The guest editorial below was in answer to this photo in the Jackson Hole newspaper:
Exposing the Big Game
Forget Hunters' Feeble Rationalizations and Trust Your Gut Feelings: Making Sport of Killing Is Not Healthy Human Behavior
The guest editorial below was in answer to this photo in the Jackson Hole newspaper:
Exposing the Big Game 
I am glad to see something written on this tragedy. Not strong enough for me, but neverthe less, a good start. I had the honor of seeing the Lamar wolf pack some years ago. A life experience. Unfortunately, our society has normalized violence.It has become an everyday happening. And, there are those who are proud of such acts of cruelty–and a younger and younger age. Such acts of violence permeate our media, even in brainless, repulsive “reality shows.” Homo sapiens is insane, despite compassionate individuals.
I’ve been involved in wolf “issues” for 11 years now and the situation just seems to get worse. All the talk, meetings, hearings, and feel good symposiums have done nothing to help the hundreds of wolves that have died and all those that will be killed this hunting season.
We need a Paul Watson type organization that’s willing to stick their neck out.
AND, people need to stop donating to these large “corporate” non-profits until they’re willing to take some aggressive, meaningful action.
These groups have thousands of members and lots of $$….hell, they could surround Yellowstone and haze the wolves back into the Park as a pre-emptive action.
I would be more than willing to stand around the park to stop the killing without any weapon, just my love for the wolves.
A friend of mine came back from Viet Nam with a whole new skillset. And not all his marbles. He is dead now but he took up making poison blow darts out of porcupine quills, poison ivy juice and disposable coffee straws. He wanted a silent way to protect himself once he could no longer walk. He had planned the whole thing out so should he be threatened, he could say to the robber that the quills were dipped in poison, leaving off the ivy part… ha-ha, very creative mind. But seriously… My point being, you don’t need to carry a gun on one extreme, or go without any protection, either. I like my friend Ted, don’t like noise-making things. Ted died from Agent Orange so you can’t blame him for coming up with a ‘chemical weapon’, it was killing him for years!
The best weapon you have is the one between your ears and a camera that you can shut the digital click noise off. Get evidence without being captured and get it into circulation so authorities have to act on it. It is not our jobs to punish wolf-haters, we need only to expose, name and shame them so that there is no wet rock remote enough for those cowards to hide under. They live in such an insular group of psycho scumbags, that they are now doing a pretty good job of hanging themselves in the press all on their own! We have most pressing business in other areas to stop hunting and get all wolves re-listed to the ESA, not as experimental but permanently due to the gross mismanagement of the States and open hostility from certain politicians as well as hunting quotas bent on extinction. If the USFWS refuses to use the best available science and fails to relist all wolves, we will have to persue other legal avenues as a coheasive group of pro-wolf/wildlife/environment and wilderness groups and defend our wolves by delisting Congress!
I agree and have been advocating personhood for wolves and put out info as to how to go about it! I gave been begging people since wolf hunts started under evil state control to rescue wolves! Especially breeding pairs and get them to safety. All we need is somebody to make a non-lethal hav-a-heart style trap in wolf size with a game camera on it and some irrestable bait. I have advised to organize and fence the outside area of any park with six foot tall fence from gov’t surplus auctions. It can be done fast with a backhoe. Permission must be obtained from the park of the land owner abutters. If they have animals, they should be happy to comply.
We are thinking in the same direction and should probably try to start something of a .org that really isn’t afraid if political BS! You can e-mail me at zzz_sleeping_wolf@yahoo.com
Remember, if we had personhood for these wolves, due to their being abused by psychopaths and being necessary as keystone species, this cruel, insane wolf murder and display by two attention seeking psychos, would legally be a hate crime and possibly a terrorist action, meant to terrorize the kind, animal lovers into such a fearful state of these dangerous nuts behind the murder and display that noone dare question it for fear of being the next target. A wolf is a very endangered animal and deserves personhood, as do all endangered creatures. It would give the government and privat citizens, as well as wolf sanctuaries and rescues, the right to sue the asses, uh assets, off these animal abusers-killers-poachers-haters to the point where they could be broke and on jail where they belong! Check out Democracy School at celdf.org and get back to me, ok?
Thanks for all you’ve done over the years and for the suggestion here, Jerry.
Maybe Van Hawkinson will bring out his trusty .410 and start some aggressive, meaningful action;) https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/hunters-become-the-hunted-squeal/
Ultimately I’d like to see wolves safe across the region, not just in the park.
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Until wildlife agencies are no longer funded by hunting and trapping licenses, nothing will change. These agencies will continue to serve the hunter and trapper so long as it is they who make the financial existence of the agency possible.
True, but do you realize how powerful the outfitting business is in Montana? The last thing they want is “non-hunters” having a say in management.
Besides the outfitters, we have RMEF, SFW, NRA, Boone&Crockett, Safari Club,…..it will take years if it ever happens.
It’s about $$ and if it looks like MFWP will flounder, watch who will ante up.
IMO, we’re better off working to get reasonable people elected to office, course that’s another tall hurdle.
It’s not just those guy’s you are fighting. Multinational corporations in fuel and water mining have the Kind of bucks that blow us away like a leaf in a hurricaine. So we have to use our pro-wolf poles and the law against them!
Melody@…”something of a .org that really isn’t afraid if political BS”
Yes, exactly what we need. Unfortunately there is no effective wolf organization in Montana which is odd considering the organizations in other wolf states.
The only wildlife organization in Montana with the guts to confront opposition is “Footloose Montana”, but they have their hands full dealing with the trapping issue.
I’ll be in contact with you.
I sent you an e-mail. Thanks! I will help with over 20 years with charities, one a founding member and on the board of one.
True scum of the earth, that’s all I can say.
Yep.
No doubt, Nabekl, but don’t let them distract you from the big picture. Because I think that is exactly what the goal of that foolish stunt was.
Sorry for earlier bad spelling, we have the flu, here, I keep falling asleep while writing. I hope you are all well in the Mountains and don’t get this year’s flu!
Reblogged this on Wolf Is My Soul.
My gratitude to courageous Thomas Mangelsen for his guest editorial. It is eloquent, and I agree that dirtbags Addeo and Coutts intended to provoke, jeer, and hurt any and all onlookers who have even the slightest capacity for empathy.
I emailed the Jackson Hole Mayor & City Council (electedofficials@ci.jackson.wy.us) and the Chamber of Commerce (info@jacksonholechamber.com) to let them know I consider Addeo’s display obscene and that Jackson Hole is definitely scratched off my list of weekend getaway destinations.
Maybe I’ll sneak over there sometime, but it will only be to visit Mangelsen’s gallery.
Thanks for writing to them. They need to get bombarded with letters. The Jackson Hole visitor’s center has the most disgusting display of taxidermy I’ve ever seen, featuring an entire HERD of elk–including bulls, cows and calves–all stuffed and propped up in a morbid display of arrogance.
Mr. Mangelsen did a fine job. His comment about raising weapons against a species they hate “is not hunting” is a keeper.
Melody, the .org suggestion is desperately needed. Feel free to email me if/when an idea is formulated owlcaller@gmail.com. We have to remember that not all wolf advocates come from western or other wolf-hunting states.
So far we are only an echo….no clear, loud voices that are making enough of a difference – so far. Too, we don’t have the financial resources to compete. But we DO have incredible determination. As you say, we definitely need cohesion in our endeavors. Strength in numbers, but less fragmented.
I will again suggest to this group that Peter Souza on facebook would welcome new friends with which to share his efforts.
Hi Gail! You always have wonderful ideas and I will follow up, just busy day today. You are correct that wolf advocates are everywhere. I have found most to be kind, sweet people that are mostly shy, very willing to sign petitions but not always so willing to engage in verbal confrontations in order to expose politician’s trickery and wolf-hater’s evil actions in public. We should have travelling activist training and help emotionally support our potential advocates by teaming up with other groups with similar issues and defeat the fearmongers in positions of power in DC. There are so many other groups such as First Nations fighting Tar Sands and KXL. They love and respect wolves and we know their causes are one of the pressures on wolves and they have activist training in the US and Canada. CELDF has democracy school online for free and are legal pioneers of personhood for the environment. I have worked with them and they are great! They fight fracking, water mining, corporate pig farms and help communities who are being screwed over by multinational corporations, who should not have personhood but they do. If they have it, why not wolves and eventually all creatures? If wolves were granted personhood, community by community, that would put an end to the murders and if done right, put the most vile leaders of the wolf haters in prison, where they belong, with their fellow psychopaths! I would start working with communities surrounding Yellowstone and enlist the help and knowledge of the wolf and wildlife biologists. They are being bullied and refused service all because of these fear and hatemongers. Appeal to the good people of that area, have potlucks, powwows, educational free concerts…whatever it takes. It will take to long to organize a new irs 501(c) 3 and 4 so find another wolf group willing to take on an activist wing. Most of all we must be careful not to argue amongst ourselves. We all have things we are good at and proper leadership will allocate people power in the directions that they excell at. Geoff asked me the other day how to win a revolution. This is the long answer. The short answer is communication and cooperation. Thanks to you and everyone who cares!
I apologize for coming in a little late to the party, but…
I support a lot of wildlife causes, though my main focus is on wild horses and burros. But no matter who I might be ‘up against’, I visit their web sites or (God help me) Facebook pages to try and understand why an ‘opponent’ might behave in a particular fashion or support a particular cause: I might learn something. I might find out I’m completely wrong. I might see or hear something, some kind of empathetic common ground to further my own understanding or present a better argument.
However, the things I have seen, the pictures published, the hateful vitriol posted by self-proclaimed ‘wolf haters’ – I can’t get my head around.
One ‘hunter’ posted a close-up of the teeth of the wolf he killed, stating this was “another dog that wouldn’t get ‘his elk’ ” (HIS elk? Really??!) Another did six paragraphs on the most painful and effective poisons to use on bait. The endless parade of pictures of murdered wolves…some useless waste of skin posted a picture of the fetuses he’d removed from a pregnant female to write the number ’14’ with their little bodies.
I realized – these are not accurate portrayals of standard, ethical human hunters. I was raised by and grew up with men who hunted in Northern Nevada. The first thing Grampa us taught was don’t take the shot if you can’t be assured of a clean kill. We spent the winters eating venison, elk, jackrabbit and occasionally, wild boar. So I’m not anti-hunter, although I don’t hunt or fish. I simply don’t have within me whatever is necessary to do so.
These people bear no resemblance to ‘hunters’ as I’ve known them. Their rabid fury, their unmitigated hatred of a simple wild animal is beyond my ability to understand. And if they are perfectly comfortable NOT making a clean kill where wolves are concerned, what kind of people are they in private?
Federal or state agencies are not much help, but then, they really don’t have to be, do they? Nevada’s Department of Wildlife conducted an 8-year-long study in predator control (cougars) in an effort to increase the population of mule deer in a particular area. After 8 years, hundreds of dead cougar, millions of dollars wasted and NO increase in mule deer (turns out, mule deer were exercising ‘density dependent’ birth control due to a prolonged drought; go figure…) the ‘study’ was discontinued in June of this year.
The point I was trying to make is now lost. Sorry. But I advocate for wild horses and burros. The BLM is perfectly comfortable telling the Public that they’re out of control because they have ‘no natural predators’. There are always too many deer or elk, or too few and somehow it always comes back to these massive hordes of apex predators:
Humans, behaving badly.
You’re right, they do.