By Winston Thomas
Special to the Mercury News
Posted: 07/02/2013 10:55:26 AM PDT
Updated: 07/02/2013 12:51:06 PM PDT
Until recently the restoration of the gray wolf to a portion of its natural habitat in the lower 48 was one of the success stories of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. However, the job is far from complete, and now the U.S. Department of the Interior wants to allow the states to return to many of the same methods of the late 1800s and early 1900s that led to the eradication of the wolf in California and elsewhere.
On June 7, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced its plan to remove the gray wolf, Canis lupus, from the federal list of endangered wildlife in the remainder of the lower 48 states where it is not already delisted (except for the Mexican wolf in New Mexico and Arizona). The gray wolf will
Gray wolf at the Wildlife Science Center in Forest Lake, Minn. (DAWN VILLELLA / AP)
be dropped, not because it has recovered across most of its former range, but because the Department of the Interior appears to be responding to political pressure rather than peer reviewed science.
Elk hunting groups mistakenly see the wolf as competition for their sport. This represents a grave misunderstanding of the ecology of predator-prey relationships.
Many livestock producers have not begun to explore the non-lethal methods proven to reduce conflict between wolves and livestock. Even though livestock losses to wolves accounted for less than .01 percent of the total livestock in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana in 2012, many sheep and cattle ranchers want to see the wolf eradicated.
If the gray wolf is delisted, then
management of wolf populations reverts to each state. Wolves were delisted in 2011 in Idaho and Montana, and 2012 in Wyoming. Management in these states is a cruel euphemism for indiscriminate, aggressive hunting, trapping and snaring of wolves. Since delisting in Idaho, nearly 700 wolves have been killed by recreational hunting. In some areas of Idaho, wolves, including lactating females and pups, can be killed at any time. In 83 percent of Wyoming, wolves can be killed year round, in any number of ways, without a license. And Montana’s proposed management plan will allow up to five wolves to be killed per hunter/trapper. This is not scientific stewardship.
The now famous lone wolf OR-7 traveled from Oregon into California in December 2011 but wandered back into Oregon in March of this year. It defies logic to declare the gray wolf population recovered in California. The same is true in other states with excellent wolf habitat and abundant elk and deer such as Utah and Colorado. Like California, these states have no established wolf populations, yet there would be no federal protection for a wolf should it wander in. This action will end recovery in these states before it starts. Why delist the gray wolf in states where it does not yet exist, unless the goal is to keep the population at zero?
The bald eagle was delisted in 2007, but we have not allowed open hunting and trapping. Why should we do that with wolves? The stated goal of the Endangered Species Act is to save species from extinction and to fully recover the species by removing threats to its survival.
The 90-day public comment period for the proposed gray wolf delisting ends Sept. 11. Newly confirmed Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell needs to hear from the public that wolf recovery has not even begun in California and other states. Wolves need our voices. Please howl your support for federal protection of the gray wolf until recovery is complete, and stop the wolf hunt.
Winston Thomas, a biologist and geneticist who has worked in the Bay Area biotech industry for 22 years, is Pacific Region representative and an advisory board member of Living with Wolves (www.livingwithwolves.org).
Exposing the Big Game 
State management of wolves is a political process and a license for a jihad on wolves driven by ancient fears, folklore, lies, myths of the groups that state and federal political leaders and wildlife agencies listen to because they are of the same mindset, the same ilk. The reasons for the jihad are based on a couple of lies that keep getting repeated by these groups and then at the state and federal wildlife agencies and state legislature levels about stock depredation and elk predation. There is no talk of the benefit of wolves to ecology, to the wilderness, to tourism dollars. Those myth perpetuating groups are sportsmen groups, ranchers, yokels, and conservative politicians. The wolf and all predators should stay protected indefinitely because of the bias of these groups and politicians toward minimizing and marginalizing them and essentially engaging in elk or other game farming, another unnecessary myth of these groups. Wildlife agencies are more tuned in to pleasing and sharing the beliefs of the mythologizers.
The wolf is politically managed in Montana-WY-ID –WI, USFWS and other states, not scientifically or compassionately by a set of minds that are wolf jihad minded, who intend to marginalize the wolf and other predators in the mistaken belief that nature needs to be controlled by man instead of lived with in a sharing attitude. It is being managed by a set of minds that go forward in their brutal management rationalizing it by claiming basically two false facts (myths): (Myth 1) that wolves are harming elk populations which are, to the contrary, up in the states mentioned and other states. Elk populations are up 37% in Montana, from 89,000 before wolf re-introduction to over 141,000 elk now, and elk populations are up in the Bitterroots contrary to popular beliefs (myths); and elk numbers have stabilized in Yellowstone at historic normal levels contrary to popular beliefs (myths). The stock depredation (Myth 2) by wolves in Montana is at 0.002%, 67 cattle in 2012, and has been 67-80’s range. Sheep depredation is 0 .1%. So, the elk and stock depredation arguments are myths. What FWP is doing is farming elk, which the agency claims is 55% above desirable population. But FWP and sportsmen and ranchers are of the same mindset, anti-predator and somewhat anti-wildlife unless it is a recreational killing opportunity. Predators are something to control-manage-dominate, not something to live with, not part of balanced ecology, which reflects our heritage, our prevalent mindsets that live against the environment not with it.
Wolves single out substandard Elk and remove them from the gene-pool, thus doing both the Elk and the Natural environment a service. Wolves also do a very great deal to preserve amerika’s riverine systems, which would otherwise be wrecked by Elk. Their reward for fulfilling a VITAL position in Nature is that they get to eat the flesh of the Animal they have killed, thus keeping their own position as protectors of Nature safe into the future. Chimp-in-clothes hunters kill the Elk mainly for kicks and a little free meat. They contribute ZILCH to the Natural world, only take, take, TAKE – so, who is doing the Right Thing here ??!!
Wolf Management to the 1800’s:
Gradually (state wolf management) is moving back to the late 1800’s with the usual cast of characters: wolf hating, ignorant, misinformed, irrational, hysterical, anti-wildlife and anti-wilderness mentalities who by the effects of their beliefs, are anti-predator in general. They are killers of wildlife, relegating decision making to hunters, trappers, outfitters, decisions by the 5% versus the other 95%, decisions by conservative legislatures and governors and wildlife agencies who are vastly of the same ilk. The wolf haters and their ilk are trying to refine and enlarge wolf killing, longer and harsher seasons are being suggested, so that the wolf will be marginalized and on the verge of threatened or endangered, not yet, but that is where they want and are trying to go. The wolf populations are okay now but threatened. Wildlife destruction is also aided by newspaper and other media that just repeat the lies, myths and folklore giving the ignorant credibility. All are aided and abetted by lies, myths folklore of yokels. Decisions are by those who fail to see other animals as sentient beings, only as “recreational opportunities”. The hunters and trappers are barbaric throwbacks, down to the last 5% hopefully, but still too many with wildlife agencies in tune with their barbaric mentalities. Hopefully, before they do too much damage to balanced ecology(s) their numbers will dwindle, and humane, wise stewardship will prevail, but maybe there is no hope for the human race to change in sufficient numbers to avoid this aspect of the Anthropocene Extinction.
It’s going to be either/or, but humans won’t be happy with the result of their full-on extinction spasm.
This letter to editor is excellent and a very important submit to the Silicon Valley where the majority of our tech ideas and money are generated making it great stomping ground for Pres Obama and his fundraising. To raise awareness in this arena is most important and many of these folks are very liberal but have no idea of wilderness and wolves … They have a huge ground swell for anti keystone pipeline but no one talks about our wildlife, as they really are not outdoorsy people but much more urban.
But my bet, with a little education of the coexistent model put forward by the likes of Camilla Fox of projectcoyote.org and an understanding of the benefits of wildlife for our ecosystem and these
highly educated and motivated individuals will also want the wolf saved and not slaughtered. It is a matter of exposure and education, which can be done.
Did anyone take note that this week Pres Obama pledged help to Africa’s wildlife, while ignoring their plight at home in America and actually worsening with his poor policy decisions .. He should be called out on this and perhaps taken out to Yellowstone with resident biologists and educated on America’s wildlife.. Perhaps for him, seeing is believing !
Reblogged this on Carinas space.