An
opportunity for the American people to unite and demand wildlife
management reform and take steps to restore our national heritage
We are proud to announce that the next Speak for Wolves will take place July 15 - 17, 2016 in the Union Pacific Dining Lodge of beautiful West Yellowstone, Montana.
In the coming months, we will assemble the 3-day program and launch a
fundraising campaign. In the meantime, start making plans so that you
can join us!
Brett Haverstick
Organizer
Speak
for Wolves is an opportunity for the American people to unite and
demand wildlife management reform and restore our national heritage.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced that it will postpone its decision on continuing its red wolf recovery effort until next summer. This is the second time a decision on the future of the recovery program has been postponed since the Wildlife Management Institute
studied it back in November and raised serious concerns about the
program’s science and management. Defenders of Wildlife and other
conservation groups have gone to court to challenge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
on their irresponsible management of this critically endangered wolf,
of which only 50-75 individuals remain in the wild. But some good news:
Ben Prater, Defenders of Wildlife Southeast Director has been nominated
as a member of the Red Wolf Recovery Team. And as such, Defenders will have a seat at the table in future red wolf management decisions.
Scientists are marveling at a keenly evolved canine, not only
because of its physical qualities, but for the rapid expansion of the
population as well. One key question remains unsettled by biologists
with regards to the coywolf: Is it actually a different species?
In
the northeastern region of North America, a century or two ago, wolves
were in trouble. Humans were fundamentally altering their habitat,
chopping down trees and creating new farmlands for themselves. Wolves
saw fewer of their own kind, but more coyotes coming across the plains
as well as the farmers’ dogs.
Apparently the wolves liked what
they saw, or as biologists describe it, they had no other choice. What
resulted from their crossbreeding is being called “amazing.”
Instead
of a weaker offspring, what emerged was more advanced in seemingly
every sense. Dr. Roland Kays of North Carolina State University
described it as an “amazing contemporary evolution story that’s
happening right underneath our nose” to the Economist.
Dr. Kays
estimates that there are millions of coywolves populating eastern North
America, spreading southward from their original home in southern
Ontario.
Ecologist and evolutionary biologist Javier Monzon,
previously at Stony Brook University in New York, now at Pepperdine
University in California, analyzed 437 coywolves’ DNA and found the
genes to be about 65 percent wolf, 25 percent coyote and 10 percent dog.
The
physical traits are impressive. Coywolves weigh twice that of a coyote,
around 55lbs (25kg) or more. They’re able to, on their own, hunt deer,
or among fellow travelers capture a moose, thanks to their enlarged
jaws, increased muscle, and quickening legs. What’s spookier is their
howl, or yip, since the sound is reminiscent of both wolves and coyotes.
A YouTube video captures the nighttime call at 45 seconds in:
Beyond
the physical, their ability to adapt environmentally is also expanded.
Coyotes favor open spaces, but wolves do better with forestry.
Coywolves? They love both. And in the last decade, they’ve even sprung
up in cities like Boston, Washington, DC, and New York City. The Gotham
Coyote Project counts 20 of the hybrids in New York.
City-dwelling
isn’t so much of a challenge for the coywolves. They’ve been observed
looking both ways before crossing the street. They eat garden produce
and scraps as well as rodents or pets. Evolution has shown them a world
of flavors, and they aren’t picky. Lawns and parks make for great
hunting grounds, especially at night, which is when most choose to come
out. If a coywolf spots an appetizing cat, no part of it will go
undigested.
Controversy
over how to classify the coywolf is bound to grow. Jonathan Way,
founder of Eastern Coyote/Coywolf Research and author of Suburban Howls,
will claim the hybrids are so unique that they are their own species.
The
definition of “species” isn’t exactly clear. Some scientists say a
species is defined by its inability to reproduce with other species, and
since coywolves still mate with coyotes and wolves, that would seem to
disqualify them. However, that brings up the question of whether coyotes
and wolves are their own species themselves, since they certainly are
the genetic parents of coywolves.
by
Rachel Tilseth, the founder of Wolves of Douglas County Wisconsin
This is good news for a pack of wolves that were rearing their pups at the Colburn Wildlife Area in Adams county Wisconsin.
In news released on Friday October 30, 2015 in an article from WKOW Channel 27… “DNR carnivore specialist Dave MacFarland says no wolves were captured in traps.” “MacFarland says signs of wolf activity in the wildlife area included tracks, scat and disturbed tree bark.” “MacFarland says the wolves used the area as a rendezvous point as
part of pup rearing. He says it’s an activity that takes place in the
summer, and the wolves have moved on to other habitat.” “Officials say the wolves’ aggression was likely a product of their proximity to activity in the state preserve.” WKOW channel 27
The trapping of a pack of wolves in Adams County started back in
September 23, 2015 when a hunter
had an encounter with wolves. The
hunter according to the DNR may have stumbled into a rendezvous site.
A rendezvous site is where wolves place their pups while they are out hunting.
The hunter shot one of the wolves in self-defense and the wolf carcus
was never found. United States Fish & Wildlife Service did a full
investigation with no charges filed against the hunter from Friendship
Wisconsin.
Wisconsin wolves are on the Endangered Species List and are illegal to hunt.
You can read the hunters story of his encounter with wolves in The NRA American Hunter article click here.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and USFW determined
that the Friendship Wisconsin hunter’s encounter with a pack of wolves
in Adams county was not a wolf attack.
Areas of the Colburn Wildlife area were closed after a second
encounter occurred between a hunter and his son and the same wolf pack.
In a news article by Ryan Mathews of the Northwoods River News on October 30, 2015…
“DNR Large Carnivore Specialist David MacFarland said a second
encounter, which supports Nellessen’s claim, occurred Oct. 10 at the
same location as the Sept. 23 encounter. “An individual and his son were hunting during the Youth Deer
Hunt, and they actually were in the same exact location, down to the
tree, as the first incident,” MacFarland said. “It was the same
situation where wolves came uncomfortably close. Not the same
interaction that the first individual had, but wolves getting a little
too close and acting in a bold manner.” The Northwoods River News
The Department of Natural Resources followed protocal on these two
wolf encounters considering them to be a threat to human safety. “MacFarland said the USDA Wildlife Services, in consultation with
the USFWS and the property manager, has begun trapping in the area with
the intent to lethally remove wolves from the area. Despite being
protected federally, the state retains the authority to implement lethal
control methods if animals are deemed a threat to human health and
safety.” The Northwoods River News
David MacFarland DNR carnivore specialist.
No wolves captured in traps…
In news released on Friday October 30, 2015 in an article from WKOW Channel 27… “ADAMS (WKOW) — Trapping for wolves in a state wildlife area in
Adams County ends Friday, as wildlife specialists say the threat from
the animals appears over, after hunters had two frightening encounters.”
WKOW Channel 27
Wildlife officials believe the wolves have moved out of the Colburn Wildlife Area and are not a threat to human safety.
End
coyote killing contests in Nevada. Indiscriminate killing contests
enforce a mentality of violence, and that the unnecessary, gratuitous
slaughter of large numbers of animals is acceptable. Killing contests
have nothing to do with coyote management.
These
high-impact killing events rip family units completely asunder, leaving
pups without parents to raise them, meaning their chances of a normal
life are over and of survival are slim, at best. We like to think of
ourselves as civilized and yet nothing about killing contests is fair or
civil. Killing contests are simply murderous mayhem, using deceit in
the form of coyote calls to lure unsuspecting coyotes who would
otherwise never bother humans.
These contests leave unknown numbers of
animals - including other species shot as collateral damage - wounded
and left to die lingering, painful deaths. Why would anyone be in favor
of this horrific activity? Coyote killing contests may be a vestige of
frontier living, but we are no longer the uninformed settlers who
swarmed the West.
We have an opportunity and an obligation to protect,
conserve and coexist with the native wildlife we have left, including
coyotes. Give coyotes game listing and bag limits and end killing
contests.
A
male yearling from the Imnaha Pack was one of eight Oregon gray wolves
collared in 2013 by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The
agency uses signals from wolves' collars to track their dispersal
throughout the state.
(Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife photo)
The commission is twelve days away from a scheduled vote on the fate
of protections for Oregon's 81 known wolves. Typically, commissioners
vote in step with staff recommendations.
Thursday's recommendation marks the first time state wildlife
officials have given any public indication of their plans for Oregon's
wolves since the animals met a population target this year that
triggered a review of their endangered status.
Oregon's wolf plan directs the state to consider removing wolves from
the list once their population reaches four breeding pairs for three
straight years.
Wolf advocates, angry that staff made their conclusions before
reading through public comments that continue to amass in advance of a
Nov. 6 deadline, said they plan to submit a packet Thursday identifying
gaps in the state's science.
State biologists concluded wolves will continue to thrive in Oregon,
finding new range and growing more numerous regardless of whether they
remain on the list.
Failing to delist wolves, they argued, could erode public support for
the animals and the state's management plan, leading more people to
poach wolves and kill them legally.
But wolf advocates and several prominent Oregon wolf researchers
questioned the mechanism state biologists used to arrive at those
findings.
In testimony urging commissioners to keep wolves listed, a group of
scientists outlined the benefits wolves pose to the ecosystem and
questioned the parameters state researchers used to justify their
recommendation.
"Prematurely weakening gray wolf protections is likely to reverse
years of progress, put recovery in jeopardy, and exacerbate conflict,"
the 14 scientists wrote in the jointly-penned letter.
Amaroq Weiss, with the Center for Biological Diversity, contended the
department's own science refutes the idea that wolves aren't
endangered.
Oregon's wolves occupy about 12 percent of their available habitat in
the state, and about 6 percent of their historic Oregon range. Their
population is less than one-sixteenth the size Oregon State University
scientists have determined the state can sustain.
"There is no other species in the world for which you would say it's
only occurring in a tiny portion of its range, and yet it's not in
danger of extinction," Weiss said. "It's completely illogical."
The state wildlife commission is expected to vote on the future of wolf protections during a meeting Nov. 9 in Salem.
Previously, they've considered keeping wolves on the list, removing
them only in the eastern portion of the state where most wolves roam, or
removing them throughout the state.
If removed from the list, wolves would remain protected under the
Oregon Wolf Plan, which tightly controls who can and cannot kill a wolf,
and under what circumstances. Wolves in the western part of Oregon are
also protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.
In a statement, state wolf coordinator Russ Morgan said removing
wolves statewide stays true to the wolf plan, a 10-year-old document
that "envisions wolves being delisted as Oregon moves into the future
phases of management."
"Delisting allows the Plan to continue to work into the future," Morgan said.
Once the wildlife commission decides whether wolves should stay or go
from the list, they'll take a hard look at the plan, considering
possible changes to how the state manages its 81 known wolves.
Wolf advocates and enemies are already gearing up for a fight over the plan review.
Todd Nash, wolf spokesman for the Oregon Cattlemen's Association,
said Eastern Oregon ranchers are pushing for a delisting, but the real
battle will be over the plan review. Ranchers plan to lobby for greater
license to shoot wolves caught chasing their cattle.
Wolf advocates say they want more limitations on killing.
At present, Eastern Oregon ranchers can only shoot wolves under
certain circumstances, while ranchers in the Western part of the state
must first obtain a permit. The state can also shoot wolves after two
attacks on livestock.
"There's a frustration level that most of Western Oregon doesn't see
here in Eastern Oregon," Nash said. "We've had a few ranchers pay a
really high cost and would like to see more control for those people who
are being affected."
Last week, conservationists urged the commission hold off on a vote until outside scientists can vet the research
state wildlife managers used to back up their recommendation to take
wolves off the list. Failing to do so, they warned, would violate state
law.
The state has maintained its research meets state standards because
state scientists relied upon other peer-reviewed studies to arrive at
their findings. Rob Klavins, Northeast Oregon field coordinator for
Oregon Wild, argued that's not enough.
"This has been a politically-driven process from the beginning," he
said. "Maybe they're concerned that if they get an independent review,
it's not going to turn out the way they want it to."
In the near term, removing endangered species protections for
Oregon's wolves would change little about the way they're managed in the
state. However, if wolves continue to recover in Oregon, it could open
the door for controlled hunting and trapping to minimize wolves' impact
on livestock, deer and elk.
The wolf OR-7 is seen
on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in Southwest Oregon's
Cascade Mountains. (AP Photo/Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, May
3, 2014)
By The Associated Press
The wolf OR-7 became globally
famous when he took off from his Northeast Oregon pack four years ago
and wandered thousands of miles in search of a mate, his movement
tracked by a GPS satellite.
His actions now be much harder to track.
Wildlife officials say the collar that transmitted his location through satellites and radio signals has stopped working. “It all finally wore out,” said John
Stephenson, Oregon wolf coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service in Bend. “The battery died, basically.”
Without the regular information, biologists rely on trail cameras and in-person sightings to monitor him, Stephenson told the Bend Bulletin.
Knowing the electronics were close to
blinking out, state and federal wildlife managers made three attempts —
last summer, last fall and early this spring — to trap OR-7 or another
member of his Rogue Pack, said Mark Vargas, district wildlife biologist
for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife in Medford.
The hope was to replace the batteries and
keep the GPS data coming in and the radio signal going from OR-7 or
track the pack by collaring another one of the wolves. “We’d love to get a collar back on OR-7,” Vargas said, “but that didn’t happen.”
People around the world tracked OR-7 when
he set off from the Imnaha Pack four years ago, wandering thousands of
miles through Oregon, into Northern California and back. He found a
mate, settled in the Cascade Range in Southern Oregon and has had five
pups. None of the wolves in the pack has a working tracking collar.
Although not able to track and locate OR-7
like before, Stephenson and Vargas know where he and his pack roam. For
the past three years, the wolf and his mate have hunted and raised pups
around the Sky Lakes Wilderness Area between Prospect and Fort Klamath.
Now 6 years old, OR-7 left his pack when he
was 2. His three older pups, born last year, are full-size yearlings
and may set out on their own soon. “(It) wouldn’t be surprising if one of them took off this fall,” Stephenson said.
A remote camera image of young wolves on a carcass in Banff National Park in 2011.Parks Canada / For the Calgary Herald
Nearly three months after a pack of wolves first started hunting
around the Banff townsite, they continue to be
spotted along popular trails — even making treks into town.
In August, two of the five wolves chased and killed a deer on Cougar Street in the middle of the townsite. The new pack has since been spotted eating an elk calf along Vermilion Lakes and eating another elk along 40 Mile Creek near the popular Fenland Loop trail in late September.
In early October, they were also seen on a carcass along Sundance Trail. “There’s still been ongoing activity with the wolves in the last few
weeks, primarily around the periphery of the Banff townsite,” Steve
Michel, a human/wildlife conflict specialist with Banff National Park,
said Wednesday. “They have made small forays into the townsite at
times.”
However, he said they are primarily in the areas around the golf
course, Tunnel Mountain, the Cave and Basin, Vermilion Lakes and through
the Whiskey Creek area. “We’ve seen pretty consistent movement in all areas surrounding the townsite,” he said.
A grey wolf along 40 Mile Creek in Banff National Park.Parks Canada
There have been no incidents involving people, but the wolves have
been regularly spotted by residents and visitors as they feed on prey
such as deer and elk in some of those areas. “That’s totally normally behaviour for wolves,” he said, “but the unusual part is that it’s been in quite high-use areas.”
He said there’s a level of indifference by the wolves to high
human-use areas, but they aren’t approaching people or exhibiting any
aggression toward humans or pets in the townsite. “They’ve got a reasonable level of habituation,” he said, noting the
proximity to people does raise some concern — particularly when they are
feeding on an elk or deer close to a popular trail.
Michel noted the carcass could also attract grizzly bears as they feed before going into their dens for the winter. “With any predator, you could have a degree of a defensive response,”
he explained. “The other concern is that the more time they spend in
areas of high human-use, the more likely they are to have encounters
with people and the more likely they are to have a negative encounter
because people do something wrong.”
As examples, he said an off-leash dog could set off an encounter or food attractants could change their behaviour. “Typically, the rare instances where the wolves do get aggressive
toward people or make contact with people are often as a result of them
being food conditioned to human food or garbage,” he said. “Wolf attacks
on people are extremely rare.”
There’s no indication, however, that the wolf pack around the Banff townsite is being food conditioned. “Not at all,” said Michel.
Should anyone encounter the wolves, he said it’s important to keep your distance, your children close and your pets on a leash. Officials also ask any sightings also be reported to Banff dispatch at 403-762-1470.
A September incident in Adams County
in which a man said he was approached by three wolves was not an
"attack," according to an investigation by federal and state law
enforcement officials.
However, efforts are underway to trap and kill wolves at the public property where the incident took place.
The trapping was initiated after
Department of Natural Resources managers determined that wolves at
Colburn Wildlife Area presented a risk to visitors, said Dave
MacFarland, DNR large carnivore specialist.
A provision of the Endangered Species Act
allows lethal removal of "specimens which pose a demonstrable but
non-immediate threat to human safety."
The decision was made after consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MacFarland said.
"We've used (trapping and lethal removal)
before in compliance with our public safety response protocol,"
MacFarland said. "This one is getting more attention."
The trapping began Oct. 16; it is being
conducted by agents with the Wildlife Services division of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
As of Tuesday, no wolf had been caught, according to the DNR.
The trapping initiative falls in the wake of a Sept. 23 incident at Colburn, a 4,965-acre public property.
Matthew Nellessen, 34, of Friendship was
traveling alone on foot and scouting for a deer-hunting spot when he
said he was attacked by three wolves.
According to Nellessen's account, he shot and wounded one of the wolves with his .38-caliber pistol.
He reported the incident to the DNR.
State and federal law enforcement officers accompanied Nellessen to the
spot of the incident the following day.
A short blood trail was found, but no wolf, said Todd Schaller, DNR chief warden.
Nellessen was not charged for his actions. "Through a joint investigation of the
USFWS and DNR, and information we were able to obtain through the USFWS
interview, there will be no law enforcement action taken (against
Nellessen)," said Schaller.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is involved
because a federal court decision in December placed the western Great
Lakes population of wolves under protection of the Endangered Species
Act.
Illegally taking a specimen protected by
the act is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in prison
and up to a $100,000 fine.
Wisconsin had 746 to 771 wolves in 208 packs in late winter 2014-'15, according to the DNR.
The wolf population typically doubles in
spring after pups are born, then begins to decline because of various
sources of mortality.
The last three years, wolf mortality in Wisconsin included kills by licensed hunters and trappers.
The public wolf harvest was canceled for
the foreseeable future by the December 2014 judgment that restored
Endangered Species Act protections to the species.
With no wolf hunting or trapping this
year, some see the decision to remove wolves at Colburn Wildlife Area as
an offering by DNR executives to "wolf haters."
"While we would not oppose lethal
measures where problems wolves have been verified, in this case evidence
is insufficient," said Jodi Habush Sinykin, an attorney with Midwest
Environmental Advocates. "If law enforcement authorities say no attack
occurred, it leads us to wonder about the motivation of the effort to
kill wolves."
While the wolf trapping is being conducted, the DNR has closed two parking lots at Colburn.
Rachelle Blair of Lodi said she and her
husband were turned away from the property in mid-October. They had
grouse hunted at Colburn at least once a week this season until the
parking lots were closed.
"We have seen wolf signs at Colburn, but
haven't had any problems with wolves," said Blair, who hunts with her
1-year-old wire-haired pointing Griffon. "But we heard about the wolf
trapping and packed up and have gone somewhere else since."
Wolves have generally been expanding their range and numbers in Wisconsin over the last couple decades.
Adams County, toward the southern end of
Wisconsin's wolf range, has had two wolf packs since at least 2010,
according to DNR reports.
MacFarland said the Adams County wolves have not caused problems in the past.
As a result of Nellessen's encounter,
however, the DNR added a notation to its 2015 list of wolf depredations
and other incidents. The Oct. 1 update includes a check mark in Adams
County for a "non-livestock threat."
Two confirmed cases of wolf depredations
on livestock have occurred this year in the southern half of Wisconsin,
one each in Columbia and Crawford counties.
Nellessen's incident and the agencies'
handling of it have drawn added attention because, if confirmed, it
would have been the first verified wolf attack on a human in Wisconsin.
Since their investigation and interviews
found no physical contact with the wolves and no injury to
Nellessen,
law enforcement officials did not classify it as an attack. "It can become a semantic argument,"
MacFarland said. "No matter how it's described, it's a case where the
department is following its protocol following a threat to human
safety."
MacFarland said the trapping effort is being evaluated daily and results will dictate how long it continues.
Fish and Wildlife Service will consult some of its sharpest skeptics
Critics of NC program include hunters, landowners, conservationists The world’s only wild red wolves have dwindled to an estimated 50 to 75
By Bruce Siceloff
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service postponed for a second time
Tuesday a decision on the fate of its struggling effort to restore the
endangered red wolf in northeastern North Carolina.
Cindy Dohner, Fish and Wildlife’s southeast regional director, said an advisory team including critics and scientists will help the agency decide by summer 2016 whether to improve or abandon the 28-year-old red wolf recovery program
in five counties centered around wildlife refuge lands on the Albemarle
Peninsula. The effort has long been unpopular with farmers and deer
hunters in the region.
After a study by the nonprofit Wildlife Management Institute last November criticized the agency
for failures in science, management and public relations, Fish and
Wildlife said it would figure out what to do by June 2015. The decision
date was pushed off to December and postponed again Tuesday.
“We
do expect to complete this recovery strategy ... by summer 2016,” Dohner
told reporters in a telephone conference call from her Atlanta office.
“We know this is a very, very ambitious timetable.”
A ‘downward trend’
The
Fish and Wildlife program supports the world’s only wild population of
red wolves, whose numbers have plunged from a peak of about 130 in 2006
to an estimated 50 to 75 this year.
“The population has been on a
kind of downward trend for the last couple of years,” said Pete
Benjamin, a Raleigh-based Fish and Wildlife field supervisor. “We don’t
know all the reasons for that. We’re continuing some population modeling
to look at those factors.”
Officials logged 11 wolf deaths in the past 12 months, blaming at least four on gunshot and trapping. Fish and Wildlife said in June it had stopped releasing red wolf pups, born in captivity, into the wild.
Benjamin
will serve on the advisory panel along with landowners, scientists,
conservationists and a representative from the N.C. Wildlife Resources
Commission, which has called on the federal agency to abandon the
recovery program. The state agency says problems with the effort include
wolves crossbreeding with coyotes and straying onto private lands.
“Any
program that is successful requires buy-in, particularly in a program
that is operating largely on private lands,” said Gordon Myers, the
wildlife commission’s executive director, who joined Dohner for the
telephone conference.
Conservationists have said Fish and
Wildlife is failing to meet its responsibility to protect the animals.
Three conservation groups filed notice in September
that they plan to sue the federal agency for permitting landowners to
shoot wolves. Dohner said one of the three groups, Defenders of
Wildlife, also is represented on Fish and Wildlife’s advisory panel.
She
said the Fish and Wildlife review will address a contention by the
Wildlife Resources Commission that the red wolf is not a distinct
species. “There are a lot of different factors we are looking at,”
Dohner said. “People question the genetics of the red wolf. … The
service truly believes it is a species.”
I first heard of High Country Newsthis
past year from the copies stacked in the conference room of the
University of Alaska-Fairbanks journalism department, which is where I
taught this past year.
For starters I was delighted to find a
publication that covered the Rocky Mountain West, in any way, shape or
form. It’s based in western Colorado (Paonia, to be exact) and covers environmental, land use and public lands issues.
So I was interested in a recent piece on HCN’s site
that is an author interview: “Can studying morality help Yellowstone’s
wolves and bison?” There’s a photo of a wolf with the caption: "Majestic
spiritual icon, or religious abomination? Depends whom you ask."
Here are some excerpts from a discussion with sociologist Justin Farrell:
HCN:
It seems like wolves epitomize the “what is wildlife good for” debate.
Some outsiders assume that the people who hate wolves hate them for
economic reasons – they’re ranchers and hunters who are worried about
livestock and game. But you say people seem morally opposed to wolves.
What’s the source of that opposition?
JF:
One of the primary feelings I heard is that individual rights are being
infringed upon by the federal government. The reintroduced wolves came
from Canada, so there’s also the fact that people see the wolf as an
“immigrant” – a word that brings up a lot of connotations right now. The
wolf links to all sorts of other issues in American politics that go
well beyond the Yellowstone area.
HCN: People often oppose wolves in religious terms, too – it’s an animal that symbolizes man losing dominion over the earth.
JF:
People have this sense of a natural hierarchy with god at the top, then
humans, then other animals. Still, that wasn’t the strongest cultural
dimension I found. In fact, the pro-wolf movement had a much stronger
religious dimension. You hear this notion that by reintroducing the
wolf, you create a wholeness that goes beyond ecology. The language
isn’t overtly Christian, but it kind of follows the Christian narrative
about the fall and then redemption. The fall would be what humans did to
the wolves earlier, by exterminating them from the area, but now
redemption is possible, and we’ve got to seize this opportunity.
I
also noticed that people were much more spiritual when they lived
further away from the park. Those people tend to idealize the wolf more,
maybe because they’re not as connected to the on-the-ground
difficulties of dealing with the animal.
Am not sure what’s up with the use of “god” instead of “God” in the Q&A and I don’t think it was a typo, so if HCN wants to reach out to the religious folks and normal news consumers, they might want to bone up on Associated Press style.
Still,
it’s nice to see a secular publication try to bring spirituality into
their mix. The article goes on to discuss buffalo and how animal rights
activists are hesitant to bring up morality.
JF:
I call it religious muting. Out in the field, when they’re near the
buffalo, they talk in overtly religious terms. But when you get back to
camp, they’re much more “rational” – they sterilize any sort of
religious motivation. This is part of a larger trend in the U.S. of
moving toward identifying as spiritual rather than religious, or being
uncomfortable with religion because it’s come to be associated with the
Christian right or extremism.
New research shows that the loss of large animals
has had strong effects on ecosystem functions, and that reintroducing
large animal faunas may restore biodiverse ecosystems.
New research shows that the loss of
large animals has had strong effects on ecosystem functions, and that
reintroducing large animal faunas may restore biodiverse ecosystems.
Rewilding is gaining a lot of interest as an alternative conservation
and land management approach in recent years, but remains
controversial. It is increasingly clear that Earth harbored rich faunas
of large animals -- such as elephants, wild horses and big cats --
pretty much everywhere, but that these have starkly declined with the
spread of humans across the world -- a decline that continues in many
areas.
A range of studies now show that these losses have had strong effects
on ecosystem functions, and a prominent strain of rewilding, trophic
rewilding, focuses on restoring large animal faunas and their top-down
food-web effects to promote self-regulating biodiverse ecosystems.
A new study led by researchers from Department of Bioscience, Aarhus
University, published in PNAS today, synthesizes the current scientific
research on trophic rewilding and outlines key research priorities for
rewilding science.
"Reviewing the evidence from major rewilding projects such as the
wolf reintroduction to the Yellowstone National Park and the
Oostvaardersplassen experiment in the Netherlands, the study concludes
that species reintroductions and ecological replacements can
successfully restore lost food-web cascades with strong ecological
effects," says lead author Professor Jens-Christian Svenning, Department
of Bioscience, Aarhus University.
"Unfortunately, empirical rewilding research is rare and
geographically biased, with the scientific literature on rewilding
dominated by opinion pieces," supplements co-lead PhD Student Pil B.M.
Pedersen, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University.
As a key point the study highlights the need for the increasing
number of rewilding projects to include hypothesis testing and
science-based monitoring to help building a robust scientific basis for
rewilding as an important component of conservation and land management.
The study also concludes that rewilding may be affected by trophic
complexity (for example, functional variation among large herbivores)
and interactions with landscape settings and human activities, but that
these important complexities are poorly understood and should be
prioritized for future research.
"One major science gap is experimental rewilding studies on elephants
and other very large herbivores, as these used to be present in pretty
much all regions and ecosystems and have particularly large ecological
effects," says Professor Svenning.
Additional research prioritized listed by the study include
developing rewilding's global scope -- as large animals have been lost
everywhere -- and tools to reduce human-wildlife conflicts, to allow
realizing rewilding in a world densely populated with people.
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Aarhus University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference:
Jens-Christian Svenning, Pil B. M. Pedersen, C. Josh Donlan, Rasmus
Ejrnæs, Søren Faurby, Mauro Galetti, Dennis M. Hansen, Brody Sandel,
Christopher J. Sandom, John W. Terborgh, Frans W. M. Vera. Science for a wilder Anthropocene: Synthesis and future directions for trophic rewilding research. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015; 201502556 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1502556112
Wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995 after their elimination in the early twentieth century. Image: Steve Jurvetson/Flickr
With breathless enthusiasm, Marion Morberg recalled a summer encounter with wild wolves.
In
her truck, as she crested a hill near Thompson, Manitoba, she saw a
lone wolf walking next to the road. She pulled to a stop. The sleek
predator looked at her, walked toward the truck and crossed the road.
Then another appeared in her rearview mirror.
“I grew up in the
north, but I'm still in awe [of the wildlife],” Morberg said.
Thompsonites “had no idea that people are really scared of wolves,
because we're not.”
Morberg is the president of a local volunteer organization called Spirit Way. As British Columbia culls wolves in hopes of saving declining caribou herds, Idaho hosts an annual wolf-killing contest, and Europe struggles to reverse centuries-long persecution
of wolves, Morberg wants the world to know that Thompson not only likes
its wolves, but is aiming to become the Wolf Capital of the World—a
world-class centre for wolf-positive research, education and
eco-tourism.
With a population estimated up to 6,000, Manitoba is
likely home to more wolves than all the contiguous United States, which
has roughly 5,600,
according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Locals speculate the
acceptance of wolves may be because northern Manitoba is not farm
country, so wolves are not in conflict with livestock owners, an issue
that reinforces negative feelings toward wolves in other places.
Moreover, local indigenous traditions promote respect for the wolf,
which is regarded as an equal or brother.
Thompson's 10-storey high wolf mural is the largest lighted mural in the world. Image: Travel Manitoba/Flickr
Morberg’s
team was in Winnipeg in late October to present their Wolf Capital of
the World project to some of the 1,500 wildlife students and
professionals attending The Wildlife Society’s annual conference.
Spirit Way is seeking partners and sponsors for a $4.5 million Boreal
Discovery Centre and a wolf centre of excellence that would promote
wolves as an economic and ecologic asset, and demonstrate best practices
in everything from wolf science to policy. It also hopes that Thompson,
roughly 700km north of Winnipeg and deep in the Boreal forest, can shed
its image as a 1960s mining town and stimulate a robust tourist
economy.
The idea to become the wolf capital hatched unexpectedly
in 2005. Spirit Way had been founded as a finite three-year project to
simply “give the community some bragging rights,” said project
coordinator Volker Beckmann. The group commissioned a 10-storey high
mural based on “Wolf Sketch,”
a painting by Canada's premier wildlife artist Robert Bateman. The
largest lighted mural in the world, it evoked an outpouring of positive
public response.
“You can see it a mile away across the river at
night, this glowing wolf,” said Beckmann, who is a graphic design
consultant by day.
Spirit Way then produced another public-art
project, a series of 53 sponsored, artist-painted wolf sculptures. One
thing led to another, and the group found itself invited to a 2009
carnivore conference in Denver, Colorado, where the group started to
receive invitations for education and research partnerships. In 2011,
Spirit Way started the Wolves Without Borders
education program that teaches conservation and unpacks myths about
wolves for school kids in Canada, the US and Mexico. It hopes to take
the program global.
“We began to see the potential for what we could do with wolves,” said Beckmann.
Wolves draw an estimated 94,000 people annually to Yellowstone National Park, contributing $35.5 million to local economies
In
2012, Spirit Way presented Manitoba Conservation with a discussion
paper on its plans for a “wolf economy” and hosted its own international
wolf and carnivore conference in Thompson, attracting 100 attendees,
including top wolf biologists. It is also working on a four-year study
with Memorial University’s Dr. Alistair Bath,
a human dimensions expert who has worked on human-wolf controversies
around the world, to determine what a “wolf centre of excellence” should
be from the perspective of all community stakeholders.
So far the
group has raised nearly $1 million for its projects, and work on the
Boreal Discovery Centre—an overhaul of the Thompson zoo that will focus
on flora and fauna of the Boreal forest—is underway.
Because of
the thick forest cover, viewing wolves for research or tourism could be
challenging, but technology is helping overcome that. Research methods
are changing “at a rapid pace,” said Rob Schultz, executive director of
the International Wolf Center in Minnesota.
“Researchers can be
sitting in an office and be watching what's happening on Ellesmere
[Island] with GPS collars. There is talk of using drones,” Schultz said.
“Technology changes the way researchers can look at a species, and it
means that you don't necessarily need a barren landscape.”
Speaking at the conference, Keith MacDonald, president of the Thompson Chamber of Commerce
said he also hoped wolves “could be an untapped economic engine” for
the city. Wolves draw an estimated 94,000 people annually to Yellowstone
National Park, contributing $35.5 million to the economies of Wyoming,
Idaho and Montana, according to a 2008 study. Other studies have found that wolves have a positive economic impact in North Carolina and parts of Arizona and New Mexico.
But creating a product around an animal that really doesn't want contact with people is an inherent challenge.
For
starters, Thompson will need mom-and-pop tour operators, such as those
that operate in Churchill, Thompson's northern neighbour, Beckmann said.
They take visitors on northern safaris to see polar bears and beluga
whales. Already Manitoba’s northern region attracts upwards of 400,000 visitors
annually, according to Travel Manitoba. “We're looking for someone to
tell you the stories, take you into the forest, show you some wolf
tracks,” he said.
Morberg is already organizing tours for August
2016. A wolf-behaviour expert will guide participants in the Paint
Lake-Ospwagon Lake area to hear, if not see, wolves by performing wolf
calls.
“I think images from that community, when they're seen by
people in other parts of the world, they truly do inspire people,” said
Rob Schultz, noting that the International Wolf Center
has been sharing Thompson's wolf-project updates to its worldwide
membership. He’s impressed by the city’s “real, true acceptance of
wolves, of their being part of the environment, that we're not seeing in
other parts of the world.”
If Spirit Way can keep its momentum,
Thompson may not only become synonymous with wolves—it may also do a
loved and loathed creature a lot of good.
The National Park Service has published its final rule on hunting in
Alaska’s national preserves, turning a corner in a long-running tussle
with the state. While most state hunting rules continue to apply, the
Park Service is now enacting a permanent ban on several controversial
hunting practices allowed under state law. The new Park Service ban
includes using artificial lights to shoot black bears in the den, and
using bait to hunt bears.
Bruce Dale, the state’s director of Wildlife Conservation, says the
banned methods are not common hunting practices, and the state doesn’t
allow them everywhere. But he says the new federal rules will
still hurt certain hunters. And, Dale says, it’s a federal incursion
on the legal right of the state to manage its own fish and game.
“It’s a problem for us,” Dale said. “We’ve been given the authority
to be the primary managers and we take that very seriously, and we think
we’re good at it.”
Dale says the state is considering its next move.
The new rules apply to sport hunting on 20 million acres of preserve
land, managed by the National Park Service. They don’t change federal
subsistence rules, and don’t apply in National Parks themselves, where
sport hunting is illegal. The feds say they are really re-imposing bans
on methods the state used to consider illegal, including harvesting
wolves and coyotes in denning season, when their pelts aren’t valuable.
When the rule was pending, it drew more than 70,000 public comments.
Jim Stratton, the newly retired Alaska director for the National
Parks Conservation Association, is delighted to see the final rule.
“Literally, … I was doing backflips,” he said. “I’ve been working on this issue for over 10 years.”
Stratton says the state Board of Game has allowed hunting methods
that are incompatible with the mission of the Parks Service, the agency
in charge of managing the national preserves.
“Bear snaring and bear baiting and spot lighting bears – you know, shooting Boo-Boo when he’s taking his winter nap in his den — that just doesn’t have any place in lands managed by the National Park Service.”
At the heart of the issue is a conflict over the point of wildlife
management. By law, the state’s goal is “sustained yield” –basically,
keeping moose and caribou numbers high enough for hunting, sometimes by
shrinking bear and wolf populations. But the National Park Service
tries to preserve natural ecosystems, and spokesman John Quinley says
its policies prohibit manipulating natural predator numbers to favor
prey.
“Our mandate from Congress is different than the state of Alaska’s.”
Rod Arno, a hunting advocate and director of the Alaska Outdoor
Council, says he suspects this is just the beginning of a federal power
play. Arno says the feds are starting by banning rare practices, like
using lights to kill bears in the den, because they’re not popular.
“That is such a small group that would ever participate in that, that
there would be very little draw,” Arno said. “And the other thing is
that people, when they hear those things, most people who aren’t
subsistence users, they look at hunting and they’re always concerned
about fair chase.”
Arno says killing bears in the den is a traditional practice in parts
of the state, and using a flashlight is a safety measure. Now that the
rule is finally published, Arno says he hopes the state will challenge
it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Scene was broadcast as part of Human Planet series but viewers were not told
that the scene was faked
The BBC has admitted that the semi-domesticated wolf had been let off a lead just off cameraPhoto: Alamy
By
Victoria Ward
27 Oct 2015
The BBC has again been forced to admit
that a scene from a documentary series was faked after producers failed
to find any wolves to film on location.
The footage, broadcast as part of the acclaimed Human Planets series,
saw two Mongolian camel herders firing shots in the direction of the
so-called wild animal as it tore across the plains of the Gobi desert
before discussing their frustration when they failed to kill it.
But the BBC has admitted that in fact, the semi-domesticated wolf had
been let off a lead just off camera and was simply running to its
handler, who was out of shot.
The documentary, Deserts: Life in the Furnace, was created by the same BBC producer behind thefaked footage of a volcano eruptionin its new natural history series Patagonia: Earth’s Secret Paradise.
A still from the 'dirty volcano' episode of Patagonia: Earth?s Secret Paradise Photo: BBC
That programme, broadcast in late September, purported to show a “dirty
thunderstorm” above the Calbuco volcano in southern Chile, with flashes
of lighting within clouds of ash. But earlier this month, the BBC was
forced to admit that the scene was actually created by using footage
from two different eruptions four years apart.
The latest fakery
embarrassment, reported by The Times, was initially denied by the
producers but the BBC Natural History Unit investigated the allegations
and confirmed that the wolf footage was staged.
"We have been
made aware of concerns relating to scenes of camel herders using a
semi-domesticated wolf in a sequence filmed six years ago for Human
Planet," the BBC said. "We take any breach of editorial
standards extremely seriously and have looked into the matter. We now
believe the sequence did not meet the BBC's high editorial standards. Since this programme was broadcast in 2011, we have strengthened our
guidelines further and introduced mandatory safeguarding trust training
for all production staff."
Dale Templar, who is now managing director of One Tribe TV, was the
series producer and Brian Leith, who now has his own film company, was
the executive producer but both were said to have claimed that they knew
nothing of the incident when first approached.
403-762-1470.
For starters I was delighted to find a
publication that covered the Rocky Mountain West, in any way, shape or
form. It’s based in western Colorado (Paonia, to be exact) and covers environmental, land use and public lands issues.
For starters I was delighted to find a
publication that covered the Rocky Mountain West, in any way, shape or
form. It’s based in western Colorado (Paonia, to be exact) and covers environmental, land use and public lands issues.
A wolf carrying a caribou leg. (File photo: NPS)
