I have been an admirer of
wolves since I was a small girl. When they were returned to Yellowstone
National Park I was thrilled and have made an annual trip to the park to
seek out these majestic animals in this wonderful wilderness area.
I am very concerned to learn that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
is bowing to the pressure from livestock growers and are currently
considering taking wolves off the endangered list. The number of wolves
in the U.S. is just now beginning to reach a small level of success.
They are vital to assure the natural environment in our parks and
wildlife areas have an appropriate balance of all species.
Why is it necessary to delist these natural predators? Why is it
necessary to hunt wolves in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Idaho,
Wyoming and Montana? Is it for “sport”? It certainly is not out of fear
for humans being in harm’s way of wolves, as they typically avoid man
unless they are baited into a trap.
Hunters and ranchers want to
perpetuate the misconception that wolves will attack people. There is no
data to verify wolves hunt or attack people, however but we have
allowed them to be included in legal hunting seasons. Is this to so
people can brag they “bagged” a wolf? What a sad statement that makes
about humans and how we take care of the animals that share the land
where we all live.
It will be another dark day in the history of the U.S. environmental
policy if wolves are allowed to be removed from the Endangered Species
Act. Will we then let all animals become extinct so the only way our
grandchild will see them is from a book or computer pictures? I strongly
urge you to keep the wolves in our lives and on the Endangered Species
list so we do not lose any more of these intelligent animals.
— Patricia Pierce, Flossmoor
source
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
Thursday, August 1, 2013
New wolf pups in northeastern Oregon caught on camera
Remote camera photo from July 21, 2013, documenting three pups in Oregon's newly formed Mount Emily pack.
(Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife)
By
July 30, 2013
A remote camera documented the trio of youngsters scampering across a road on July 21 , but there could be more pups, said ODFW spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy. Their parents were first spotted in April in the Mount Emily Game Management Unit of Union County, northwest of Summerville.
Dennehy said biologists so far this year have confirmed reproduction in seven known Oregon wolf packs: in the Imnaha, Minam, Mount Emily, Snake River, Umatilla River, Walla Walla and Wenaha packs. The exact number of pups remains unknown.
"Wolf packs fluctuate so much during the year," she said. "We will do our next official count at the end of the year."
Last May, the department's census revealed Oregon had at least 46 wolves, said Dennehy. Shortly afterward, a male gray wolf known as OR-7, famous for his 750-mile trek across Oregon to Crater Lake National Park and south into California, returned to Oregon. OR-7 currently is believed wandering the back country of Jackson and Klamath counties, said Dennehy. "He's been seen a few times, but has not been observed with a mate," she said.
OR-7 began his trek on Sept. 10, 2011 near Joseph in Wallowa County. A Eugene-based environmental group called Oregon Wild sponsored a children's contest that drew entrants from around the world and changed OR-7's name to Journey.
OR-7 became the first wild wolf since the 1940s to take up residence in the Oregon Cascades, and the first in almost 90 years to be recorded in California.
source
Wolf man of the mountains with 80 wolves
Updated: 2013-08-01
Yang Changsheng, 68, began raising the predators six years ago. At first, nobody supported his "career."
 |
|
A
wolf stares out into Wild Wolf Valley in Urumqi, Xinjiang, July 19,
2013. The wolf was once bitten by a fox and he waited for days for
revenge and bit one of the fox's legs off. [Photo/CFP]
|
"Wolves are intelligent and loyal. They are nice to you as long as you treat them well," said Yang.
In 2008 he applied for a license to raise wolves and now he has an area of more than 20 hectares with more than 80 wolves. It is now the biggest wolf raising base in China, dubbed "Wild Wolf Valley".
His daughter Yang Jie and her husband also help him with the work. Yang built a holiday resort where people can visit the wolves. Besides, he sells teeth, fur and specimens of the animal.
Now, they share a wish to enroll some college graduates who study wolves. "The wolves need more professional care," said Yang Jie.
Two wolves welcome their master in Wild Wolf Valley in Urumqi, Xinjiang, July 19, 2013. [Photo/CFP]
A Tibetan mastiff, a fox and a wolf cub play in Wild Wolf Valley in Urumqi, Xinjiang, July 19, 2013. [Photo/CFP]
Yang Jie greets with a wolf in Wild Wolf Valley in Urumqi, Xinjiang, July 19, 2013. [Photo/CFP]
Visitors watch a wolf in Wild Wolf Valley in Urumqi, Xinjiang, July 19, 2013. [Photo/CFP]
Wolf changes kick in
Posted: Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Wolves as a whole gain a little more protection while livestock
producers gain a degree of certainty that chronic depredators will be
killed under Oregon's revised wolf management plan, now fully in gear
with Gov. John Kitzhaber's signature on required legislation.
On July 19, Kitzhaber signed HB 3452, a measure championed by the local area's Rep. Bob Jenson (R-Pendleton) and Sen. Bill Hansell (R-Athena). In a related move a couple of weeks earlier, the state's Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted a new, permanent Oregon Administrative Rule for wolf management to replace a temporary rule wildlife managers had been using while practices in the field were under court challenge.
In fall of 2011, Oregon Wild and Cascadia
Wildlands led a coaliton of conservation groups that filed suit against
the State of Oregon over its lethal control practices for gray wolves.
In conjunction with the suit, the groups obtained a court injunction
halting the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife from killing wolves
while the case remained unresolved.
In May 2013, conservationists, the state, and the Oregon Cattlemen's Association reached a settlement agreement ending the year-and-a-half-old suit. The new management rule and language inserted into HB 3452 were both part of the agreement's implementation.
All of this stuff goes back to that settlement,” said Rod Childers, who chairs the cattlemen's association's wolf committee.
Under the new rule, state wildlife officials must observe a higher threshold for declaring a wolf eligible for lethal take. ODFW must confirm four qualifying incidents within a six-month time frame. Previously, the requirement was two qualifying incidents in no specified time frame.
Similarly, ODFW also faces a new 45-day limit for carrying out any lethal take order. The orders had no expiration previously.
Additionally, the new rule tightens requirements for having non-lethal control measures in place before counting any attacks on livestock as qualifying incidents.
Ranchers, on the other hand, now have greater latitude for acting against wolves that have been attacking or harassing their livestock. A key provision of HB 3452 allows stock owners to kill wolves without a state permit, but only under circumstances that are narrowly defined.
They got the ability on their own discretion to shoot a wolf that they reasonably suspect of harassing or attacking their livestock, … but if they do, their action has to stand an investigation,” said Wally Sykes, a member of Wallowa County's wolf compensation committee and a member of Oregon Wild. “From the conservationists' standpoint, this is a major (compromise), … because we're relying on the honesty of the ranchers.” He added that he believes there has lately evolved “a new element of trust between conservationists and livestock operators.”
As all pieces of the new agreement were coming into effect, Childers said parties understood that the Imnaha pack, responsible for all but a few of Oregon's confirmed wolf attacks on livestock, was currently at the three-strikes mark of the four qualifying incidents required before a pack could be subjected to lethal measures. “If there's one more depredation, which would make four,... then they can lethally take wolves out of the Imnaha pack,” Childers said on July 17, referring to ODFW.
Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf coordinator, said lethal control's goal is “to stop depredation. It's not like a sentence, if you will.” He later added: “Lethal control is not retribution or it's not population control.”
And however much ODFW would prefer to identify individual wolves that kill livestock, that's apparently not a limitation on ODFW's ability to take wolves, once a pack gets to four strikes. “If lethal control should become necessary for that pack, we would try to use every bit of information that we have to target the wolves that are depredating,” Morgan said. However, he added, “It's not a requirement of the rule to have identified a culprit or a depredating wolf... In some cases, we do know, and when that happens, it's very helpful... Sometimes we know which members of the pack it's not.”
In addition to other changes it introduces, the revised wolf plan calls upon ODFW to designate boundaries for an “Area of Depredating Wolves” within 14 working days of a group of wolves' first confirmed livestock kill. Concurrently, the agency will prepare an “area-specific wolf-livestock conflict deterrence plan” in coordination with landowners, livestock producers and other affected parties. This, and other information about wolf management will be posted on ODFW's website, which will see increased use in this regard, in line with the settlement agreement.
source
On July 19, Kitzhaber signed HB 3452, a measure championed by the local area's Rep. Bob Jenson (R-Pendleton) and Sen. Bill Hansell (R-Athena). In a related move a couple of weeks earlier, the state's Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted a new, permanent Oregon Administrative Rule for wolf management to replace a temporary rule wildlife managers had been using while practices in the field were under court challenge.
In May 2013, conservationists, the state, and the Oregon Cattlemen's Association reached a settlement agreement ending the year-and-a-half-old suit. The new management rule and language inserted into HB 3452 were both part of the agreement's implementation.
All of this stuff goes back to that settlement,” said Rod Childers, who chairs the cattlemen's association's wolf committee.
Under the new rule, state wildlife officials must observe a higher threshold for declaring a wolf eligible for lethal take. ODFW must confirm four qualifying incidents within a six-month time frame. Previously, the requirement was two qualifying incidents in no specified time frame.
Similarly, ODFW also faces a new 45-day limit for carrying out any lethal take order. The orders had no expiration previously.
Additionally, the new rule tightens requirements for having non-lethal control measures in place before counting any attacks on livestock as qualifying incidents.
Ranchers, on the other hand, now have greater latitude for acting against wolves that have been attacking or harassing their livestock. A key provision of HB 3452 allows stock owners to kill wolves without a state permit, but only under circumstances that are narrowly defined.
They got the ability on their own discretion to shoot a wolf that they reasonably suspect of harassing or attacking their livestock, … but if they do, their action has to stand an investigation,” said Wally Sykes, a member of Wallowa County's wolf compensation committee and a member of Oregon Wild. “From the conservationists' standpoint, this is a major (compromise), … because we're relying on the honesty of the ranchers.” He added that he believes there has lately evolved “a new element of trust between conservationists and livestock operators.”
As all pieces of the new agreement were coming into effect, Childers said parties understood that the Imnaha pack, responsible for all but a few of Oregon's confirmed wolf attacks on livestock, was currently at the three-strikes mark of the four qualifying incidents required before a pack could be subjected to lethal measures. “If there's one more depredation, which would make four,... then they can lethally take wolves out of the Imnaha pack,” Childers said on July 17, referring to ODFW.
Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf coordinator, said lethal control's goal is “to stop depredation. It's not like a sentence, if you will.” He later added: “Lethal control is not retribution or it's not population control.”
And however much ODFW would prefer to identify individual wolves that kill livestock, that's apparently not a limitation on ODFW's ability to take wolves, once a pack gets to four strikes. “If lethal control should become necessary for that pack, we would try to use every bit of information that we have to target the wolves that are depredating,” Morgan said. However, he added, “It's not a requirement of the rule to have identified a culprit or a depredating wolf... In some cases, we do know, and when that happens, it's very helpful... Sometimes we know which members of the pack it's not.”
In addition to other changes it introduces, the revised wolf plan calls upon ODFW to designate boundaries for an “Area of Depredating Wolves” within 14 working days of a group of wolves' first confirmed livestock kill. Concurrently, the agency will prepare an “area-specific wolf-livestock conflict deterrence plan” in coordination with landowners, livestock producers and other affected parties. This, and other information about wolf management will be posted on ODFW's website, which will see increased use in this regard, in line with the settlement agreement.
source
Run with the wolves in Algonquin
Park rangers at Algonquin howl into the night air to connect with a wolf pack in the park....then get the public involved in the wild conversation.
Photograph by: Handout photo , Ontario Parks
He’s armed only with his voice.
He plants his feet, turns his face to the star-filled sky, cups his hands around his mouth and let’s out a blood-curdling howl. He waits in silence.
About 15 seconds later a dozen adult wolves answer his call with their own chilling howls. Plus, there are the sharp, cute chirps from the three-month-old wolf cubs staying up late with their parents.
Stronks marks the spot on his topographical map. The next night he’ll bring 1,600 city folk out into this pitch blackness with a billion stars above, so they too can experience the thrill of wolves howling in the wilderness.
Algonquin’s wolves have been talking to humans for nearly 50 years. Hundreds of thousands of visitors have ventured each August into the 1.8 million-acre wilderness park in Northern Ontario, 300 kilometres north of Toronto, to exchange howls with the park’s estimated 350 wolves.
Each Thursday night until Labour Day, people staying in the park’s eight different camp grounds, plus wolf enthusiasts who drive hundreds of kilometres just for the event, gather at the park’s outdoor amphitheater to hear about wolves from Algonquin Park naturalists, or Stronks, the park’s chief naturalist.
The big bad wolf that ate your grandma in one big gulp is not part of the story. Algonquin’s wolf howl was started in 1963 when the Ontario Government decided that wolves in the wilderness were an asset and not vermin with a bounty on their head.
To ban wolf hunting and trapping in the huge park and later in counties adjacent to the park, Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources had to persuade the public that wolves are not the devil incarnate. Plus, they needed a survey to estimate how many wolves live in the park. The public wolf howls – preceded by wolf education lectures – helped both campaigns.
Wolves today are the Prince Charmings among Ontario’s wilderness fauna.
It’s mostly Eastern Wolves – also known as Eastern Canadian Red Wolves – that dominate Algonquin today, but it used to be the kingdom of the bigger Gray Wolf. But the anti-wolf campaigns in the first half of the last century eventually drove the Gray Wolves further north. That in turn persuaded white tail deer to emigrate from the north U.S. into Algonquin and region because their fiercest predator had left the neighbourhood.
The smaller Red Wolf then followed the deer north from the U.S. and took over Algonquin. The different life styles of different breads of wolves are explained by Stronk and other park naturalists at the amphitheatre’s wolf seminars.
Algonquin’s wolves caused a NORAD security alert one August.
Satellites notified military staff in Colorado’s Cheyenne Mountain - where NORAD monitors all air traffic entering North America from the north watching for unwelcomed missiles or bombers – that a slow moving unidentified flying object was moving across Northern Ontario towards Michigan.
Security personnel stared at their computer screens wondering what on earth they were looking at. They called Canadian Defense headquarters in Ottawa. Everyone breathed easier when they learned it was a cavalcade of 500 cars moving bumper-to-bumper through Algonquin Park on a wolf howl.
Not all wolf howls are successful. The pack sometimes moves on from its gather spot the night before.
This year offers an added bonus to the wolf howls. The Perseids meteor shower is at its peak this year in mid August.
More information about the wolf howl is available at www.algonquinpark.on.ca or at 613-637-2828.
source
MN & MI Wolf News... Bad & Good
DNR lowers Minnesota wolf-hunt quota
CC/Flickr/MacNeil Lyons
The DNR has set the statewide target harvest of wolves at 220, down from last year’s target of 400.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is lowering the quota for this year’s wolf hunt by 45 percent, reports Sam Cook of the Duluth News Tribune.
“With Minnesota’s estimated wolf population down about 25 percent over
the past five years, DNR officials will allow fewer wolf hunting and
trapping licenses this fall, the agency announced Monday. The DNR has set the statewide target harvest of wolves at 220, down from last year’s target of 400.
The season will open Nov. 9, opening day of Minnesota’s firearms deer
season. … The wolf season news comes after a DNR announcement earlier
this month that about 2,211 wolves are roaming Minnesota’s northern
forest. That estimate, based on a winter-long survey, is down about 700
animals from the most recent previous survey in 2008. Although nearly 25
percent lower than the 2008 midpoint estimate of 2,921 wolves, the
population still exceeds the state’s minimum goal of at least 1,600
wolves and is above the federal recovery goal of 1,251 to 1,400
animals.”
BUT!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DNR Postpones Sale Of Wolf Hunting Licenses
July 30, 2013
(credit: istock)
The state Department of Natural Resources announced the postponement on Tuesday. Sales had been scheduled to begin Saturday.
The state’s Natural Resources Commission this month added the gray wolf to the game species list and scheduled a 6-week hunt for Nov. 15 through Dec. 31.
The DNR says 1,200 wolf hunting licenses will be available. Wolf licenses cost $100 for residents and $500 for nonresidents. The commission said up to 43 wolves in seven Upper Peninsula counties could be killed.
This comes after Gov. Rick Snyder, in May, signed Senate Bill 288, which gives the commission the responsibility to establish hunting seasons for wild game.
The new law is a blow to opponents who gathered more than 250,000 petition signatures seeking a statewide referendum on a measure approved in December that designated the wolf as a game species. Now, the vote will be only a symbolic gesture.
Wolf advocates who accepted the idea of farmers protecting livestock, which is already allowed, recoil at talk of hunting and trapping — which they fear will slash wolf numbers drastically.
Michigan is the sixth state to authorize hunting wolves since federal protections were lifted over the past two years in the western Great Lakes and the Northern Rockies.
About 1,100 wolves have already been killed by hunters and trappers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.
About 650 wolves are currently believed to roam remote areas in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
source
The Most Dangerous Animal in the World
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)