Image of the Day

Attentive wolf, a photo by Tambako the Jaguar on Flickr.

Governor Rebuffs Wolf Pleas

By Kevin Huelsmann, Jackson Hole, Wyoming

July 30, 2011

In spite of protests from Teton County commissioners, Gov. Matt Mead is moving ahead with a wolf management agreement with federal officials that would allow the unregulated killing of wolves in part of Teton County for several months a year.

In a letter sent to Mead earlier this month, commissioners said allowing the unregulated killing of wolves ignores the values of county residents and could put Teton County’s image and reputation at risk.

Mead, however, has not ceded any ground on the issue.

“It’s too late to include that,” Mead’s spokesman, Renny Mackay, said Friday. “It’s nothing that the governor or [U.S.] Fish and Wildlife Service have ever talked about.”

Mead is “very close” to wrapping up the terms of the deal with federal officials and needed to keep moving to ensure the negotiations end successfully, Mackay said.

Commissioners objected to unregulated killing, or predator status, that would allow wolves to be killed at any time by any means.

“If we don’t get this issue resolved as part of this settlement, I think it will be a terrible stain on the reputation and image of the county,” commissioner Hank Phibbs said Friday.

Phibbs spoke with the governor Thursday and commissioners sent a letter to him earlier this month, both times pushing to have the predator line moved.

Earlier this month, Mead and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar outlined a pending plan in which wolves would be designated as predators in the county south of Highway 22 for parts of the year. Predator status would allow unregulated killing of the animals.

In the rest of the county, save national parks and refuges where they would be protected, wolves would be considered trophy game and hunted only according to state seasons.

Under the pending plan, the trophy zone would expand south of Highway 22 to the Snake River during winter, allowing wolves to migrate to Idaho without the pressure of predator hunters.

In earlier interviews, the governor said he hoped to wrap up the terms of the deal by the end of July. It would allow Wyoming to gain control of wolves and see them removed from Endangered Species Act protection.

The deal would require 100 wolves in 10 packs living outside Yellowstone National Park.

While Mackay said the governor still is trying to close the deal as soon as possible, he doubted it would be complete by July 31.

Commissioners argue there should not be any deadline. Instead, state and federal officials should not stop working until they come up with the best management plan possible, they say.

“This has been going on for 10 years,” Phibbs said. “There’s no deadline. The date that was chosen is totally arbitrary. My board feels very strongly that we want to get this done right.”

In response to county commissioners’ contention that the line be changed, Mackay said they had their chance to raise their concerns. Staff from the governor’s office met with Teton County representatives in April to solicit their input for the wolf management issue and did not hear any objections related to the predator boundary, Mackay said.

“We did raise concerns then,” Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance Public Lands Director Louise Lasley said.

Lasley added one of the primary concerns of conservation representatives who were at the meeting in April was that a moving boundary would be confusing for everyone involved.

“What the alliance would like to see is the return of this process to Wyoming Game and Fish with standard public input to determine how they are going to reach the numbers that have been determined,” Lasley said.

In addition, county commissioners said the management plan directly conflicts with residents’ highest priorities.

“There have been efforts to establish the future economic base of this community as wildlife,” Phibbs said. “By sending a message that wolves are considered to be varmints, we’re contradicting that pretty fundamentally.”

Others questioned what effect moving the predator boundary would have on wolves in Teton County.

Bob Wharf, director of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, said that wolves moving outside of protected areas are no longer contributing to the recovery effort. Wharf also questioned whether visitors to the area even try to see wolves outside of protected areas such as the national parks.

One factor that should be considered, Wharf said, is what kind of effects hunters have on the local economy and how those contributions would be affected if hunting were limited.

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Kathie Lynch Reports on Yellowstone Wolves

Kathie Lynch: Wolves and Wildflowers Highlight Yellowstone’s Summer Bounty

By Ralph Maughan On July 29, 2011 ·

Kathie Lynch reports on bounty of summer life among the wolves, bison, elk, bears and vegetation of Yellowstone Park-

There is only one word to describe the beauty of Yellowstone in summer: breathtaking! After winter’s world of eternal white, the colors of early summer’s palate leap at your eye–grass green, soft sage, deep forest, sky blue, and the chocolate brown of raging creeks and rivers.
When summer temperatures finally arrived, right on schedule on June 21, the huge winter snow pack started melting quickly. In just three hours on June 24, the torrent entirely washed away one lane of the two lane road at the confluence of Soda Butte Creek and the Lamar River. That night brought the highest ever recorded stream flow in the Lamar River canyon between Lamar Valley and Little America.

The spring rains and melting snow brought on a spectacular display of wildflowers. In Lamar Valley, spunky orange bison calves frolicked in vast fields of yellow Mountain Dandelions. Entire mountainsides on Dunraven Pass and Hellroaring Mountain glowed with expanses of Arrowleaf Balsamroot (or was it Rocky Mountain Helianthella?). Beautiful summer meadows showcased fragrant purple Silvery Lupine, pink Sticky Geranium, snow white Common Yarrow and yellow Shrubby Cinquefoil.
The short trip to Trout Lake rewarded hikers with the thrilling sight of spawning cutthroat and rainbow trout making their way up the inlet stream. Six river otters (no pups this year) enthralled watchers, catching hapless trout and devouring them on the log near the inlet.

The kaleidoscope of wildflowers on the hillsides around the lake included Indian Paintbrush, Wild Rose, Mountain Bluebell, Larkspur, Silky Phacelia, Pasqueflower, Fringed Gentian, Green Gentian, Harebell, Yellow Violet, Shooting Star Lily, Alpine Forget-Me-Not, Penstemon, Phlox, Purple Aster, Blue Flax and Clematis.
Early summer brought the usual abundance of wild animal babies, with playful badger kits in Lamar and an incredibly cute moose calf near Soda Butte Picnic stealing the show. A black bear sow in the Elk Creek area often sent her two cubs of the year scurrying up nearby trees for safety. The sandhill crane pair returned once again to Floating Island Lake, delighting visitors with their nightly ritual of putting their colt (chick) to bed.
Birders enjoyed watching a golden eagle aerie high on a rock ledge near the confluence, at the east end of Lamar Valley. When wolf watching at the Hitching Post turnout was slow, we turned our scopes skyward and looked for  the clumsy eaglet flapping its wings precariously on the cliff edge.

Speaking of wolf watching, the Lamar Canyon pack has been the only show in town in the Northern Range this summer. As opposed to last year, they did not den in an easy to view site, so we have missed out on watching the daily life of the five pups (three black, two gray) as they grow up. Despite hours and hours of watching, we have only been rewarded with infrequent and brief glimpses of the pups.
However, on the morning of July 28, after about two pup-less weeks, the rascals finally appeared again, and what a rowdy bunch are they! Of the three black pups, one is especially big and stocky. It romped with the gray yearling babysitter, who often took a gentle bite hold on the back of the pup’s neck, perhaps using play to teach it something about growing up wolf. Meanwhile, the darker of the two gray pups, a big female, raced to and fro, playing catch me if you can.

The pack’s seven adults include alphas “The ’06 Female” and 755M, beta 754M, and four gray yearlings (776F, “Light Gray Male,” “Middle Gray” female, and “Dark Gray Male”). Since 776F lost her collar, it is very difficult to tell the three lighter yearlings apart.
The adults range far and wide in search of food for the hungry three-and-a-half-month old pups. One day, all seven adults visited their old home at Slough Creek. Early on a beautiful summer morning, they appeared on the side of Dave’s Hill and then crossed the campground road to briefly visit an old carcass.
Great hunter that she is, “The ’06 Female” soon stuck her nose in the air, and I knew that the bucolic scene of peacefully bedded elk cows and calves in the Slough Creek valley below was about to change. With the kill accomplished behind a hill, “’06” later emerged with a leg assembly. She handily folded it up into a neat little package, and, nose in the air once again, held her prize high above the water as she swam across the creek, en route to her waiting pups eight miles away.

Another memorable morning, “The ‘06 Female,” 755M and the dark gray male yearling took on a herd of about 200 elk in the meadows above Slough Creek. It was chaos as the wolves ran among them, forcing the elk to split up. As the panicked cows ran helter skelter, “’06” got caught in between the two groups of elk and was apparently trampled, but she emerged unscathed.
With wolves and elk running everywhere, “’06” and the yearling singled out a cow and pursued it relentlessly. The yearling kept pace with “’06” for quite a ways, but “’06” would not give up, and she ran and ran for what seemed like miles. This chase clearly illustrated just how difficult it is for the wolves to make a kill, especially when the prey is in excellent condition. Despite being pursued relentlessly by a great hunter, this cow elk and the rest of the huge herd got clean away. That day the wolves headed home with nothing at all to show for their efforts.

The seldom seen Agate Creek pack very occasionally crosses Specimen Ridge to visit Little America.  Alphas 641M (a huge former Mollie’s pack wolf) and 715F (a four-year-old Agate) are thought to have five grey pups. The pack also includes beta 586M (also originally a Mollie’s and now, at age 10, possibly the oldest wolf in the Park), four yearlings (gray 775M, a gray female, a black male, and a black female), and almost white 471F.
One evening on Dunraven Pass, I witnessed an amazing sight. Right from my car as I drove along, I saw 775M take down an elk calf! The yearling fed first, while veterans 641M and 471F rested nearby, panting, after the chase. Despite a very bad limp on her right front, the game old girl 471F had joined in the chase on her three good legs.
It’s always a great day when I get to see eight-year-old 471F, one of our long-time favorites. Her radio collar no longer works, so her whereabouts are sometimes unknown, and she has spent most of her adult life away from her natal pack. We were thrilled when she returned to her roots this spring and was accepted back into the Agates.

Like her younger sister, illustrious Lamar alpha “The ’06 Female,” 471F is also extremely independent and accomplished. Both are the offspring of legendary Agate alphas 113M and 472F, who certainly passed on some extraordinary genes.
During her adventurous life, 471F has had pups as an Agate, bred with various interlopers and old Leopold alpha 534M, helped found the short-lived Lava Creek pack, spent time with Everts 685M and Canyon 712M, and consorted with members of the Blacktail pack.
The Blacktails currently have 12 adults, including alphas 778M (“Big Brown”) and 693F, four-year-old males “Medium Gray” and “Big Blaze,” an uncollared black and the uncollared gray “Cut Tail” (both two years old and likely daughters of infamous “Casanova” 302M), and six yearlings (two black, four gray, including 777M). The five or six Blacktail pups likely come from multiple litters, with alpha 693F, the uncollared black two-year-old female and “Cut Tail” as possible mothers.

Although the pack is seldom seen, one fine early summer morning, some of the Blacktail wolves seized an opportunity to gnaw on an old winter-kill bison carcass which finally emerged from the depths of the mud at Blacktail Lakes. I watched beta male “Medium Gray” (born a Druid, like his now Blacktail brothers alpha 778M and “Big Blaze”) tug at the carcass, which was sunk in the muck. “Medium Gray” buried a prize tidbit and came up with a muzzle dipped in chocolate-colored mud. He was a comical sight as two of the local coyotes (who must have had a nearby den) escorted the beleaguered wolf out of the area.
The Canyon pack in the Hayden Valley has provided the most reliable wolf watching this summer. For the crowds at Grizzly Overlook (six miles south of Canyon junction), the pack’s five adults and three pups (two black, one gray) may appear just about any time of day, with evenings seeming to be the best.

The pack includes alpha 712M and the six-year-old, almost white, alpha female, who glows like a beacon to announce her presence at the distant rendezvous site far across the Yellowstone River.   The three yearlings include a beautiful jet black female and two grays. The more dependable sightings of the Canyons and their pups has shifted many hopeful watchers’ focus to the south this summer.
With hints of brown in the grasses, spires of pink fireweed blooming halfway up their stalks, and morning temperatures sometimes near the freezing mark, the glorious fullness of summer in Yellowstone already shows signs of fading.

A summer which held only questionable promise for devoted watchers has turned out to be just fine, thanks to the Lamar Canyon and Canyon wolves. Both packs continue to delight park visitors, inviting them to share in the incredible experience and privilege of observing wolves in the wild. The wolves are doing their best to inspire and excite us about the value of wildlife and wild places. Yellowstone in summer offers all of us the chance to be a part of Wonderland and the wild world.

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The New York Times Take on the Current Wolf Situation in the US NW

Wolves Move From Endangered to Hunted in Rural Mont.

By PHIL TAYLOR of Greenwire

Published: July 28, 2011

DILLON, Mont. -- Earlier this month, a black wolf attacked and killed one of Rick Sandru's calves as it grazed on a forest allotment in the upper Ruby Valley above his southwest Montana ranch.

As the wolf feasted on the 400-pound carcass, a range rider fired a shot, maiming the wolf and sending it scurrying into the woods, leaving behind a trail of blood.
The calf was one of countless livestock Sandru and other Montana ranchers lose each year to wolves, coyotes, grizzlies, black bear and mountain lions that prowl these mountain ranges.
What was different about this month's kill is that Sandru for the first time was able to prove it to federal agents.
A worker hung the cow carcass up in a tree and returned the next day with a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to verify the cause of death. Sandru was compensated for the calf, and a scavenger, likely a bear, tore the carcass from the tree a day later, an easy morsel.

"That's one wolf that we don't have to worry about," said Sandru, a third-generation rancher who wears a cowboy hat and a mustache and whose cattle graze sun-swept pastures among pronghorn, elk and sage grouse. "But I'm sure it has a lot of friends."
Indeed, wolf depredations are a fact of life for Sandru and other ranchers in the Ruby Valley. Many, if not most, wolf kills can never be proven because the wounded animals just disappear into the woods and don't return. Some cattle are found dead, but cannot be proven as wolf-killed.
Sandru said a calf was killed a couple of years ago by a wolf that grabbed it by its face, crushed its skull, gave it a shake and broke its neck.

"They're killing machines," said Sandru of the wolves. "I don't have anything against any animal, but I have a lot against the Endangered Species Act when it doesn't consider its impacts on the people."
Many southwest Montana ranchers also complain that wolves have driven wild elk herds down from the mountains onto ranches, where they forage on native grasses and increase the cost of feeding livestock. Some say livestock are coming home from the forests skinny due to harassment from wolves or other predators.
Sandru's experience is not uncommon in rural Montana, which faces a growing population of wolves that have moved south from Canada or were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995 and have disbursed north and west. Still more wolves have disbursed into the state from their reintroduction in central Idaho.
The gray wolf has been protected by the Endangered Species Act since shortly after the law was passed in 1973. But the wolf population has since grown to nearly 1,700 in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, wildly exceeding original recovery goals.

So in an unprecedented move, Congress in April delisted the predator in Idaho and Montana and parts of three other states, a move that drew protests from environmental groups who warned it undermined the word and spirit of ESA.
'We didn't want the wolves'
But proponents say the delisting was a necessary response to growing pressure from ranchers and hunters and widespread frustration in the West after three earlier delisting attempts were thwarted by environmental lawsuits.
Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D) also inserted language in Congress' bipartisan continuing budget resolution to prevent groups from challenging the delisting in court, though the rider itself is being challenged on constitutional grounds in a Missoula federal district court.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy yesterday heard arguments in the case and told court observers he expects to quickly issue a ruling, according to the Associated Press.
For now, licensed hunters beginning in September will be able to bag up to one wolf each in Montana -- and up to 220 statewide -- in a season officials hope will reduce the animal's population by about 25 percent.
For sheep rancher John Helle, the hunt is a good start but is far too conservative to have a meaningful impact on wolf depredations.
"It's all going to help," he said from the dining room of his ranch house outside of Dillon, about 25 miles up the Beaverhead River from Sandru. "The quotas they've got -- from a biological perspective -- aren't going to change the numbers in the state. It's just going to take the recruitment out, so they're not being aggressive enough."

Helle raises Rambouillet sheep, a French variety whose wool is spun into products including omni-wool socks, T-shirts and fine slacks and suits.
He said he annually sends about 5,000 to 6,000 thousand sheep out to pasture, but loses an average of about 10 percent of them to predators, the elements and other causes.
He had met with his banker earlier in the morning to discuss rising costs to vaccinate his sheep against worms, which spread more rapidly when the animals are kept in close proximity in irrigated fields. Keeping the animals close at hand lowers the risk of wolf predation, he said.

"I've got all this rangeland out here that I can't use," he said. Wolves and coyotes prowl the mountains, and Helle said he is afraid of accidentally trapping a wolf, which is against the law, he said.
"We didn't want the wolves," Helle said of the Clinton administration's decision to reintroduce an experimental population of 66 wolves into Yellowstone more than a decade and a half ago. "Nobody in this ranching community wanted the wolf brought back in."
He went to his office and returned with a 5-and-a-half-foot-long wolf pelt, its fur streaked a silver-gray. A government trapper shot the animal in 2000 after it and others had killed at least 200 of his sheep.
"This one and its family killed a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of sheep," he said. "This one was donated to Montana Woolgrowers Association."

Culling an icon
 
After decades of population increase in Montana, state biologists have crafted a plan that, for the first time, aims to reduce wolf stocks by 25 percent by year's end.
Officials earlier this month approved a hunt that will allow hunters to bag 220 wolves, reducing the predator's year-end population from a minimum of 566 in 2010 to 425 in 2011.
While the numbers have alarmed some environmentalists, officials are promising a "surgical" hunt that includes 14 management units designed to target wolves that kill livestock and that are blamed from sharp reductions in big-game herds such as elk.
The harvest will follow Montana's inaugural hunt in fall 2009, in which 72 wolves were bagged but the population still grew by 4 percent.

A proposal last year to allow the killing of 186 wolves was derailed when a federal judge in Missoula ruled that wolves could not be taken off the Endangered Species List in Montana and Idaho if they were not also removed from neighboring Wyoming.
State biologists this year have again added three areas north of Yellowstone that will limit harvest during early-season backcountry hunts after hunters in 2009 took out roughly half of the wolves in a prized research pack that had roamed north of the park's boundaries.

"There is a desire to reduce the population," said Bob Ream, a wildlife biologist who has studied wolves since the 1970s and is now chairman of the state's Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission.
For one, wolves in the three-state northern Rocky Mountain region have exceeded original recovery goals of 300 animals and 30 breeding pairs since 2000 and now nearly exceed them by a factor of six, he said.
He pointed to a chart plotting the animal's climb in the region from less than 200 in 1995 to nearly 1,700 individuals and 111 breeding pairs at last count.
"I think the meaning of this figure is that a lot of Montanans feel betrayed," he said over breakfast earlier this month at a cafe in downtown Helena.
"People are just frustrated by the continuing injunctions against our hunting season, and that just fuels the fire," Ream said. "It threatens the Endangered Species Act itself, and certainly diminishes support for the act when you have a species that's fully recovered."

But while the environmental community remains split over whether wolves are ready to be hunted, most have condemned the congressional delisting, warning that such decisions should be left to government scientists, not lawmakers who may be currying votes.
They point to more recent proposals by Republican lawmakers to prevent the Fish and Wildlife Service from listing the lesser prairie chicken and the dunes sagebrush lizard, which the agency warns faces grave threats from oil and gas development in New Mexico and Texas.
Ream said wolves in the northern Rockies are an exceptional case that warranted congressional action. Three government delisting attempts were stymied in court, not on scientific or biological grounds, but on such technicalities as whether delisting by state boundaries was legal, he said.

A state hunt is also necessary to help stem a drastic decline in elk in the West Fork of the Bitterroot near the Montana-Idaho border, Ream said.
The declines have stressed rural economies that rely heavily on the influx of hunters from around the world. Some residents rely on elk to feed their families through the winter.
But while wolves are widely blamed for the decline, Ream cautioned that black bears, mountain lions and habitat factors could also play a significant role.
A study by the University of Montana, FWP and the Forest Service to collar elk mothers and their calves seeks to determine the source of elk mortality. While the study was in its early stages, the first handful of calf deaths have been tied to mountain lions, Ream said.

Unintended consequences?
 
Some environmental groups warn that wolves are not ready to be hunted at the numbers proposed, especially since Wyoming is yet to implement an approved management plan.
Unlike Montana, Idaho is proposing allowing hunters take an unlimited number of wolves in most of the state during its hunting season.
Montana's plan, while more palatable to environmental groups, would remove too many wolves to maintain a viable population, said Suzanne Asha Stone, northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife who is based in Boise.
In addition, wolves play a crucial ecological role in Western landscapes by culling deer and elk that have flourished in recent decades, devouring native forage including aspen, willow and cottonwoods that are important to birds and riparian health.
"It can be really destructive if the [elk and deer] herds grow to too large in numbers," Stone said. "You start seeing a decline of all kinds of wildlife and biodiversity."

Wolves improve native vegetation by culling elk numbers and keeping herds on the move, she said.
"Keeping wolf numbers down below 500 seems to undermine the ecological benefits of wolves and their true recovery as a species," she said. "The wolf population itself should be managed so they are healthy, sustainable and interconnected."
Doug Honnold, an attorney for Earthjustice who has represented several environmental groups in defense of wolves, has argued in the past that the northern Rockies population should be between 2,000 and 5,000 in order to remain healthy.
In addition to the 220 wolves that will be killed this fall in Montana, federal officials will likely also shoot hundreds more due to livestock depredations and other disturbances, Stone said. Other wolves will likely be killed illegally and by vehicle collisions.

But Ream downplayed such concerns, noting that the planned reduction is only prescribed for 2011. Studies in Alaska and elsewhere have shown wolves can rebound from population declines of up to 50 percent, he said.
Wolves also have high reproduction rates and have been documented to move up to 120 miles, which enhances genetic diversity, Ream said.
Some have even argued that Montana's hunt will split packs up socially, allowing two females to breed instead of one, he said. "Their reproductive rate may go up," he said.
Moreover, northern Rockies wolves are biologically connected to a population of some 5,000 wolves north of the Canadian border, Ream said.
"People forget that the international boundary is not a wolf boundary," he said.

Living with predators
 
Montana officials are hopeful that state-managed hunts will encourage hunters and ranchers to accept wolves as part of the landscape, just as some have accepted other predators like grizzlies and mountain lions.
"I think the hullabaloo is going to die down over time," Ream said, citing the changing attitudes among some hunters and ranchers in the North Fork of the Flathead River, near Glacier National Park in northwest Montana. Wolves disbursed naturally to that region long before they were reintroduced to Yellowstone, and local residents began to view them much like they view other predators, he said.
"They aren't going to be universally accepted by everybody, but I think the level of rhetoric is going to drop considerably," he said.

Ranchers in the Blackfoot Valley in north-central Montana have also taken steps to deter wolf attacks by coordinating with FWP on pack locations, removing livestock carcasses and fencing in calving areas and beehives, both of which attract predators, said Gary Burnett, a rancher from Potomac, Mont., who leads the landowner group Blackfoot Challenge.
Not all ranchers are calling for the extermination of wolves, he said.
"If you follow that logic to the extreme and say you should get rid of all the wolves, well, the next thing you'd say is get rid of all the elk," Burnett said. "From a rancher's perspective, elk are a lot more economically damaging than wolves."
Stone, at Defenders, is working with ranchers in Montana and Idaho to encourage a variety of nonlethal methods of deterring wolves, including range runners, livestock guard-dogs, alarm systems and different types of fencing.

Wolf attacks tend to increase when ranchers leave livestock carcasses behind or graze near national parks, she said. And while wolves in Montana and Idaho routinely encounter livestock, preying on them appears to be a learned behavior, according to Montana FWP.
"If you kill wolves, you don't resolve the conflict, you just perpetuate it," she said.
Stone leads the Wood River Wolf Project in the Sawtooth wilderness of central Idaho. In its fourth year last year, the program lost one sheep out of more than 10,000 that moved through the area, she said.
Stone said attitudes have changed markedly since she helped reintroduce wolves into central Idaho in the mid 1990s. Her reintroduction team had federal marshals on hand to protect them from an expected ambush from residents in nearby Salmon, Idaho, she said.

FWP this year reported that the number of confirmed cattle deaths in Montana decreased to 87 in 2010, and sheep deaths fell to 64. Other confirmed livestock losses: 3 llamas, 2 dogs, 3 goats, 1 horse and 4 miniature horses, with other "probable" wolf kills.
About 140 wolves were killed, most of them by federal officials to prevent further depredations.
Hunting groups, while virtually unanimous in their support of a delisting, exhibit a variety of opinions on how to manage them.

Safari Club International and the National Rifle Association have filed a joint defense of the delisting in a federal district court in Missoula in a lawsuit by environmental groups claiming the congressional delisting violates the U.S. Constitution.
"There are some sportsmen who feel like the only thing to do right now is get rid of all wolves, and all management problems are solved," said Bill Geer, climate change initiative manager for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and an avid hunter. "Well, that's not the case."
Geer said he is disappointed with the decline in elk numbers in the West Fork of the Bitterroot, but, like Ream, cautioned against blaming wolves until more studies are carried out on the calf deaths.
"Wolves are one, but they're not the only one," he said. "Black bears love to eat elk calves, and so do grizzly. They're quite the morsel."

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Image of the Day

Grey's wolf, a photo by cynbb on Flickr.

News from Center of Biological Diversity.

Center Fights for Wolf Protections at Federal Hearing

Our fight to save America's wolves continued this week -- this time in a Montana courtroom. Center for Biological Diversity attorneys were in Missoula on Tuesday arguing that it was unconstitutional for Congress to strip Endangered Species Act protections from wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains. Specifically, we're in court challenging the rider that Congress attached to a must-pass budget bill in April. It marked the first time that an animal or plant has been removed from the endangered species list by Congress.

The rider required the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove federal protections for wolves in Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon and Washington, and northern Utah. While wolf numbers are strong in Idaho and Montana, state wolf plans call for drastic reductions in wolf populations, and wolves in Washington and Oregon have only just begun to recover. At Tuesday's hearing before a federal judge, senior Center attorney Amy Atwood argued that Congress overstepped its bounds in deciding the fate of wolves in those states. That's a decision best left to scientists, not politicians. The judge could issue his ruling as early as next week, and we'll keep you updated on the Center's next action.

Get more and watch a video on the hearing with the Center’s Noah Greenwald on NBCMontana.com-then read this piece in The Missoulian

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Anti-wolf Politicians Want to Strip Protections, Stop Challenges

Meanwhile, wolves in Wyoming and the Great Lakes are a step closer to losing protection. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted in support of an amendment that blocks the public from enforcing the Endangered Species Act's established provisions for wolves in those two areas. This anti-environmental rider has been added to the Interior Department's pending appropriation bill in Congress.

State agencies have proposed aggressive hunting plans that will reduce wolf populations once they're taken off the endangered species list. Legal challenges by the Center for Biological Diversity and others to illegal delisting by the Department of the Interior have been successful in the past; that's why anti-wolf politicians in Congress are trying to shut down any kind of judicial review or challenge of delisting decisions. This kind of provision sets a dangerous precedent by excluding citizens from one of the most important avenues to challenge decisions that violate the law and endanger species already struggling to survive.

Find out more about our national efforts to protect gray wolves

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Image of the Day

Young European Grey Wolf, a photo by SNOWFactory.com on Flickr.

Environmentalists, government debate wolf in court

By Lori Grannis

MISSOULA, Montana | Tue Jul 26, 2011 
 

(Reuters) - Environmentalists went to federal court on Tuesday seeking to restore endangered species safeguards for some 1,200 gray wolves in Montana and Idaho removed from protection by an unprecedented act of Congress.
Conservation groups say Congress exceeded its authority by intervening in an ongoing court case to remove the wolves from the endangered species list without bothering to amend the underlying law and by presuming to exclude its action from judicial review.

Jay Tutchton, a lawyer for several groups challenging the delisting, said lawmakers sought to take a "politically expedient shortcut" that violates the constitutional separation of powers between the courts and Congress.
But government lawyers said the delisting, tucked into a budget bill signed into law by President Barack Obama in April, effectively amended the Endangered Species Act by making a special exemption for wolf populations in the Rockies.
The gray wolf become the first animal ever taken off the endangered list by an act of Congress rather than through a process of scientific review.

Wolves were once hunted, trapped and poisoned to the edge of extinction, but their recovery in the Northern Rockies has brought them into conflict with ranchers, farmers and sportsmen who see the animal as a growing threat to livestock and big-game animals, such as elk.
Environmentalists say the impact of wolves on cattle herds and wildlife is overstated, and they fear removal of federal safeguards could push the wolf back to the brink of extinction.

The controversy has been especially heated in the Rockies, where gray wolves were reintroduced over the vehement objections of ranchers in the mid-1990s.
The estimated 1,200 wolves in Idaho and Montana remain under control of state wildlife agencies now devising management plans that call for killing hundreds of the animals, mostly through public hunting. About 300 wolves in Wyoming are still federally protected for the time being.

PROMPT DECISION

The two sides argued their case in a two-hour hearing in Missoula, Montana, before U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, who had ruled in favor of environmentalists last August when he struck down a similar delisting plan implemented in 2009 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Molloy ruled at the time that the agency had violated the Endangered Species Act by treating Montana and Idaho wolves differently from those in Wyoming. Molloy held that they all had to be managed together as a single population.

Molloy again rejected the delisting plan in April when it was presented as a negotiated settlement between the federal government and 10 conservation groups. Several other environmental organizations continued to oppose it.
Just days later, Congress voted to override Molloy's decision and put the Fish and Wildlife Service's plan into effect.

Government lawyer Andrea Gelatt said on Tuesday that Congress was entitled to effectively amend federal laws, such as the Endangered Species Act, by carving out exemptions to them, saying lawmakers may "speak by language of exceptions."

But Molloy, who promised a prompt decision in the case, pressed her on the question of restricting court oversight.
"Then why is it not subject to judiciary review?" he asked. "This indirectly says, 'We don't like the result of this, so we're reversing the court's decision and telling the agency to go ahead and do something illegal.'"
(Editing by Steve Gorman, Cynthia Johnston and Sandra Maler)

Source 

Improbable Research: Of Wolves and Men

A study of Slovakian shepherds and their sheep, and another comparing Austrian hunters with Austrian butchers

• Marc Abrahams
• guardian.co.uk
• Monday 25 July 2011 

The methods identified by researchers for protecting sheep from wolves may seem obvious, but apparently not to Slovakian shepherds. Photograph: Alamy
 
When you hobnob with Slovakian shepherds, don't mention wolves. A new study called Mitigating Carnivore-Livestock Conflict in Europe: Lessons from Slovakia, says: "Compared to other sectors of society shepherds had the most negative attitudes, particularly towards wolves."

Wolves are again roaming the forests of Slovakia. They were almost wiped out in the mid-20th century, then reappeared thanks to a 30-year moratorium on hunting. Now the small-but-growing wolf population has restored its tradition of helping local livestock go missing or be mauled.

The researchers, Robin Rigg and Maria Wechselberger at the Slovak Wildlife Society, Slavomir Findo at the Carpathian Wildlife Society, Martyn Gorman at the University of Aberdeen, and Claudio Sillero-Zubiri and David Macdonald at the University of Oxford, published their work in the journal Oryx.
They found that, mostly, wolves grab sheep near the edge of a forest, especially if the shepherds employ what the scientists call "ineffective methods (chained dogs and inadequate electric fencing)".

Experimenting, the team identified two effective methods: unchained guard dogs and adequate fencing.
As with much research, the obvious was apparently not obvious beforehand to all who needed to know about it.

That's the story with shepherds. Now, for people who kill lots of animals: hunters and butchers. A study by an Austrian/British/Malaysian team probes the psychological differences between them.
The monograph, Multi-Method Personality Assessment of Butchers and Hunters: Beliefs and Reality, appeared last year in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. The authors, Martin Voracek, Stefan Stieger and Viren Swami, learned, through direct questioning, that 102 Austrian university students feel hunters and butchers have "higher aggressiveness and masculinity". The students also seem to believe that hunters — but not butchers — possess unusually high self-esteem.

The researchers then studied 25 hunters and 23 butchers from rural Lower Austria, and compared them with 48 persons who neither hunt nor butcher.

First, they tested for hypermasculinity, using a survey technique that "gauges macho personality". They verified their findings "unobtrusively", by doing an analysis based on the relative lengths of each person's second and fourth fingers.

Then they used a standard test to measure each person's self-esteem. They double-checked by having each individual rate "the likeability of all letters of the alphabet", bearing in mind that "letters appearing in individuals' names, especially their initials, are rated more favorably than the remainder of the alphabet".
All told, the researchers "found little evidence for the factuality of" hunters or butchers having great masculinity, aggressiveness, or self-esteem.

(Thanks to Greg Wells for bringing the Slovakian shepherds to my attention.)
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize

Source

Row Rages Over Calls for Cull as Wolves Spread Across France

By John Lichfield in Paris

Tuesday, 26 July 2011

The wolf, pursuing its lightning reconquest of France, has reached the Vosges Mountains on the Alsace-Lorraine border for the first time in 80 years.

After two decades of pro- and anti-wolf battles between nature-lovers, shepherds and politicians, even some supporters of the grey wolf (Canis lupus) are growing alarmed by the rapid progress of the world's largest wild canine through the French countryside.

A mystery animal which has been attacking sheep in the Vosges since April has been identified by a remote-control camera as a wolf.

A handful of Italian wolves, which recolonised the French Alps around 1993, are thought to have multiplied to about 200 animals in 20 packs, reaching as far west as Cantal in Auvergne and as far north as Franche-Comté on the Franco-Swiss border, and now the Vosges. Within a decade, one expert predicted yesterday, the wolf could have ranged as far as the large forests just south of Paris.

A delegation of Alpine shepherds' leaders and local politicians will petition the environment minister, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, this week for the right to hunt wolves at will. Under the present rules, the wolf – protected under European law – can be shot legally only by government marksmen or by shepherds trained and licensed to defend their flocks from an actual wolf attack. 

In practice, since the "anti-loup" code was agreed in 2004, only four wolves have been killed in France. Shepherds' leaders want the rules changed to allow them to organise hunting parties.

Daniel Spagnou, the mayor of Sisteron in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, wrote a blistering open letter to Ms Kosciusko-Morizet earlier this month, accusing her of "blindly following" the advice of environmentalists and allowing sheep flocks in high alpine summer pastures to be "plundered" by wolves.

The French government authorised the official hunting and shooting of a wolf in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence last weekend after 62 ewes fell into a ravine while fleeing an attack. 

There have been 66 confirmed wolf attacks in France so far this year, compared with 86 in the whole of last year.

Pro-wolf groups say there is no evidence that attacks are "out of control", although some accept that the rapid spread proves tougher action is needed. Jean-Marc Moriceau, a wolf expert and the author of Men Versus Wolves, The 2,000 Years War, said: "We should organise a wolf parliament, bringing together shepherds, ecologists and government... We need a way of protecting flocks and managing the wolf population."

At the present rate of progress, Mr Moriceau said, wolves would reach the forests 50 miles south of Paris in 10 to 15 years. 

Until the late 18th century, long after the last wolf was shot in Britain, wolves lived just across the Channel in the Pas de Calais. However, Canis lupus is not expected to knock on Britain's door any time soon. Western and northern France is no longer wooded or wild enough to sustain them.

Source 

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Wolf, a photo by Saravanansuri on Flickr.

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Motomo, a photo by FurLined on Flickr.

Amendment delisting gray wolves faces court challenge Tuesday

By ROB CHANEY of the Missoulian | 

Posted: Monday, July 25, 2011

 

The congressional  rider removing gray wolves from Endangered Species Act protection faces a court challenge in Missoula on Tuesday.

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Clearwater and WildEarth Guardians together claim Congress violated the U.S. Constitution's separation of powers doctrine when it ordered the wolf delisted and blocked future court review of that decision.

In response, attorneys for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar say Congress has frequently rewritten laws to get around court rulings, and courts have endorsed the practice.
U.S. District Judge Don Molloy will hear both sides' arguments for summary judgment on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. in his Missoula courtroom. Center for Biological Diversity attorney Christopher Karr said each side will have an hour to make its claims.

Last August, Molloy ruled the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acted improperly by delisting wolves in Montana and Idaho but not Wyoming. He said the Endangered Species Act didn't allow such political boundaries to determine how a free-roaming species is managed.
In April, Congress passed a rider to its appropriations bill co-written by Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, directing the agency to reissue its 2009 wolf delisting order. Montana and Idaho wildlife authorities now manage wolves in those states, and have authorized wolf hunting seasons for this fall.

In their court filings, pro-wolf attorney Karr argued that the congressional rider was "the only time, in the ESA's nearly 40-year history, that Congress has legislatively delisted a species." That maneuver unconstitutionally interferes with the judicial branch's power to review congressional action and forces a court decision without changing the underlying law, he claimed.
In response, federal government attorney Ignacia Moreno cited numerous other examples where Congress passed laws that prohibited further judicial review.

"(N)othing ... precludes Congress from effectively pre-ordaining results in pending litigation by shifting the legal goalposts when the evidentiary football has come to rest," Moreno wrote. And while the rider didn't explicitly amend the Endangered Species Act, Moreno said it did legally change the way the act manages "a subset of a particular species, in particular regions."

The wolf advocates want the rider declared unconstitutional and the gray wolf returned to federal protection in Montana and Idaho.

 Source

Send a Letter of Protest via CBD

 

Dear Friends of the Wolf,

With a new anti-wolf governor in New Mexico, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is under pressure to resume trapping and shooting Mexican gray wolves -- even though only about 50 wolves survive in the wilds of Arizona and New Mexico.

In 2008, the Fish and Wildlife Service wisely, but belatedly, suspended trapping and shooting of wolves. Before that, many wolves had been killed or lost limbs to agonizing traps. The wolves have barely recovered since, and now they're counting on you to help defend them against a return to inhumane persecution.

Please write your congresspeople and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today and urge them not to revert to trapping and shooting Mexican wolves.

Click here to find out more and take action.

If you have trouble following the link, go to http://action.biologicaldiversity.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7420

 

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Sample letter to Secretary Salazar and your U.S. senators and representative:

Letter subject: Please, Don't Go Back to Trapping and Killing Mexican Wolves

I’m writing in support of endangered Mexican gray wolves. Please ensure that the Fish and Wildlife Service continues to exercise forbearance and work toward coexistence in the Southwest rather than reverting to the cruel and senseless wolf-removal practices of the past.

Recovery of endangered Mexican gray wolves in the Southwest was severely undermined prior to the suspension of wolf removals for depredation in 2008, by a program of federal trapping and shooting that suppressed the population and worsened its already-difficult genetic plight.

Depredations against livestock have consistently gone down since federal wolf removals ceased. That is the right policy and should not be reversed. Keep our lobos in the wild!

Thank you for your consideration.

---

Donate now to support our work.

 

Please take action by August 26, 2011. This action is restricted to U.S. residents.

Mexican gray wolf photo (c) Robin Silver.

Image of the Day

Wolf 18, a photo by Dan Newcomb Photography on Flickr.

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Wolf Weekly Wrap-up

Wolf Weekly Wrap-up

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 01:25 PM PDT

 

FWS Director defends Wyoming plan – Last week we reported that the Interior Department and State of Wyoming had reached an agreement in principle on a wolf management plan. This week, newly anointed Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Dan Ashe took the time to elaborate further on his blog

 

. As Ashe points out, the agreement does commit Wyoming to maintaining their wolf population “at or above recovery objectives.” But therein lies the problem. The “recovery objectives” set forth in the delisting rule forced through by Congress in April only requires states to maintain 100 to 150 wolves on the ground in each state—hundreds fewer than exist today in Wyoming. That target number is not backed up by any credible science and is a serious concern for all of us that have worked so hard over the years to restore wolves to the landscape. No other species is managed to such a minimal level, and wolves shouldn’t be managed that way either. Defenders will continue to advocate for a healthy and sustainable wolf population in Wyoming and across the entire region. Stay tuned next week for more details on Wyoming’s proposed plan, which would allow wolves to be shot on sight across most of the state for most of the year.


Check out this reader’s response to the Wyoming wolf plan in the Casper Star-Tribune

 

:

Respect for wilderness and wildlife is a keystone element of the Wyoming character. The plan tentatively agreed to by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar would allow wolves to be shot on sight across most of the state.
If this plan moves forward, the success of wolf recovery in the region would be threatened and future migration of wolves to other parts of their historic range will be effectively blocked.
Please let us insist on a better plan for Wyoming that recognizes human and wildlife concerns yet takes the long view for the benefit of all.
Let us set a higher standard and be an example for countries around the world.
–MEREDYTH COWLING, Wilson

 

Obama administration takes a stand for wolves – Finally, the Obama administration appears to be taking a stand for America’s wildlife, including wolves. A Statement of Administration Policy

 

released yesterday by the Office of Management and Budget expresses serious concern with a number of provisions included as part of the Interior appropriations bill headed for the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives next week. Its list of “problematic policy issues” includes an amendment introduced by Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) that would bar any legal challenge to final wolf delisting rules in Wyoming and the western Great Lakes.

“Gray Wolves. The Endangered Species Act expressly gives the public the right to challenge listing decisions. Restricting judicial review of any published final rule to delist gray wolves in Wyoming or the Great Lakes region from the Endangered Species Act would deny the public an opportunity to make sure that a future listing decision on gray wolves is based on science.”
ID finalizes hunt next week -  Don’t miss your last chance to weigh in on Idaho’s proposed wolf hunt for the fall. The Idaho Fish and Game Commission meets next week in Salmon to finalize the fall wolf hunting and trapping season with NO QUOTAS in much of the state. Click here to read the proposals.
Points to consider in your comments:

• Wolves play an important role in nature: they reduce disease in elk and deer herds, help disperse herds from overgrazing wetlands and meadows, which in turn helps protect native plants that provide vital habitat for other species like song birds, fish and beaver.
• The state should aim to protect these imperiled animals, not drive them to desperately low numbers.
• No plan should allow for inadequately regulated trapping, snaring or any senseless killing of wolves. Other species could be killed accidentally in improperly set traps and snares.
• Any wolf hunting plan adopted by the state should follow the principles of fair chase ethical hunting.
• And in order to ensure this is the case, any hunt should be delayed until October to avoid killing young pups.
• Poachers should be prosecuted. Wolf protection should be taken seriously and the state must actively prosecute poachers who break the law and senselessly kill wolves.

The commission needs to know that we care about these wolves and want them managed responsibly. Wolves are an important part of Idaho’s history and need to be protected. Since Idaho is an important travel corridor for wolves to connect to other states like Oregon and Washington, we need to do all we can to ensure the state’s wolf population is managed wisely. Send comments to: IdfgInfo@idfg.idaho.gov
IDFG is also soliciting public opinion through an online survey.  Unfortunately, the questions are almost impossible to answer if you support wolf conservation but there is a section for comments, if you wish to submit your feedback on the survey: http://www.idfgsurveys.com/idfg/

 

Read more about the Idaho wolf hunting plan at Idaho Mountain Express

 

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Get active for Washington’s wolves — It’s time again to howl out for wolves in Washington state.  A fourth wolf pack has been confirmed near the Alpine Lakes Wilderness only 90 minutes away from Seattle, lending further evidence that Washington state is still wild enough to support a keystone species.
The Washington Wildlife Commission is in the final stages of approving the Washington State Wolf Management Plan

 

. They need to hear from Washington state wolf supporters now!
 
Training workshop:  On Wednesday July 27^th, join Conservation Northwest at the Burke Museum in Seattle, WA to learn how you can become a Washington wolf advocate. Join a panel of regional wolf experts for a presentation on the status of wolves in the state and information on how WA state citizens can help recover Washington’s wolves.  Starting August 4^th Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife commission will begin taking public comments to finalize of the Washington Wolf Management Plan.

Living with Wolves in Washington State
When: Wednesday July 27^th, 7:00-9:00pm
Where: Burke Museum of Natural History, Seattle WA on UW campus, 17th Ave NE & NE 45th St
Info and RSVP: Kit McGurn, 206.675.9747 x 201, kit@conservationnw.org

One of Nature’s many cogs – Hayden Janssen penned a thought-provoking op-ed over at New West

 

this week that’s worth a read. Janssen is a hunter and a friend of many ranchers, but recognizes the wolf as a vital part of the West nonetheless. Here are a few excerpts: On the forgotten lessons of wolf recovery in Yellowstone…

Has the benefit of time not afforded humanity the opportunity to realize that meddling in nature, displaying our Roman thumb either up or down for each and every species, only serves to devalue our own existence?

On ranching…

The damages incurred by the ecosystem directly from the flood of cattle and sheep on public lands is far more detrimental to a biotic system than are any single group of predators.

On hunting…

A true hunter recognizes that he or she is a part of nature. And while it is easy to proclaim oneself the apex of nature while holding a rifle, this is not the case. Perhaps the reason that some hunters loathe the wolf so dearly is that when the bullets are gone, the hunter can no longer look down the food chain upon every species below.

On humans and nature…

Humans are merely a cog in the machine of nature. In the absence of an understanding that expresses this fact, we will surely continue to be the cog that destroys the machine, the snake that consumes its own tail, only recognizing the error of our ways once it is too late.

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Image of the Day

I wish my camera was as awesome as this wolf, a photo by Holly Ferocious on Flickr.

The Pups' Big Hunt

Wolf Hunting in the US to begin in September, 2011!!! Sign now to help!

 This is a repost from White Wolf Clan Blog

--absolutely, the best, hands down, blog about wolves, the environment, and current First People affairs. Don't miss it! And please add your signature to the petitions at the bottom of this post. Spread the word--we need everyone's help to stop this atrocity! 

Thanks, wiinterrr

Once again history is beginning to repeat itself when it comes to the wolves in the northern Rockies. By the 1940's the last wolves had been eradicated from the western states in the U.S. What would follow was a complete ecological disaster as exploding elk populations with no substantial predators began to alter the ecosystem by destroying the Aspen trees. With the Aspen trees reduced to mere stubs on the landscape, many of the other components of the area such as wildlife also fell into decline. When science finally finally figured this out, the decision to bring the wolf back prevailed.

However today as the fall hunting season approaches, an air of impending doom is hanging over the northern Rockies once again. The fate of the wolf hangs in balance as the state of Idaho has recently declared that it will be open hunting season of the wolf with no quotas being issued. It's neighbor, Montana has jumped on the band wagon also and set an unusually high quota of 220 wolves to be killed which would take out roughly 1/3 of the Montana wolf population. The state of Wyoming whose wolves were not allowed to be lifted from federal protection in the past is now working with Interior Secretary, Salazar to allow a state plan of shooting wolves on sight.

Have the governments in these states gone stark raving mad after all the lessons that were just recently learned in the last century? Well, some would argue that yes they have, but what it really boils down to is that the state politicians are guilty of pandering to the special interest groups that "butter their bread." In other words, the politicians have sold out the wolves and the environment that they live in for the short sightedness of political re-election and personal gain.

Those special interest groups consist of 2 segments of modern western life that have joined together to try to once again demonize the wolf without any real substantial proof. These 2 groups are the livestock ranchers and the sport hunters who have used wolf hysteria as it's main weapon of choice in the battle against the wolves right to be there. This vocal minority feels that their ideals of greed demanding for a wolf free environment far out way that of the logic of science with the need for an apex predator such as the wolf to keep the ecosystem in balance.

The slaughter will once again begin in the fall unless the people who support the need for the wolf speak out very loudly. Plans are currently underway to hold wolf rallies (Howl Across America) against the slaughter throughout the country in the month of August. Hope is also resting again in the upcoming judgement by Judge Molloy at the end of July that the wolf delisting recently passed was unconstitutional. This is being challenged because the new law permanently bans the judicial branch of the federal government from ever contesting it again. You can also help the wolves by taking a minute to sign the petitions below. Thank you.

WOLF PETITIONS :

STOP WOLF BLOODBATH IN IDAHO

Wolf Emergency: Wyoming Wolves To Be Shot on Sight

Sign petition to have America's wolves placed under federal protection PERMANENTLY!

@AMERICA WOLF CLAN

Image of the Day (Yesterday & Today) - Wolf Art

P1460773 Lamar Canyon Alpha Male 755, a photo by kittykat23uk on Flickr.

 

Four Years with Yellowstone Wolves

July 19, 2011 |  By Bonnie Stewart

Oregon State University

PBS "Nature" explores the secret lives of Yellowstone wolves.

If you missed “In the Valley of the Wolves” that aired Sunday on PBS’s Nature, don’t worry. You can watch the entire show and take-outs online. You’ll see:

• Wolves being wolves in the wild of Yellowstone National Park.
• Two packs fight for territory.
• A lone black wolf dubbed Casanova romances females from the Druid wolf pack.
• Elk tire during a hunt and succumb to the natural cycle of survival in the park.
• Coyotes, foxes and eagles feed on carcasses of left over wolf kills.
• Disease takes its toll on the young.
• A newly formed pack returns to the valley and the story begins where it ends.

Gathering the footage took time and the dedication of cinematographer Bob Landis, who has produced three films on Yellowstone’s wolves. He looks as serious as the wolves he films, full beard, glasses and a wrinkled brow.

“Usually I spend up to 300 days in the field, this is four years so multiply four times 300 and its about 1200 days of actual field time.  This is the only way you can get those unique sequences,” he says in a videotaped interview on the website.


What he has captured gives viewers an intimate, honest hour with wolves, each with a personality and story.
“It’s an animal that’s just part of the ecosystem. It’s part of the environment. It belongs here. It’s always been here, except when man removed it,” Landis says.

People eradicated wolves from Yellowstone in the 1920s, and brought them back to the park in 1995. Wolves also were killed off in the Pacific Northwest during that time and have been making a slow, calculated comeback.

Check out wolf policies in Idaho, Oregon and Washington State.

Source

Watch video here! 

"The Grey" Featuring Killer Wolves Unfortunately Draws Big Hollywood Interest

Michael dEstries

Remember that Liam Neeson vehicle we talked about in January called “The Grey”? The basic plot involves a a crew of oil-rig roughnecks left stranded after a plane crash in the frozen Alaskan tundra. That’s not the worst part though – apparently, they’re also being hunted by a pack of territorial rogue wolves. Here’s how director Joe Carnahan, who wrote the screenplay, explained this angle:

“The wolves have a territorial range of 300 miles, and they will run you out if you cross that,” says Carnahan. “If you’re within 30 miles of their den as is the case here, they will try to kill you. It’s simple arithmetic, but it creates an opportunity for one of those man vs. nature movies I love like Deliverance and Touching The Void.”


As mentioned earlier, if that sounds like bullshit, it’s because it is. While there have been plenty of documented wolf attacks, nobody has ever been reported killed by a wild, healthy one in North America. Sure, it may only be a matter of time (especially as we continue to encroach on habitats) that someone loses a life, but it’s not like there are killer wolves out there like Africanized bees waiting to pounce on you should you cross within 30 miles of their den or 300 mile territory. Commenter Art Greewalt communicated as much saying, “I’ve lived in Alaska over 40 years now and have encountered wolves in the wild well within a 100 yards of their den, if not closer,” he said. “All they did was sit and watch as I dressed out a caribou I had taken, knowing full well they would have access to the remains when I left. I was not and did not feel in any way threatened by their presence.”

“I don’t know where Carnahan got his information but I suspect, at best, it was off the back of a cereal box or maybe from some NRA publication,” he added. “It is the biggest load of manure I have ever read about wolves, especially when you consider most villages in the Bush are well within a few miles of wolf dens.”
So we’ve established that the film isn’t based on anything that could happen in real life – but will audiences see it that way? Distributor Open Road apparently is eager to find out and, according to Deadline, love what little they’ve viewed of the film.

“Open Road is in the final stages of acquiring U.S. rights to Joe Carnahan’s The Grey, and it’s shaping up to be a whopper of a deal,” said Deadline’s Mike Fleming. “The numbers I’m hearing are in the $8 million minimum guarantee range, with a $25 million P&A commitment and a gross corridor built in.” Fleming also added that the deal includes a release on as many as 4,000 screens – and that buyers think Liam Neeson’s performance may carry Oscar-buzz.

Whatever. I love nature/action flicks as much as the next guy, but with wolves losing federal protection in several states this year, the timing sucks. There should be public support for the protection of these great animals, not fear that taking a hike will lead to imminent doom. Hopefully Carnahan exaggerates the threat to a point where it’s obvious this is pure fiction. Otherwise, there’s going to be some serious damage control for organizations working hard to change public perception of the wolf.

Source

JULY 18, 2011

NY open-space group wins suit vs wolf rescuers

Associated Press

LEWISBORO, N.Y. — A group that protects open space from development has won a lawsuit against the Wolf Conservation Center in Westchester County.
The ruling blocks construction of wolf pens on a town-owned reservation in Lewisboro.
The center shelters and breeds red wolves and Mexican gray wolves. It wants more space for its public programs.
Lewisboro had offered land to the wolf center last year in a $1.3 million lease deal.
The Westchester Land Trust said activities such as soil grading, tree clearing and fence building are prohibited there. The judge agreed.
The Journal News says the wolf center had already secured a donor and a state grant. It still has the option of appealing.
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Online:
Wolf Conservation Center: Online: www.nywolf.org/

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Jamie Clark and His Championing for Wisconsin's Wolves

JAMIE CLARK | executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife | Posted: Saturday, July 16, 2011

 

Wisconsin has a conservation success to celebrate this summer — the recovery of the gray wolf in Wisconsin and Minnesota and Michigan. It marks one of many great turnarounds for wildlife under the federal Endangered Species Act for which an equal share of the credit goes to state leadership at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

The gray wolf had largely disappeared from Wisconsin by the 1960s and, when the nation’s first endangered species law was passed in 1967, the few remaining wolves in northern Minnesota and Michigan were added to the nation’s list of American animals at risk of disappearing forever. Wisconsin followed by protecting the wolf in 1975. Since that time, the wolf has had a phenomenal rebound. Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources has been leading efforts to recover the wolf since 1979 by conducting extensive monitoring and management activities, including managing wolf depredations of livestock. In 1998 when I was director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service we first proposed to remove the wolf from the federal endangered species list.
Defenders of Wildlife has been championing the conservation of wolves in America since our founding in 1947. Since 2007, we’ve proudly supported taking wolves off the list in the western Great Lakes because the population is at a level that scientists agree is secure and would likely be maintained at that level. In addition, the states, and Wisconsin in particular, have put in place management plans that give us confidence that wolves and human-wolf conflict will continue to be managed in a way that ensures the long-term survival of this keystone species and helps maintain healthy ecosystems in America’s northern forest landscape.

A different situation exists for a separate population of wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Defenders and many other groups have been working to restore wolves to the Northern Rockies for the last 30 years. These wolves are now providing significant benefits in the ecosystems where they live, including restoration of meadow and wetland habitats, and improved water quality in trout streams no longer overgrazed by elk. But we opposed their removal from the endangered species list for two principal reasons. First, although wolf numbers have increased, scientists have yet to agree on what size population constitutes recovery. Second, we are far from certain that wolves would remain adequately protected across the region. Management by some Rocky Mountain states, especially Idaho and Wyoming, would make it likely that the wolf conservation that taxpayers have supported for years could be reversed by high levels of trapping, poisoning and shooting. That is not an outcome the public should have to accept.

Thankfully, there is a much brighter future for Great Lakes wolves and the northern forests in which they play a critical role, because of the science-driven state leadership in the Great Lakes and the cooperation of farmers who have demonstrated that they can co-exist with even more wolves than occur in the Rocky Mountains. On behalf of our 35,000 members in the three-state region, we look forward to the formal announcement of the recovery of the gray wolf in the western Great Lakes.

Jamie Clark is executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife, a Washington-based nonprofit conservation group with more than 35,000 members in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan. She was director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 1997 to 2001.

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