Image of the Day

Lone Wolf, a photo by Todd Ryburn on Flickr.

Ruling puts Minnesota's wolf seasons beyond public challenge — by anyone

By Ron Meador | 05/30/13

CC/Flickr/Todd Ryburn

The court's logic would seem to mean that nobody can have standing to challenge the wolf hunt in court, for any reason whatsoever.

Whether you're for or against the killing of wolves for sport, you might think the public has a right to be heard on a matter so enduringly contentious and emotional.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) thinks otherwise and so, apparently, does the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

News reports on Tuesday's perfunctory dismissal of a challenge to the new trapping and hunting seasons have cited the court's conclusion that the plaintiffs lacked "standing" to raise objections, but didn't explain the legal reasoning behind it.

And I was frankly scratching my head, because questions of standing usually seem to turn on such factors as having a demonstrable stake in the issues (no injury, no standing) or whether a lawsuit was filed in the correct jurisdiction, etc.

So I read the ruling, and found that its conclusions on "standing" have nothing to do with the character of the plaintiffs, Howling for Wolves and the Center for Biological Diversity. Nor are they based on a finding that the plaintiffs suffered no injury in the sport killing of 410 wolves last year. Nor do they have anything to do with the issues raised in this challenge.

Rather, standing was denied because of the particular way these seasons were created —partly by DNR, partly by the Minnesota Legislature. Furthermore, the court's logic would seem to mean that nobody can have standing to challenge these policies in court, for any reason whatsoever.

Let me say that again: By the reasoning in this opinion, Minnesota's trapping- and hunting-based approach to controlling its population of gray wolves, following decades of heavy public investment in their protection and recovery of this species from the brink of extinction, simply can't be challenged in court by citizens or groups who feel those policies are flawed.

The road to Tuesday's ruling

A brief recap of the route to this apparent dead end might be in order now.

Since the 1990s it has been clear to DNR and everyone else that gray wolves in Minnesota would eventually be "delisted" from federal protections under the Endangered Species Act.

By 2001, after a long stakeholder process, DNR had prepared a management plan for wolves once they moved from federal to state authority, and that plan included regulated hunting as a key measure for population control.

Wolf advocates were OK with that so long as DNR observed a five-year moratorium between delisting and the start of sport hunting. The purpose of the moratorium was to gather good evidence on how many wolves would be killed by farmers newly empowered to trap or shoot wolves they suspected of killing livestock.

Various rounds of litigation delayed delisting until January 2012. And in 2011 the Legislature, preparing for that event, scrapped the moratorium. It also decreed that "the open season to take wolves with firearms begins each year on the same day as the opening of the firearms deer season," but left other details up to the DNR.

In the spring of 2012, a few months after delisting was final, the DNR opted for a streamlined, "emergency" procedure for creating and administering the new seasons it had been anticipating for the previous 20 years or so.

It laid out its proposed rules in a press release, followed by a 30-day online survey of public sentiment on such questions as, "Do you support hunting and trapping for wolves in Minnesota? Yes/No."

Advocates for and against wolf seasons urged their members to flood the survey with multiple responses, which in the end ran 4 to 1 against the wolf seasons. DNR then published its rules in the State Register, making them official.

As the hunting seasons approached, public outcry intensified — especially as more Minnesotans realized that DNR's seasons relied far more heavily on trapping than on hunting to remove 400 wolves per year from the landscape.

Howling for Wolves and CBD filed suit to stop the hunt, but were denied a temporary injunction by the Court of Appeals on the ground that their claims didn't meet the test of irreparable harm. (Under Minnesota law, the appeals court — not a trial court — is where these challenges begin.)

The plaintiffs were told they could come back this year with a challenge to DNR's policies on their merits. It was that challenge the court rejected Tuesday.

A mockery of public participation

Now, it is fair to note that CBD and Howling for Wolves might well have sued over any sport seasons that DNR came up with.

It is also fair — and more important — to say that DNR's online survey was a mockery of genuine public participation, on a matter that was bound to be controversial, and on which public outcry does seem to have intensified over the past year, in part because of details the Legislature left to DNR policymaking.

But whether the DNR followed the law in making those policies, and whether the policies themselves are sound, has yet to be addressed by a Minnesota court. Instead, we have a ruling on these points (my emphasis added):

• CBD and Howling for Wolves can't challenge the DNR's expedited, "emergency" approach to rulemaking  because "standing focuses on the effect of the rule, not alleged flaws in the rulemaking process. Only one whose rights are impaired by a challenged rule has standing to ask this court to invalidate it."
• But, oops, they can't bring a challenge based on effects, either — effects like the number of wolves taken, or the use of traps, or the concurrence with deer season, etc. —  because the seasons themselves are creations of the Minnesota Legislature:

In support of their challenge to the wolf rules, petitioners submitted declarations from eight of their members who live in, have traveled to, or have specific plans to travel to the areas of Minnesota where wild wolves live.  All eight declarations state absolute opposition to hunting wolves.  They express concern that wolves they have seen or heard will be killed and assert that wolf hunting and trapping will reduce the number of wolves in Minnesota. 

But the declarations do not identify how the wolf rules themselves impair the members’ interests in wolves by effectuating and regulating the open wolf season that the legislature mandated.   

In other words, a bunch of wolves would have been killed under any set of rules the DNR adopted. Therefore, all of its actions are immune to public challenge, because the fundamental  responsibility for wolf-killing rests with the Legislature — whose actions are also immune to public challenge.
So sit down and shut up.

Template for litigation-proof policies

If you happen to be a reader who could care less about wolves, but has stayed with me to this point anyway, consider that this ruling could as easily have been about loons or lynx or logging or copper-nickel mining — or, really, any other policy arena in which the Legislature and administrative agencies share authority over public resources.

Consider, too, the extensive speculation that lawmakers weren't directing DNR managers so much as collaborating with them in creation of these apparently litigation-proof policies.

Whether that speculation is on or off the mark, I can't say.

But I will observe that the result could become a handy template for other agencies to follow in getting the public's work done without the messy distractions of actual public involvement. For that reason alone, we should all hope that CBD and Howling for Wolves appeal this ruling and have it overturned.

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Oregon wolf dies of parvovirus

Posted by Rich

May 30, 2013
 

ENDANGERED SPECIES — The first case of parvovirus in Oregon wolves has been documented by the Oregon State University Veterinary Diagnostic Lab.
The wolf known as OR19, found dead by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists on May 19, died of complications of canine parvovirus, according to the lab's preliminary report.
Here's the report from ODFW:

The highly contagious and often fatal disease is common among domestic dogs, and can spill over into wild canids such as coyotes, foxes, and wolves. Domestic dogs are normally vaccinated for the disease but wild animals are not. Parvovirus has been documented in wild canids in other areas of the country and most commonly occurs in pups. It is unknown at this time if other wolves in Oregon are affected with the virus, but biologists will continue to monitor for signs of the disease throughout the summer.
This is the first documented case of parvovirus in Oregon wolves, though outbreaks have been well documented in wolf populations throughout the western United States. In some areas it has caused short term declines in wolf populations by reducing the number of surviving pups. Long-term effects are less understood, but are generally not expected to threaten overall conservation of the species (though it may reduce the rate of population growth). 

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Activists, ranchers reach deal on wolves

It would permit the animals to be killed only as a last resort

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Russ Morgan, Oregon’s wolf coordinator, during radio-collaring. (AP Photo/Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife)

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By Jeff Barnard

The Associated Press

Published:  May 25

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GRANTS PASS — Conservation groups and cattle ranchers have agreed to a landmark settlement in a lawsuit that, for the past year and a half, has kept the state of Oregon from killing wolves that prey on livestock.

The agreement announced Friday by the governor’s office creates a new rulebook for wolf management in Oregon that makes killing the ones that prey on cattle and sheep a last resort after nonlethal protections have been tried and livestock attacks have become chronic.

It also gives ranchers greater authority to kill wolves that attack or chase their herds as long as certain conditions are met.

Brett Brownscombe, the governor’s natural resources adviser, said the agreement will help bring peace to a longstanding and bitter conflict.

“Before, there had always been a lot of rhetoric about, ‘We can’t tolerate wolves here, and all this nonlethal stuff won’t work,’ ” Brownscombe said. “Now the reality is wolves are here, and we have to be able to protect our property through reasonable means.

“Nonlethal techniques are going to be part of the expected approach forward. People are going to have assurances that if there are problems, they will have some recourse and things won’t be stuck in the courts.”

Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands and the Center for Biological Diversity sued the state in October 2011 after the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife issued a kill order for two wolves in the Imnaha Pack. It was the first pack to form in Oregon from wolves crossing the Snake River from Idaho, and the one blamed for more livestock kills than any other.

The lawsuit claimed the kill order violated the state Endangered Species Act and would doom the pack.

Saying conservation groups were likely to win, the Oregon Court of Appeals barred the state from killing wolves until the lawsuit was resolved. That made Oregon the only state with wolves where authorities could not kill those that preyed on livestock.

During the course of that court order, the numbers of wolves went up in Oregon, while the number of livestock killed went down. In neighboring Idaho, hunting brought down the numbers of wolves, but livestock attacks went up.

The Center for Biological Diversity dropped out of the settlement because it allowed wolves to be killed.

“This is going to become the most progressive management plan in the country for avoiding these conflicts before they happen,” said Steve Pedery, conservation director for Oregon Wild.

“If everybody stays true to the agreement, I think you will see lethal control very rarely,” said Rob Klavins of Oregon Wild. “It will be an option of last resort.”

Wallowa County cattle rancher Rod Childers, a longtime hardliner on wolves and chairman of the wolf committee for the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, said the agreement formalizes standards that the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife already had been following.

Childers added that the numbers of attacks attributed to wolves had been rising in May, and cattlemen agreed to the settlement to bring back the ability of state biologists to manage wolves. Ranchers also get new authority to shoot wolves that chase their herds.

“This does not bring resolution to everybody,” he said, “but it does get management back.”

The settlement was filed with the court Thursday night, Brownscombe said. The original kill order on the Imnaha Pack has been lifted, but if the pack is blamed for one more livestock attack, members of the pack will be eligible for a kill order under the new rules.

The new rules update a wolf management plan adopted in 2005. Under the new rules, a pack would have to be linked by hard evidence to four separate attacks on livestock over six months before becoming eligible for lethal control.

For an attack to count, ranchers must have used basic nonlethal protections, such as alarm boxes and low strings of plastic flags known as fladdery. The state must conduct an open and thorough investigation.

Ranchers would get statutory authority to kill wolves attacking their livestock. They could shoot wolves seen chasing livestock if they have taken nonlethal steps to protect herds and they are the victims of chronic attacks.

The department has adopted a temporary rule putting the new lethal control standards into effect, but they still must be adopted permanently by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission, Brownscombe said.

The Legislature still has to enact a law to put the authority to kill wolves attacking and chasing herds into effect.

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“Before, there had always been a lot of rhetoric about, ‘We can’t tolerate wolves here, and all this nonlethal stuff won’t work.’ Now the reality is wolves are here, and we have to be able to protect our property through reasonable means. Nonlethal techniques are going to be part of the expected approach forward. People are going to have assurances that if there are problems, they will have some recourse and things won’t be stuck in the courts.”

Brett Brownscombe

the governor’s natural resources adviser

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Image of the Day

Those wolfie eyes!

(click on image to expand into wallpaper!)

“Wolves” Kill Deer in Carmichael, CA?

• 6 hours ago
  
  by Sonseeahray Tonsall
  Reporter

They were huge, hungry and each heavily armed with a mouthful of frightening teeth, neighbors in Carmichael say.
“I grew up with big dogs.  This thing was so massive. The head on it was not a regular canine head,” said Justin Rajotte.

“I t was at least 150 pounds or over,”said Eddie Murray of Carmichael.
“That was his back… head probably about this high,” said Eric Murray as he held his hand about chest-high off the ground.
Those gentlemen make up the crew from ‘On the Go Productions’ and they’re  always ready to capture a striking image.

But no one ever expected to see something so strange on the streets of Carmichael – two animals now being called wolves by the CHP.
The group started chasing the animals after a friend called and said she’s spotted what she thought was a wolf along Homesweet Way.

Animals like that so close to the American River and one of them one reportedly covered in blood; Justin Rajotte thought the worst.
“We grew up partying down by the river. You go down there late at night  and you see transients down there, I thought they killed, they got somebody,” he said.

Now, Rajotte knows the animals actually killed a deer near Palm Drive and California Avenue.
Murray dialed 911 but says he got nothing but disbelief on the end of the  line and hung up.
“I told her that if they didn’t want to send anybody out, they know they’re out there and if something happens it would be on them,” he said.

Soon, CHP was on the chase and the animals were everywhere.
“In and out of bushes, in front of houses. They’d go up by front doors and come back down,” said Murray.
They even walked right up to a gym.

“Tried to push the door open probably would have gone in. There were a couple people working out, couple people working,” said Murray, as he detailed a scenario he felt was frightening.
In the end, CHP shot the animals near the river access on Sarah Court, ending what could be the extremely rare occurrence of wild wolves in California.

“It’s exhilarating. I’m also bittersweet because now they’re gone. But when it comes down to it…you have to do what you have to do to protect you and your community, said Rajotte.
It is illegal to keep pure-bred wolves as pets in California. Hybrid wolves are allowed. There is only one known wild wolf confirmed to be living in California.

Investigators have not yet released if these animals were perhaps been keep illegally as pets.

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Wolf sanctuary fundraiser will benefit maintenance, structure rebuild

Saturday event at The Ranch will feature visits from wolf 'ambassadors'

By Jessica Benes Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:   05/29/2013

Pax and Sasha are affectionate and social, but people shouldn't mistake them for your average dogs. The two ambassadors for a wolf sanctuary home get cheeseburgers when they go out on the town because wolves and wolf-dog hybrids become uncomfortable out of their territories, and a stop at Wendy's is a great reward treat.

Pax and Sasha are two ambassadors for the WOLF Sanctuary (Wolves Offered Life and Friendship) west of Fort Collins that rescues and cares for wolves and wolf-dogs.

The sanctuary is hosting the ninth annual Waltz for the Wolves gala on Saturday, June 1, at The Ranch in Loveland.

"We lost four structures in the (High Park) fire," said Shelley Coldiron, executive director. "We will be using the money to help with regular maintenance and recovery from the fire."

If You Go What: Waltz for the Wolves Gala
When: 5 p.m. Saturday, June 1
Where: First National Bank Exhibition Hall at The Ranch, 5280 Arena Circle, Loveland.
Cost: $50 per person or $450 table of 10.
Info: Visit wolfsanctuary.net or call 970-416-9531 for details.

The staff hopes to raise $40,000 to $50,000 to help rebuild structures destroyed in the 2012 High Park fire.

In the past, the organization has raised $35,000 at the event.

The evening gala will include a visit from the ambassador wolves, a dinner, entertainment and a silent and live auction.

The sanctuary now hosts 28 wolves recovered from a variety of situations. The animals live in pairs or threesomes in enclosures up to a full acre in size.

The sanctuary relies heavily on volunteers, such as corporate work groups who come in and tackle large project.

"(The wolves) usually come from neglected or abusive backgrounds," Coldiron said. She said an estimated 150,000 to 250,000 wolves are bred in captivity each year as pets.
"They do not make good pets," Coldiron said.

She added that 80 to 90 percent of these wolf-dogs are euthanized by age 2 because

Isabeau, a rescued wolf, rubs against the fence of her enclosure at the WOLF Sanctuary west of Fort Collins. Isabeau is one of 28 wolves and wolf-dog hybrids that come from troubled backgrounds who live at the sanctuary. ( Jessica Benes )

the animals become aggressive as they get older. Wolves are much smarter than dogs and get bored. When they get bored, they get destructive. The animals at the sanctuary are there for life. They never would survive in the wild because they were born in captivity, Coldiron said.

Some of the hybrids are mostly wolf, and some likely have little wolf in them, although that's a guess on each animal made by staff members because DNA tests are too expensive.

Each has its own story.

Arkte was rescued in 2006 from a private owner who kept her in a travel kennel for six years, according to animal caretaker Michelle Proulx. Authorities confiscated her because of animal abuse.

"When she came to us, she was a mess," Proulx said. "She was insanely aggressive towards people."
Cowboy was rescued in February and is likely a low- to mid-content wolf dog. His owner found him a few years ago cowering under her truck after a storm, Proulx said. He was emaciated and dehydrated. After the Humane Society took care of him for two weeks, the woman adopted Cowboy.

It took more than two years for him to trust her. When she moved to the city, she had to find him a sanctuary or euthanize him because she knew with his temperament, he wouldn't be able to handle a new and crowded environment. "He got really upset when she left. He parked himself by the fence and didn't move, just stared down the road," Proulx said.

Odin and Loki were raised at Wolf Country USA RV Park in Alaska. The owner would show visitors around the park to see more than 25 wolves on chain leashes, and for an extra fee, visitors could take a wolf pup home. Ownership of wolves had been illegal since 2002, but it wasn't until 2011 that the facility was shut down.

Sasha gets some loving attention from Shelley Coldiron, executive director of the WOLF sanctuary west of Fort Collins. Sasha is one of three "ambassadors" social enough to visit schools and events to educate people about wolves and wolf-dogs. ( Jessica Benes )

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Wolf social smarts outwit dogs

JOHN BOHANNON

29/05/2013

LISI NEISNER/ Reuters

GETTING ALONG: German researcher Werner Freund shows wolves can feed alongside man.

Since they split from wolves, domestic dogs have changed in many ways. Unlike their wild ancestors, they're comfortable around humans, pay close attention to us, and follow orders - at least sometimes.

Their social intelligence is critical to making a dog man's best friend, but research presented last week at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science showed that dogs may have also lost some of their social smarts in the process.

One of the classic experiments that shows the cognitive difference between wolves and dogs is the pointing task: Whereas a dog - even a 3-month-old puppy - will readily follow the direction a person points in, wolves just don't get it. That contrast has been cited as evidence that dogs may have gained social intelligence not present in wolves.

"But that story is too simple," says Friederike Range, a behavioural biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna.

To dig deeper, Range and her colleague Zsofia Viranyi studied a captive population of wolves and dogs raised together at the Wolf Science Center outside Vienna.

For one thing, they found that wolves work together better than dogs do. For example, in one set of experiments that have not been published, Range and Viranyi observed the behaviours of groups of wolves or dogs sharing a common food source provided by researchers.

Although there was more aggression among wolves - from muzzle-nipping to growling - every wolf, even the lowest ranked, was able to negotiate a share of food.

Dogs are less aggressive with one another, but the food-sharing is far from collaborative.

"The alpha dog monopolises the food source and lower ranked dogs just stay away," Range says.
Those differences made Range and Viranyi wonder: Perhaps scientists who compare the social intelligence of wolves and dogs have been barking up the wrong tree. Dogs may be better at learning from humans, but what about from other dogs?

To test how well dogs and wolves could learn from one another, the researchers created a problem that wolves and dogs were equally motivated to solve: A food treat locked inside a box.

The only way to open the box was with a lever. They trained one dog to operate the lever with its mouth, and another dog to use its paw. (The wolves were raised with the dogs and treated them as members of the same pack, Range says.)

Then they let wolves and dogs see the box opened by one of those two methods. If dogs have better social intelligence across the board, they should do better than the wolves at learning by example and getting at the treat.

But the dogs did poorly, Range reported at the meeting. Only four out of 15 managed to open the box at all, and none used the method (mouth or paw) that they had been shown.

Meanwhile, all 12 of the wolves got the treat, and nine of them did so by copying the method they had been shown.

"The mainstream theory is that wolves became dogs when they started treating humans as their pack members," Range says.

Rather than gaining new cognitive abilities that wolves never had, such as so-called "theory of mind" required to learn complex tasks by watching others perform, dogs may have undergone an evolutionary tradeoff: Losing some of the ability to learn from their own kind, but gaining the ability to learn from humans.

The jury is still out on whether dogs have lost a mental ability.

"What we need to see next is the same experiment, but with humans teaching the dogs and wolves," says Timothy Bates, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom.
It may be that dogs have grown worse at learning, but "it could be that dogs just pay attention only to humans now."

Range says that she has done the experiment to test that difference and is analysing the data now.
- SCIENCE NOW

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Setback for groups opposed to Minnesota wolf hunt

• Article by: DOUG SMITH and ABBY SIMONS , Star Tribune
• Updated: May 28, 2013

Only option left is an appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

The first state-managed Minnesota wolf hunt took place Nov. 3, 2012.

Photo: Dawn Villella, Associated Press - Ap


The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Tuesday threw out a challenge to Minnesota’s wolf hunting and trapping season, which could scuttle future efforts by activists who oppose the practice.


The ruling may be the end of an emotional battle by two hunt-opposing groups against the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which authorized a season with legislative approval after Minnesota’s gray wolf was removed from the federal Endangered Species Act last year. Hunters and trappers killed more than 400 wolves last year.


The court ruled that the groups — the Center for Biological Diversity and Howling for Wolves — had no legal standing to sue the DNR because they couldn’t show that the agency had caused injury. The judges noted that it was the Legislature, not the DNR, that established a season on wolves.


Activists are left with the lone option of petitioning the state Supreme Court to review their case. The groups have 30 days to make that request. Whether they will do so has yet to be decided.


“It’s a possibility,” said Collette L. Adkins Giese, a Minneapolis-based attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “I do see opportunities and believe that we have standing to bring the challenge, but there are certainly a lot of moving pieces that we’ll have to analyze.”


She declined to elaborate on what challenges, if any, the groups would make. She conceded that other than petitioning the Supreme Court, their only other option would be to get legislation passed that stops the season. That has been the main goal of Howling for Wolves, which is fighting to restore the state’s original five-year moratorium on wolf hunting after the animals’ removal from protected species lists. The Legislature removed that moratorium, authorizing the DNR to establish a season.


Asked about Tuesday’s ruling, Dr. Maureen Hackett, founder of Howling For Wolves, said, “It’s hard to put into words our disappointment and sense of injustice over this decision.”


Meanwhile, the DNR said it’s pleased with the decision. “We’ve been following the direction from the Legislature all along,’’ said Ed Boggess, director of fish and wildlife.


It was the second setback of its kind for the groups after the Appeals Court last October refused their request to stop the hunt while the cases proceeded. In that ruling, the court used the same rationale, that the Legislature, not the DNR, established the rules for the hunt, and that the groups failed to show harm caused by the DNR rules, rather than the Legislature’s authorization. The state Supreme Court refused to hear that case or grant an emergency injunction.


Boggess said that despite claims in the lawsuit, the DNR used the same rule-making process to set the wolf season as it does to set seasons for other species. “And the Legislature this session clarified that this is the correct process to use,’’ he said.


He reiterated that the DNR doesn’t believe that the season will hurt the state’s wolf population. “We are fully committed to the long-term sustainability of wolves in the state,’’ he said. “We manage the wolf season like we manage seasons for dozens of other game species.’’


Mark Johnson, executive director of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association, which supported the wolf season, also was pleased with the court decision.


“The recovery of the gray wolf, in the Upper Great Lakes and nationally, should be something we all celebrate,’’ he said in a statement. “They have recovered. Now let’s trust our state wildlife professionals to manage wolves and quit wasting state and federal tax dollars and hunting license revenues in lawsuits.”


Minnesota resumed sport hunting and trapping after the region’s wolves came off the endangered species list early last year. Hunters and trappers then killed 413 wolves during the state’s first wolf season, which ended in January. The opposition launched a billboard and media campaign in the Twin Cities area and Duluth.


The DNR plans to make decisions about a 2013 hunt this summer after a population survey is completed.


Legislation seeking to impose a five-year moratorium on wolf hunts stalled during the just-completed session. Meanwhile, a federal suit by four wildlife advocacy groups challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to remove wolves from the federal endangered species list has yet to be heard.


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