http://www.kmvt.com/news/latest/Two-Day-Idaho-Wolf-Derby-Concludes-237916091.html
By Rachel Holt
Dec 29, 2013
Salmon, Idaho ( KMVT-TV / KTWT-TV )
The town of Salmon is a quiet community.
However, that seemingly changed overnight as the Idaho Wolf Derby thrust the area into the national spotlight.
Protesters angered by the killing of wolves, using drastic measures to try to stop the event.
Resident Theresa Butt states, “my friend got threatened. When we are getting people threatening to come into town and kill people, there is a problem. My friend Jen Larson, someone called and said they would like to hang their entire family up by a noose. Because they own the Savage Grill and sponsored a legal hunt. What’s wrong with that?”
Dave Larson, Jen’s husband, adds, “some extremists can say some things… do we have our guard up? Absolutely. They threatened my family, our business, our employees, our way of life. A guy stands up to that. You keep your guard up and you’re aware of it.”
Jen adds, “we’re just here to make a living and support the community. We don’t want all the wolf lovers to hate us. It’s just crazy– in the last two weeks we have found out there are some crazy people out there, on both sides of it.”
At the conclusion of the two day event, no wolves were actually killed but 21 coyotes were harvested.
Tom Curet, regional supervisor at Idaho Fish and Game, says, “people raised their concerns and from a biological perspective this derby is very closely managed and it’s something that can be supported by the wolves and coyotes and it will have minimal impact.”
While the impact on the wildlife was minimal, some residents feel for the town of Salmon, the damage has been done.
Butt says, “one of the things we’re really concerned about is how we’re being represented in the press. We’re not a bunch of hillbillies running around shooting guns for fun. We are concerned that our animals that we live on, that we have to eat to survive, are being killed by these wolves. We have a legal right to hunt them.”
[So do the wolves. It seems to me that if there were so many wolves out there taking elk, one of them would have been shot during their contest hunt.]
Exposing the Big Game 
Only one problem though, you ARE a bunch of hillbillies running around shooting stuff.
A most awesome comment !
Why can’t see that?
Tom Curet needs to improve his grammar. I doubt wolves and coyotes support the hunt.
I wondered about that too.
It is unfortunately that there were threats against these people. Just takes the wolf advocates down to their sorry level.
I disagree. If those threats cause one business to re-think its continuing support for such killing-derbies or one armed-idiot out “harvesting” coyotes (apparently hunger is such a problem in Salmon, Idaho that residents have to resort to eating dog meat) to pull back out of fear for their personal safety, then they have done their job and were/are well worth the effort. Opposition to hunting may occupy the moral high ground but the actual battles are often going to be gutter fights, because that’s where most of these degenerates who like to kill, dwell. It’s OK if one wishes to remain lofty and above the fray but one shouldn’t criticize those willing to get their fingernails dirty in dealing with the trash.
There are so many ways to foil the hunts that we need not allow our enemies to darken our hearts with their poisonous hatred. Turning the press against them, naming and shaming them world-wide, is a major coup.
The 21 dead coyotes, who loved their lifetime mates and families just as much as the whining redneck asshats who murdered them with no remorse is what is lost in this story! It is a case of discrimination, the victims just happen to walk on four legs. Salmon residents should be worried about feeding their families, not from stock lost to predators but to tourist dollars that just won’t happen for a long time, out of their own ignorant actions!
I’m sure we ultimately want the same things, we just part ways on some of the tactics that might be usefully employed to bring them about. Good people, like Hope Ryden, have been peacefully decrying the abysmal treatment of wild coyotes in this country since at least the 1960s. Are coyotes today more valued and treated more humanely by the majority of the population than they were back then? Has all that environmental “educatin” and shaming during the past 50 years made it a safer, less hostile environment for coyotes living in the western United Sates (or even in the East!)? Not in my experience. Maybe it’s time to stop being sad and get mad, really mad. Hatred is at least as powerful a motivator as is love; and despite all the”‘we-are-the-world” fluff that seems to permeate much of contemporary liberal thinking, hatred and violence have been vastly more successful in bringing about change, historically speaking, than loving one’s enemies. Maybe with respect to our animal-abusing, redneck countrymen it’s time to just “give war a chance”?
Mr Geoff, you have great point
I was told by Idaho fish and game that they were against this derby but couldn’t stop it. Obviously they were lying, based on the comments for the Fish and game director in this article. I figured they were to gutless to tell the truth
I just left a message for Fish & Game regional guy Tom Curet. I asked for a clarification of his statement and also why he couldn’t record his own outgoing message that he’s out of the office. Is there some reason a female staffer had to do it for him?
Let me guess. Technologically challenged? Old school (have the secretary do it after she brings him the coffee)?
Although wildlife advocates should’nt make threats,(that makes us look as dumb as them) the final word above says the truth…if the wolf population was so “out of control”,at least one would have been spotted and shot…Butch Otter,and all wolf haters have had this same problem,for three years now.Otter even tried aireal hunting after he declared his emergency situation,and that was a failure too.
The only emergency situation is that there are no wolves left in the area.
You got that right
History has proven that humans without morals,ethics,compassion, decency and respect for life deserve to be treated just as bad as they are treating others! The only way to stop these insane, and veeeery ignorant bunch of useless fools is to give them some of their own medicine -LEGALY! Unless you want to wait for another 100+ years for the destructive behaviour to thrive and wipe off everything that moves.
Justice, freedom and respect for animals is worth everything humanly possible! They can kill me if they want …I don’t care! I can’t live any longer with my self knowing I didn’t do my best to protect and defend the most vulnerable from EVIL! “It’s about time” not “MAYBE” for all caring,great humans to step up and give the bullies exactly what they deserve.
Talking is good but, not enough! What out there is more important than bringing nature back to it’s best and protecting it for future generations?The greedy ,self-centred attitude and their arrogance made “hunters” blind. I’m a rookie in this but, can imagine that these talks exist for quite a while now and nothing has changed!!! Unfortunately for animals there is NO TIME TO WASTE at all!
Our inability to behave like “hunters” prevent us to do better! I am not implying shooting and being stupid. I am not and have never being in any activist groups.I don’t have to be. I am just tired of being manipulated and controlled by careless and brutal bullies! Aren’t you?
There must be simple and intelligent tactics if we pretend to be smart than we should do smart things. Targeting important decision makers by presenting them with facts,documents,signatures and demonstrations. Unite the good, concern citizens, lobbyist, activists,animals rights groups and organizations for protests and demonstrations. When there is a wish there is a will! ENOUGH is enough!
We can’t let any longer hypocrisy and nonsense to continue with their bloody acts! Letting Nature take it’s course and giving back animals their space,freedom and right to exist is not only beneficial to animals but, humans as well! We are everywhere and these poor beings are suffocating. The devastation facts are: the”hunters”, cutting the forests for the wood, development, marihuana growers, freckling, camps, gold diggers,the”poachers” ,the pollution, the floods, fires,tornadoes, road killings and who knows what else.
This is what HUMANITY is all about? Than, I’d rather be an animal! Shame on us for not doing more and better much sooner! Shame on human race for letting all this to take place before our eyes for so long!? Where all these poor animals to go and what to do? What choices they have? WE CAN chose to do NOTHING or HELP animals and our already fragile echo system. Thanks to our inability to respect and protect our Planet all of the above is the result of human actions. Thank you for taking the time…HEEEEEELP… PLEASE………….
This has got to be the lamest expression from game hunters I’ve ever heard! They live on these animals? Bull shit! South Korea eats dogs & cats! Not the big USA, unless they are from South Korea? I’ve spoken to a few game hunters & the only thing they eat aren’t in the forms of Wolf or Coyote. They use that ancient term to cover up their murderous action. The only truth I’ve read in this article is the end of the article as for the rest its bullshit! Hillbillies is the correct name for them. Keep shooting yourselves hillbillies!
There are in excess of 300 million people in this country. It isn’t the wolves threatening wild ungulates, it’s human encroachment, and fragmentation and loss of habitat for migrating animals, through development and all of our needs. We’re taking too much, it just isn’t sustainable, and the foundation will fall out from under it all very soon. Reasonable hunters would try to preserve wildlife, not shoot anything that moves. I heard a badger was also taken in this wolf/coyote hunt. Why?
How these people are represented in the press is the fault of no one but themselves. The rest of the country and most of their state frowns on wanton killing, especially in modern times. All of the alleged threats and the alleged truck vandalization was made up, I’m willing to wager. At any rate, I’ll be looking forward to the press reports of any prosecutions related to them.
I agree with Melody on this one. Approaching this from a place of compassion for life, I think, will go further than violent threats, which enable the hunters to dismiss animal lovers as radical kooks. We also need to be concerned about how we are portrayed in the press.
I think approaching this from a place of compassion for life is the heart of the matter,but neither hunters/trappers nor wildlife biologists speak that language. In fact, those of us who object because the animals suffer (& their mates & offspring & others in their group) immediately provoke contempt and ridicule from the killers and their allies in the “game” departments. It’s obvious why killers don’t care about the suffering they inflict, and evidently “science” — at least as practiced by wildlife biologists — doesn’t care either. Of course, often hunters/trappers and wildlife biologists are the same people. They discount and discredit emotion and empathy. Why do they get to dictate the conversation? What is life without emotion and empathy? And who set the rules for these debates such that the subject of suffering is out of bounds?
I think all the grisly photos and videos speak for themselves. If more people viewed the YouTubes showing how a hunted/trapped/snared animal dies, there would be less debate about this issue.
I like your words, Pam. We who speak the language of compassion and kindness must stand strong. There is no shame it it. It is the Way. I have a science background, but science of any sort must combine with ethics of loving-kindness and the struggle must take place on many levels. I advocate people write to Pope Francis and ask him to pray for the wolves of North America, in the name of Gubbio.
Trying to deter and undermine public acquiescence to hunting by peaceful, respectful, law abiding, non-violent means has been the universally-employed tactic of anti-hunters for at least the last 6o years. And how far, precisely, has that brought us toward our goal? Is the world (and the US in particular) now a safer, more humane environment for wild animals than it was circa 1970? One definition of insanity is to keep on doing the exact same thing in the expectation that this time it will bring about a different outcome.
Geoff, yes, I think the world overall is a more humane place wrt animals than it was in 1970. More people understand the importance of predators to ecological health, and more appreciate being close to nature. The haters have gotten louder and more obnoxious, but fewer in number.
I wish I could believe that the world is becoming a more humane place, but I don’t remember any predator contest hunts back in the 1970s. About as many people per capita understood about being close to nature and the importance of predators back then as do now, but the percentage of out and out wolf and coyote haters seems to be increasing over the past few years (in part due to popular “reality” TV shows).
Thank you Chris! Public perceptions of the evil afoot will play out in the voting booths across America if we get good press coverage. You are correct! I am retired now but I have a long history of behind the scenes activism. Some in presidential level politics in NH. Not for either the red or blue side but for the good of the people and the country and always the environment and all the creatures. I learned a lot from great people. Now I am old and crippled, I have my house converted to saving animals that would otherwise die because they are not adoptable. I’m winding down in life but if I can help by writing, I will. I always tell people to do what they do best to help their cause.
Do NOT say harvested you fucking moron. Slaughter murder etc. there are NO crazies on the let them live side you fool. Crazy is the psychopath that slaughters a beautiful animal that has every right to life. Crazy is the one who deems himself the man who decides what lives or doesn’t. Crazy is the bastard who tortures a trapped animal, shoots them where they suffer for hours they cowardly take pics. Crazy is the fugly coward that destroys beauty and abuses children
Well said. My sentiments exactly.
I love your style!!! EXACTLY!!!!!YeeeeesXXX
Perhaps this is an opportunity to use the fact that no wolf was killed (found-seen) as a weapon against their being hunted. Is this unusual to not see a wolf, is it related to the time of year, weather, certain conditions? Is this normal? If not, warning signs of loss of numbers is glaring.
Deborah, it is unusual to see a wild wolf. However, you are correct that wolf numbers are down. Dangerously down because the killers target the alphas, especially pregnant females. Nobody really knows how many wolves there are. The killing needs to stop. No one here thinks that shooting a few wolves is a good idea in this blog. Only the asshats and demented wolf and wildlife biologists, who make their living kissing up to politicians would dare say such an ignorant thing, and they have to know they are lying when they do. Dr. Mech has ruined what reputation he may have had, but from recent accounts, he is still sticking to the lies that in part, caused this wolf genocide, ever the legend in his own mind. He could step up and be a man and say he didn’t understand the human factor regarding wolves. That is most certainly the disconect with the few wolf biologists that buy into the bullshit, see wolves as numbers only. Fortunately, there are wolf biologists who do understand and fearlessly speak out for wolves! Ultimately, it all comes down to politics, public opinion of wolves and making the press take note and exposing injustices done to all creatures.
@Geoff, we are all fighting the same war, some of us are better at certain tactics, some are better than others. That doesn’t mean any one tactic will work better than another. People have to do what they are best at, what they are comfortable doing for them to do a great job. Very few gifted people can do it all, walk through the valley of evil and come out unscathed. Even fewer can do it over and over again. I back that upwith the terrible PTSD rate coming out of the military stop-loss program. Bad leadership coupled with no will to go on anymore loses battles. But a war is won on just causes, dedicated warriors and leaders that know who to choose to do what job. We do fight on the side of justice, we do have dedicated warriors and leadership. What I do not see happening is multiple tatics to confuse the enemy. You are right about that. What you don’t understand is you don’t need to kill the killers, it only breeds more killers. The only justification for killing them is if they are in the act of attempting to kill you, your loved ones or your animals. There are oh so many better ways to wound them without bullets or even physically! Perception is your best weapon. For example, you could pour a quart of lime green koolaid in the snow under the asshat’s radiator after threatening to strand them in the woods. They will think that you cut their radiator hose and have their vehicle towed to a garage. For fifteen cents worth of koolaid, you may cost the asshat $500 in towing and the mechanic’s time, when in fact, you never set a finger on his truck or did any physical damage. You did deal the asshat a major financial blow! But you committed no crime and will be free to continue your fight. Do you think the awful low turn-out at the derby was an accident? Probably not. Perception, Geoff. You are a ‘hands-on’ guy. You are smart. Those are your gifts, use them wisely. Stone wolf, ancient grandmother said it would be a very long war but we will win if we all do our best and never give up but do Iive to fight another day. We are fighting a lack of wisdom, we are fighting greed. We are fighting sociopaths, some wildly rich ones. Look carefully at who is killing predators and why. Most especially who has the most motive to do away with the ESA, and for now, any creature on it or close to being on it. The wolf blood trail leads to the Tar Sands. Wolf blood for oil. Many on Wall St., and in DC have more wolf blood on their hands than the asshats who happily do their bidding. They lack wisdom, vision and empathy. They spread misinformation to achieve their goals. They pay lawyers to speak for them and do their dirty work. They pay lobbysts and advisors, they buy politicians. You want to fight them? Remember wisdom and perception. Screwing with the asshats is just pissing off the ‘end-users’, it’s useful to some extent, but be more useful to cost those at the top time, money and their reputations. It surely doesn’t mean you can’t foil a hunt, but use your time wisely and change tactics often. Always be perceptive and make connections. Wolves are the first domino of the war against the ESA to fall. Life on Earth is at stake, all life!
Yeah, so, what exactly are wolves PERMITTED to eat? Grass??!
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