Associated Press, January 11, 2007: “Idaho’s governor [Butch Otter] said Tuesday he will support public hunts to kill all but 100 of the state’s gray wolves after the federal government strips them of protection under the Endangered Species Act…. ‘I’m prepared to bid for that first ticket to shoot a wolf myself,’ Otter said earlier Thursday during a rally of about 300 hunters…
The hunters, many wearing camouflage clothing and blaze-orange caps, applauded wildly during his comments.”
Since 2009, 887 Idaho wolves have been killed by licensed hunters, with many hundreds more killed in official “control” operations. It is estimated that there were fewer than 500 wolves remaining in the state by August, 2013. The 2013-2014 Idaho wolf season began August 30 and will continue in most of 13 state zones until the end of June 2014. The current 2013-2014 wolf season will constitute a mop-up operation by the state’s ferocious anti-wolf mob.
The Idaho political apparatus, controlled absolutely by the hunting and agricultural lobbies, is a vigorous proponent of trap-torture for Idaho wildlife. It has thus encouraged, trained and deployed an army of trappers, both amateur and professional, to prolong the suffering of Idaho wolves since 2011.
Idaho wolf trapping season opened November 15, 2013, and will continue across nine game zones until March 31, 2014. Thus, Idaho wolves continue to be subjected to the terror and cruelty of steel foothold traps and choking snares. Many of these animals, including the youngest of pups, are routinely forced to await their violent death for up to 72 hours while suffering terror, pain, hunger and dehydration.
Zone 1–Idaho Panhandle Zone: (12) Idaho wolves gunned with rifles or hand guns. One animal shot with a handgun was a tiny black pup so young that it had no teeth visible. A bow hunter in this zone also arrowed a gray puppy, a particularly painful way for a canine to die. Two others wolves were killed on private property in August before the season officially began. Licensed wolf kill is legal year round in the Panhandle zone as long as the carnage takes place on private property. These two pre-season wolves were seen together and shot at the same time. Their bodies were retrieved days later, indicating that they were able to run while wounded and therefore suffered for an unknown number of hours or days before dying.
Note: One of our three selected wolf packs for adoption, the Bumblebee Pack, resides in Zone 1. Adoption bracelets are available [link]. Your donations will help sustain our website so that volunteers can monitor and report activities by state, federal and private interests bent on reducing wolves to a genetically unsustainable population. Adoption bracelets are available.
Zone 2–Palouse-Hells Canyon Zone: (1) wolf arrowed. This was a gray animal listed as a pup.
Zone 3–Lolo Zone: (1) Idaho wolf gunned.
Note: One of our three packs selected for adoption is the Kelly Creek Pack, which undoubtedly lives a perilous existence in the Lolo “hot” zone. Lolo wolves have been among the hardest hit in the great Idaho wolf purge. Government agents in helicopters gunned-down some of the wolves killed in this zone during 2011-2012. Adoption bracelets for survivors are available. Adoption bracelets for survivors are available.
Zone 4–Dworshak-Elk City Zone: (3) wolves gunned, one wolf arrowed. One of the wolves, listed as a puppy, was blasted with a hand gun. The arrowed animal was listed as a yearling.
Zone 5–Selway Zone: (3) wolves gunned. Two of the three were listed as pups.
Zone 6–Middle Fork Zone: (3) wolves gunned. Two of the three were listed as pups.
Zone 7–Salmon Zone: (2) gunned. One animal was listed as a pup, the other a yearling.
Zone 8–McCall-Weiser Zone: (3) wolves gunned. One animal was listed as a young of year pup.
Zone 9–Sawtooth Zone: (1) wolf arrowed.
Zone 10–Southern Mountain Zone: (5) wolves gunned. Three of these animals were listed as yearlings. Another was listed as a pup terminated by a hand gun.
Note: One of our three packs up for adoption is the Red Warrior Pack, located in the Sawtooth Mountains within this zone. Adoption bracelets are available. Adoption bracelets are available.
Zone 11–Beaverhead Zone: (0) wolves gunned.
Zone 12—Island Park Zone: (3) wolves gunned.
Zone 13—Southern Idaho Zone: (0) wolves gunned.
Of the 38 wolves obliterated during this time period, 15 (39%) were listed as puppies or yearlings.
– See more at: http://adoptawolfpack.org/summary-of-2013-2014-big-game-mortality-reports/#sthash.xjOOXuKF.dpuf
Exposing the Big Game 
Reblogged this on Wolf Is My Soul.
So very very sad.
This pisses me off to no end! I saw the writing on the wall over a year ago, politicians do not care and along with the usual big campaign doners, are in fact the problem!
Ok, I am on a mountain in Maine, hard to fight from here. If you guys remember way back last spring I called for bringing in the babies by any non-lethal means! A radical move but that is all we have left unless the feds have a change of mind. But without a court injunction, there is NO MORE TIME TO WAIT! Now, I call on anyone with the skillset necessary to capture the pups with hav-a-hart traps on your own property. Bait with moose meat. This is all out war on babies and they must be saved! Line up back up and have your stories straight! You are allowed to trap and relocate a pesky wild animal if it is a danger to you or your family or pets. So use that paranoia to save the wolves. Babies will need to go to a scantuary, so line a couple up. You may get skunks or raccoons. Just let them go. In case of a skunk, throw a cheap tarp over the trap so you don’t get sprayed. Get the biggest hav-a hart trap so you might get a yearling. If you catch one with a radio collar on, tie radio collar to a local city bus or taxi. 🙂 It will be a few days before they figure their collared wolf is not dumpster diving in town and by then, brother or sister wolf will be safely out of state in a wolf rescuer’s care. And with a new family, human and wolf.
I am dead serious. You local folks make all the difference between life and death for wild wolves! EF! Has a downloadable instruction phamplet as to how to free trapped wolves. It’s dated so consider cell phones.-cameras, game and movie and watch out for traps, there may be more than you can see, under the snow. If you find a badly wounded wolf, leave water and food and come back with someone who is willing to help. Remember, the trapper is always more dangerous than the wolf.
I am not set up for wild wolves but I can take a habituated one to make room for wild ones. If no other choice, I can take pups. Oh, pups still nursing will drink ‘sav-a-kid’ goat milk fom Tractor supply. If I do take them, it has to be on the short term. I will release them at the proper time to a state without wolf hunting, after they have had their shots.
BTW, has anyone told Butch Otter what happens when too few wolves? Not only do the feds take over the remaining wolves, but due to lack of available mates, wolves will breed with coyotes and dogs. They make real nice pups with GSD and Malamutes! Not so good with pit bulls and Rotties. Those have no future if they are captured by the cops. You wouldn’t believe how stupid some people are! I once saw a wolf/pitbull/rottie/chow a dipshit woman bought in Florida off craigslist! And she got her to play with her toddlers!
Just be careful, people! Let’s save wolves where ever they need our help!
I hope no one else takes this talk of live-trapping wolf pups seriously. Not only are the pups way too big for that by now, the adults would be horribly traumatized and no young wolf wants to grow up in a pen in someone’s backyard.
Jim, ok, you have the P.C. answer. What you don’t understand is this isn’t a normal situation! In fact, it is outright genocide! If you think Butch ‘S.S.S. Otter’ is going to be able to stop this at 100 wolves, or even wants to, well you don’t remember your wolf history very well? The USFWS will take over if there are wolves left in numbers under 100. If there are NO wolves to ‘manage’ ID gets rid of USFWS/gov’t wolves that were reintroduced and highly unlikely that they will reintroduce wolves again. Not after this horrid treatment…tortured death… facebook videos of sadistic wolf killings, even rapes!
I was not saying to touch any wolf that was not on private property, preferably your own… so Actually if I’m correct, you are allowed to destroy a wolf on your property in ID if it potentially poses a danger to you, family, pets, livestock… so basically they are happy to get rid of wolves. That means votes an money to them. I’m saying bring them to a wolf sanctuary where they are safe. I called for the capture of babies last Spring. By this coming Spring, there may be no babies to save! Stressed wolves won’t breed and this never-ending hunt is super stressful. It breaks my heart that they are killing babies and their moms. I really think it is far more ethical to save them! I wasn’t talking about tie them up in the back yard like sled dogs in Alaska! There are lots of ethical places that wolves can live like wild wolves and not fear being murdered. You know what I always say, the fences are to keep the undesirables out! They also keep wolves from breeding with dogs or coyotes. When I bought my land, I had planned for making the most remote 50 acres into a wild wolf sanctuary. Every year I add more 6 foot chainlink fence but we are retired and it’s very expensive. I have no wild wolves for that very reason!
Most of mine prefer to sleep on or under my bed except for Mackenzie who likes the bedroom balcony if it’s nice out. Beady, the dog sleeps on my feet. All of my animals are happy, playful and glad to be alive. They would be happier if I could afford to fence the whole 50 acres, in a 3/4 mile run through pristine woods, springs marshlands with eagles and hawks and all kinds of small birds. There are moose, deer, etc. I hope somebody donates fence because I will fence it in, I have a backhoe so it’s easy! Nobody wants for anything here, tomorrow they are all getting rabies shots! They have better care than I do! Nobody asked wolves what they want. I give them choices to be in or out and you know what? They mostly like inside. Mackenzie and Buttercup nap in their crates if it is cold or raining out. Doors of crates are kept open. It’s just their space. They all have personal carpeted crates where they can go to eat, drink and nap in private… every rescuer does things a little different. I do want them to have more wild play space. I have studied them for 22 years. Their personaities are as different as their howls. And they are a blessing in my life! I hope they think the same of me but judging by all the love, kisses and asking for attention, I don’t think they are missing anything, they even get to hunt rodents out in the enclosure or on the 30 foot lead. The town has 300 acres at the top of the mountain and when I feel good, they get to run up there. And I always take them out to play in fresh snow, their favorite thing! I have no doubt they would prefer this to being trapped, tortured, shot or snared or even nailed to a tree alive and watching it’s parents and siblings killed! My end result is a family of live animals. So let me ask you this, Jim, If you came across a roadkill of a mother wolf who was still nursing young and her young were all alive and still-toothless, would you just leave the them to get tun over or starve or woyld you take them home and look for a proper facility to bring them to?
I will check back later.
Those are two different situations Melody. There’s nothing PC about discouraging people from your notion of capturing and bringing home wild wolves–I don’t believe it’s in the wolves’ best interest.
I really like you very much and respect your points of view. But these wolf killers are not normal people and I really fear the state wants zero wolves by any means necessary. Otter has to play along with 100 wolves. Their counts go by wolves brought in to be tagged. You don’t seriously think that even if Gov. SSS wants to comply that he can actually stop the wolf killing frenzied haters of: US Govt. Wolves, he could? How do you stop a serial killer, Jim? And even if, FWS does get there in time, in droves, they are targets of these nuts too, and they know it. Trying to stop this is going to be like stopping a wildfire. This has never happened before! Sure, I would rather save the whole. Pack. But I really don’t know how to legally. Some day I want all wolves to run free, but for now, I just want them safe! And no, I didn’t mean anyone to keep a wild wolf, just safely capture them and turn them over to rescuerers.
Thanks, I like you too Melody. In order to stop a serial killer you must lock them up or kill them. You can’t expect to capture all their victims and steel them away somewhere to try to keep them safe. If you’re going to advocate for breaking the law, why not go all the way?
Hi Jim, I like the way your mind works! But I am not breaking the law at all. But the laws in the Noethern Rockies are broken and so are the corrupt politicians! I’m up to code with my state’s laws, my females are all spayed, everyone has tags and shots and no one has even so much as a flea.
As far as wolf states go, each one has different laws. The one thing most have in common in the Rockies is varmint laws concerning private property. They don’t usually care about age. Now that some states consider wolves varmints and don’t require a body, then what hope is there for pups for the future? For all wolves in those states. I feel sick about it! SSS! From the Governor! Until they have rules about every mouse your cat runs off with in the barn, also a varmint, then states who consider wolves to be varmints on private property, just assuming the landowner killed it. If I lived in one of those states, I don’t, but in theory, they really don’t care what happens to their wolves or pups. I am sure there are many people who do not share the sick visions of the Governor in Idaho. But unfortunately the good people can only pester the State and Federal government to do the right thing, at least until election time. Well it would have been until the foolish governor treated wolves, illegally, as varmints and advised others to do the same. Well since he said it and Wyoming actually put it into law, that wolves in most of Wyoming are varmints. So if someone in those states happens to see wolves for who they are and happens to have the experience to save wolves decides to save some wolves on his or her own property until the whole pack is there, shuts the gate and calls a sanctuary to place the wolves in no law was broken as long as they are varmints. Yeah, I probably freaked out about the story of the baby wolf being shot by a guy with a hand gun. But it really brought home to me the kind of anger it takes to kill a toothless, near-blind puppy that wants to snuggle and nurse on your little finger. All I want is for them to be saved from these serial killers of innocent baby animals and their parents. And I am usually helpful but right now, I feel as if I am a puppy with a gun pointed at me and want to howl run and keep on running but there is no safe place to hide! You said it yourself, there are only 2 ways to get rid of a serial killer and wolves have no ability to do either one so if we don’t help them, they will all be dead by crazy laws, crooked politicians and Ted Nugent wannabees. If you want to talk numbers, I am totally sure there are more crazy, crooked politicians and trophy hunters andwolf haters than there are wolves, if you do the math it’s more than 100 to 1 and that’s my low number. It actually would be easier to rescue the wolves…and plus you don’t fix an enemy by becoming your own enemy, you just have to dig more graves, including your own. Sure I say I hope they fall through thin ice and if they did, I wouldn’t throw them a rope but I won’t use myself as an instrument of death, even if they may well have it coming. If the FWS has any brains or balls at all they need to stop the slaughter. The states have proven themselves criminally inept at ‘wolf management’!