," Mossotti said. "We play games, teach them about nature. We go to a bat cave, teach them stream ecology in a stream we have, show them how to care for the endangered species, kind of like a 'junior keepers' program." Education is one of the driving goals for the center, which aims to show the public that the wolves are not the bloodthirsty monsters from Little Red Riding Hood and to teach new generations the importance of environmental conservation. In addition to summer camps, the center also offers tours for the public. "The charge for tours helps us take care of the wolves," Mossotti said. Like many nonprofits, the center took a big hit since the recession. "The center is in crisis right now," board director Ralph Pfremmer said. "We hope the worst is over, but we're not taking anything for granted." When the economy took a dive, so did donations to the center, though recent measures have stabilized its finances, says Pfremmer. The center is still able to make its employees' payroll and take care of the wolves, though austerity is changing the way the center operates. To attract new donors, the center is "working hard to be as transparent as we can," Pfremmer said. The center is not a state or federal agency, so private donations and grants are essential to its operation, survival and scientific work. "What we're doing is very scientifically significant," Pfremmer said. "The center is helping the country and the world." To attract new donors, the center and its largely new board have launched an interactive outreach program, online and on Facebook. With virtual attractions such as the Puppy Cam, where anyone with internet access can see videos of the center's new litter, the center is looking to promote awareness for its work and also give St. Louis a well-deserved place on the map for wildlife conservation. "We're not just a sports town," Pfremmer said. "St. Louis cannot let this place go. We can hang our hat on this and be proud of it. This is a gem of a place that needs to be recognized and be part of the community." Mossotti agrees, saying the center's decades of scientific contributions have largely gone unnoticed and it needs support now more than ever. "Today, I'm so proud of it," she said. "We have helped literally to bring a species back, and most people don't even know we exist." Source

New generation of wolves replenish ambassador pack

Written by Matt Spillane
Thursday, 16 June 2011 

 

After years of being the youngster of the group, Atka, a member of the Wolf Conservation Center’s ambassador wolf pack, is now the group’s elder.
The Wolf Center, in South Salem, recently added pups to its ambassador pack for the first time in nine years, when Atka was brought to the facility as a pup.
Alawa and Zephyr, siblings born on April 20, arrived at the Wolf Center on May 27 and will be raised there by staff members and wolf-care volunteers. The two new wolves will be the first additions to the ambassador pack in nearly a decade. Atka has been the lone ambassador wolf at the center since 15-year-old Kaila died in February. Ambassador wolves Lukas and Apache died in August and March 2010, respectively.

Wolf pups Alawa, top, and her brother Zephyr arrived at the Wolf Conservation Center on May 20 as its newest ambassador wolves.

Unlike Atka, a white wolf, the pups are mixes of several gray wolf subspecies but are primarily Canadian/Rocky Mountain gray wolf, a subspecies that traditionally inhabited the western United States and Canada.
Alawa, which means “sweetpea” in Algonquin and is pronounced “ah-lay-ewa,” is a brown and gray female, while Zephyr, meaning “light or west wind,” is a black male.
The pups have not formally met Atka yet, but the elder wolf is aware of the youngsters’ presence through scent. When the three of them will meet up has not been determined.
“We’ll play that by ear,” said Maggie Howell, managing director of the Wolf Center. “We’d love to have them live together. Once they grow to a certain age they’ll be living adjacent to Atka. That’s something that Atka is going to have to get used to.”
It’s unclear how the pups will interact with Atka once they have met.
“We actually really don’t know [how they will interact],” said Deborah Heineman, executive director of the Wolf Center.
One thing the pups are getting used to is interacting with people. As part of the ambassador pack, Alawa and Zephyr will eventually make public appearances with Atka to promote wolf conservation.
“We’re just making sure we’re sanitizing them and interacting with them,” Ms. Howell said, “because they’re very vulnerable. As visitors come to see them they will have opportunities to see them through the fence.”
Ms. Heineman said there are about 10 people, including staff members and volunteers, who are constantly around the pups and taking care of them. That kind of attention is vastly different than the care needed for adults like Atka.
“What’s really challenging is the 24/7 care,” Ms. Heineman said. “There is a human being with the pups every minute. It’s a very, very different dynamic right now. It’s stressful. There’s a lot going on for everybody. You have to put everything else on hold.”
“We’re being very cautious. They’re not venturing out farther than their little area. People get to observe them but not touch them, because this is the time when they’re very susceptible to diseases.”
Despite the nurturing and protective care, the pups are beginning to express themselves and reveal their unique personas.
“Their personalities are there,” Ms. Howell said. “Zephyr really seems to be hamming it up. He engages people and looks them in the face. It’s going to be interesting to see how their personalities develop. They already have strong personalities, which is pretty cool.”
“She’s quiet and sweet,” Ms. Heineman said about Alawa. “Zephyr has a lot of Atka-like traits. He’s extremely vocal. He put his head back and made an ‘O’ sort of shape with his mouth to howl and nothing came out. The howl came out on the third try.”
For now, the pups are spending their time as many youngsters do — sleeping and playing — in a small workshop-turned-nursery with a yard outside of it.
Ms. Heineman said it’s too early to tell when Alawa and Zephyr might be ready to travel with Atka and make public appearances. She said the staff will monitor how the two of them continue to interact with people and that maybe they will conduct an experiment at the Wolf Center to see how the pups would act in a public setting.
In the meantime, staff members are simply enjoying the opportunity to care for the newborn wolves.
“What could be better than raising little baby wolf pups?” Ms. Howell said.
In addition to the ambassador wolves, the Wolf Center has 16 Mexican gray wolves and six red wolves that it is raising with little human interaction because they are going to be released into the wild.

Source

Plenty Of Support For Delisting Gray Wolves

June 15, 2011 6:09 AM

(credit: Jupiter Images)

GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. (AP) — There was plenty of support to remove gray wolves from the federal endangered species list from nearly 200 people who attended a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service meeting in Grand Rapids.
Conservation groups have challenged the move in court and won the past two times. At the meeting Tuesday night, veterinarian John Howe said he frequently gets panicked calls about wolf attacks on pets. Howe says in one case, a woman’s yellow lab was sitting on her deck in the middle of the day. Her 5-year-old son was 50 feet away. He says wolves killed the dog in a matter of seconds and dragged it into the woods. Minnesota Public Radio says the child wasn’t harmed.
The federal government wants to take the wolves off the endangered list in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. A 60-day public comment on that proposal runs through July 5. Some 4,200 wolves now roam the three states.

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Take Action to Restore Washington Wolves

Chris Burley | Posted on 14 June 2011

Timber wolf pups play-fighting in Minnesota. 

Washington State was once home to many more wolves like these.

Decades ago, wolves roamed across Washington. But that was before they were eliminated from the Evergreen State.
Now these magnificent animals have begun to return to Washington, and we need your help to ensure a lasting future for them.
Earlier this month, the state began to review a progressive wolf management plan that would allow these amazing animals to roam throughout much of their traditional range. But the plan falls short of what will ultimately be needed to fully recover wolves in Washington.

Tell Governor Christine Gregoire to support allowing more wolves in the state and to expand the range where they will be allowed to roam.

This is a key moment for wolf restoration in Washington. We know from reintroduction efforts in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies that wolves help balance natural ecosystems and that they can bring tourism dollars to states that support their recovery (as much as $35 million a year near Yellowstone, according to one study!)
But we also know that anti-wolf extremists can be a serious roadblock to recovery efforts. Some are pushing hard for a low cap on the number of wolves that would be allowed to inhabit Washington – a bad precedent for wolves or any other wildlife.
And just last week, indictments were handed down for the killing of five of Washington’s wolves. Defenders has offered money to help reward information leading to the prosecution of these lawless wolf killers, but we’re also working to build broader acceptance of wolves in Washington, collaborating with ranchers and local tribal members to pave the way for smart, sustainable wolf recovery.

We’re at the start of something great here, and you can be a part of it. Please send your message to Governor Gregoire today.

From Defenders of Wildlife--here

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Ethiopian Wolf Field Project

Ethiopian wolves in the Bale Mountains of the Ethiopian Highlands. (Photographed in 2003 by Martin Harvey).

URGENT OREGON WOLF ALERT!

Photo of gray wolf by Tracy Brooks

Oregon's entire Imnaha pack is threatened with extermination. A couple weeks ago there were 24 wolves in Oregon. Today there are only 17. Please help us stop the killing!

June 8, 2011 - The level of persecution aimed at Oregon's struggling wolf population has reached a crescendo in the last few weeks, culminating in the likely move of Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) officials to kill off the entire Imnaha pack.  Please contact the key decision-makers immediately to stop this outrageous assault. 

On May 5, 2011, the very day wolves were removed from federal protection under the Endangered Species Act and came under state protection, ODFW issued kill orders for two wolves of the Imnaha pack in remote NE Oregon.  The kill orders were in response to two reported wolf depredations on cattle. 
During the week of May 16, ODFW baited a leghold trap with a cow carcass on private property, caught and killed a young wolf.  The same evening a cow was reported killed by a wolf, and two days later another young wolf was shot by ODFW.

On June 5 ODFW again issued kill orders for two more Imnaha pack wolves after another reported cow depredation. The use of cow carcasses as bait indiscriminately attracts wolves to livestock and sets them up for the equivalent of entrapment.

During this frenzy of baiting and killing, ODFW issued 24 kill permits to ranchers to shoot wolves seen in the act of attacking livestock on public or private land. There are more kill permits than there are wolves in the entire state.

The Imnaha pack is now estimated at just eight wolves, roughly half its size. 
Still this is not enough.  ODFW officials have stated that they are considering killing off the entire pack.
Take action below by contacting the Oregon Fish & Wildlife commission members, the governor, and your legislators.

Contact These Key Decision-Makers Today!

Decision-makers are clearly hearing from and responding to cattle ranchers.  Even though ranchers are fully reimbursed for losses confirmed to be due to wolves, they will not be satisfied until every wolf is once again driven out of Oregon. They need to hear from you!

We have joined key environmental groups in a letter to Oregon officials expressing outrage at how ODFW is carrying out the state's duty to protect an endangered species.  Please join us and speak up for the remaining wolves of the Imnaha pack by contacting:

• Fish & Wildlife Commission: odfw.commission@state.or.us
• Governor John Kitzhaber: representative.citizen@state.or.us, (503) 378-3111
• Senator & Representative : www.leg.state.or.us/findlegsltr, (800) 332-2313

Learn More about the Challenges Facing Wolves

Wolves were taken off the federal Endangered Species List on April 15, 2011, when President Obama signed the federal budget into law. This means that Oregon wolves are no longer federally protected and are now strictly under state management. Learn more about the challenges facing America's wolves and our work to protect them in Wolves at Risk. 

Join the Predator Defense "Alert List" and receive alerts directly in your inbox. Email brooks@predatordefense.org with ‘Alert List’ in the subject line. (You will not receive loads of emails—only alerts on action items and legislative activity.)

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