Monthly Archives: February 2014

New Wolf Film in Production

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Check out Medicine of the Wolf– a film by Julia Huffman.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/645287247/medicine-of-the-wolf

Needs funding to get off the ground; 25 Days to go..for the Pledge of $50.000…

Medicine of the Wolf pursues the deep intrinsic value of brother wolf and our forgotten promise to him.

“To look into the eyes of a wolf is to see your own soul.”

~ Aldo Leopold

Director of Photogaphy Lawrence Schweich with Director Julia Huffman and Chris Hunter, Sound.
Director of Photogaphy Lawrence Schweich with Director Julia Huffman and Chris Hunter, Sound.

Filmmaker Julia Huffman travels to Minnesota and into wolf country to pursue the deep intrinsic value of brother wolf and our forgotten promise to him.

Medicine of the Wolf will take viewers on a journey to understand the powerful relationship that we have with the wolf by interviewing prominent people who represent the different levels of connection to this ancient and iconic species – from Anishinaabe creation stories that reflect our interconnectivity to all things, to a lifetime of observations of a complex and dynamic family unit, to a wolf scientist expressing his layered findings in an over 50 year study of the delicate web that wolves weave into our ecosystem.

Wolf Pup Ravenwood - Photo by Jim Brandenburg
Wolf Pup Ravenwood – Photo by Jim Brandenburg

We are very honored to share that Medicine of the Wolf, our documentary examining the treatment of America’s gray wolves, has won the eighth annual Animal Content in Entertainment documentary grant offered by The Humane Society of the United States. 

“This feature-length documentary from filmmaker Julia Huffman follows the work of renowned environmentalist and National Geographic photographer Jim Brandenburg, who has studied wolves in the field for 44 years. The film explores the role wolves have played through American history, including their esteemed place in Minnesota’s Ojibwe tribe.”

~ The Humane Society of the United States

TESTIMONIALS

“Medicine of the wolf will inspire us to take another look at our most important connection to the wolf and ultimately to our own souls.”

~ Brooks Fahy, Predator Defense

“A film like this could really not have come along at a more vital time for wolf conservation. Anti-wolf sentiments nearly led to the extermination of America’s wolves, and just when populations are starting to bounce back, wolves are being hunted and trapped at an alarming rate in several states as we speak, placing this iconic species in jeopardy once again.”

~ Colin McCormack, Manager of The Humane Society of the United State’s ACE program

“Julia’s film is profoundly moving. This is an important film that may help galvanize the hearts of many to protect this beautiful animal.”

~ Mark Coleman, Author, AWAKE in the WILD

“Thanks for sharing the trailer, it was Beautiful.”

~ Mike Phillips, Executive Director, Turner Species Fund

A HISTORY – WOLF AND MAN 

“Canis lupus, the wolf of my imagination and of the northern forest, did indeed roam Minnesota. Once the most abundant large predator on the continent, the wolf had virtually been eliminated from most places. Minnesota remained the only state among the lower 48 where a truly viable population existed.”

~ Jim Brandenburg, Author, BROTHER WOLF 

Weekly Wolf News

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I hope all these links work for you…

Latest Posted Idaho Wolf Hunt             Kill total (current season):169
Latest Posted Idaho Wolf Trapping             Kill total: 78              Latest Posted Montana Wolf Hunt Kill Total (current season): 137              Latest Posted Montana Wolf Trapping             Kill total: 77 Wyoming Wolf Kill Total             (2014):0
Regional Total Reported Killed Since             Delisting: 1683
Pacific West
Op-ed/Letter to the Editors
National
Op-ed/Letter to Editors

Northern Rockies

Op-ed/Letter to Editors

Elsewhere and other

——- Subscription Only

By George Plaven                  EO Media Group | 0 comments
A possible new wolf pack is roaming Eastern Oregon                 after wildlife biologists confirmed finding tracks from                 five animals near Medical Springs in Union County.
The Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife first                 documented tracks in late December, based on reports                 from a landowner in the area. Tracks were found again                 three more times last month, stretching into northern                 Baker County.
While little is known about the exact location of the                 pack, a designated Area of Known Wolf Activity was                 mapped in the southern Catherine Creek and northern                 Keating wildlife management units. Size was estimated by                 looking at the range and behavior of other packs across                 the region.
Wolf packs are typically defined as consisting of a                 male, female and their offspring. For purposes of                 monitoring, a pack can also mean four or more wolves                 traveling together over winter, and this group of wolves                 meets that definition.
ODFW will attempt to collar one of the new wolves to                 learn more about their territory and breeding status,                 said spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy. It is still too early                 to know if there is a breeding pair or pups within the                 group of five.
“There is evidence that they have used this area over                 several weeks, so we know they’re not just dispersing,”                 Dennehy said. “We don’t know much more about them yet.”
The as yet unnamed pack would be Oregon’s eighth. The                 Imnaha, Umatilla River, Wenaha, Snake River, Walla                 Walla, Minam and Mount Emily packs also inhabit the                 state’s northeast corner. Total wolf figures in 2013 are                 not yet available, though 46 were counted at the end of                 2012.
Wolves remain listed under the state Endangered Species                 Act, and are federally protected west of highways 395,                 78 and 95. Management is done by ODFW to conserve                 populations, while mitigating damage from livestock                 depredation.
No incidents of depredation have been reported with the                 new group. ODFW will work with ranchers in the area to                 let them know about rules and different preventative                 measures for minimizing wolf-livestock conflicts.
Non-lethal measures are required before ODFW will use                 lethal control against wolves. In order to count as a                 “qualifying incident,” a pack must prey on livestock                 four times within a six-month period. These incidents                 must be investigated by ODFW and be confirmed                 depredations by the agency.
Confirmed depredations only qualify toward lethal                 control if livestock producers had preventative measures                 already in place.
Once a wolf kills livestock for the first time, an Area                 of Depredating Wolves is established. At that point,                 livestock producers must use preventative measures for a                 depredation to qualify.
It is up to producers to remove, treat or dispose of                 all known and reasonably accessible attractants on the                 property, such as bone piles. Finally, ranchers must                 have in place one additional deterrent — such as fladry                 fencing or range riders — to protect livestock.
No packs have met all the lethal control criteria. Most                 recently, there was confirmed depredation of a ewe Jan.                 30 by the Imnaha Pack on Upper Prairie Creek in Wallowa                 County. A report on whether this is a “qualifying                 incident” is still pending.
Before delisting wolves, wildlife managers need to                 observe four breeding pairs for three consecutive years,                 each with two pups that survive through the end of the                 year. Oregon met that requirement for the first time in                 2012, and 2013 could mark the second time depending on                 final year-end survey results.
Additional information about wolves is available on                 ODFW’s website at www.dfw.state.or.us/wolves.
copyrighted Hayden wolf in lodgepoles

If You Eat Meat

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If you eat chicken or pork, you’re supporting extreme animal abuse on factory farms;

If you eat beef, you’re supporting the livestock industry that kills bison, elk and wolves;

If you eat fish, you’re supporting the demise of our living oceans;

If you hunt, your selfish food choice robs a life and cheats a natural predator;

If you eat meat, you’re part of the problem instead of the solution;

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Ranchers seek to extend lethal elk removal season–right outside Yellowstone!

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[This is just north of Yellowstone, where wolves should be allowed to take care of the elk “problem”…]

http://helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/ranchers-seek-to-extend-lethal-elk-removal-season/article_4ea84c0e-9548-11e3-8653-001a4bcf887a.html

BILLINGS — Cattle ranchers in the Paradise Valley asked the Fish and Wildlife Commission on Thursday to extend the season for lethal elk removals in the area to May 15 and to pay for fencing to keep elk out of feeding and calving areas.

The controversial proposals were drawn up by a subcommittee of the upper Yellowstone watershed group as a way to reduce the transmission of the disease brucellosis from infected elk to cattle during the spring, which is when brucellosis is spread through contact with aborted fetal tissue from infected animals.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks currently has a policy to pay for fencing materials to block wildlife from raiding haystacks. The fencing supplies are provided to landowners who allow public hunting.

In what has been deemed the designated surveillance area for brucellosis around Yellowstone National Park, FWP allows elk hazing and fencing to help landowners from Jan. 15 through June 15. Lethal elk removals are allowed through April 30, but the number of elk killed is limited to 10 each time. Hunters on a roster are called to remove the elk.

Defending idea

Although admitting the fencing proposal is “a little scary” because it lacks details about the type of fencing and costs, Paradise Valley rancher Druska Kinkie told the commission the finer details would be worked out by the landowner and Fish, Wildlife and Parks to address specific situations on different properties. Each project would be unique.

“The goal is not to stop elk but to get them to take a different route,” she said.

Eric Liska, the Department of Livestock’s brucellosis program veterinarian, supported the proposals, noting that landowners have only two tools to fight brucellosis infection: vaccination of their livestock, which isn’t 100 percent effective, and keeping their livestock separated from elk during the spring.

Wildlife groups opposed

The proposal immediately came under fire from people attending the meeting or listening in.

Park City resident J.W. Westman said the Laurel Rod and Gun Club was opposed to the proposals, placing the blame for spread of the disease on some ranches that provide a safe harbor for elk during the hunting season. He also pointed to the surrounding states of Idaho and Wyoming which have elk feedgrounds where disease is more easily spread as being at the root of the problem.

Kathryn QannaYahu, a Bozeman environmentalist, said such measures seem extreme and possibly expensive and said the risk of brucellosis transmission from elk to cattle is only .00024 percent.

“This is about depopulating, removing a forage competition ungulate from the landscape, sportsmen’s dollars subsidizing their socialized agriculture and game ranching,” she wrote in an email.

Working groups rapped

Others expressed concern that the group making the proposal contains no members of sporting groups, hunters or other members of the public to provide a balanced recommendation.

“These working groups have become more or less dysfunctional,” said Bill O’Connell, a Bozeman-area farmer who was once a member of a similar group in the Madison Valley.

Mark Albrecht, a Bozeman veterinarian and member of the statewide elk working group, agreed the local working groups need help. He also said that if the department decides to extend the season for lethal elk removals, an environmental assessment should be conducted. He said that without studying the issue, FWP could be promoting more elk abortions caused by stressing the animals. If that were the case, the agency would be increasing the risk of transmission by trying to remove more elk.

“Let’s not forget the science,” Albrecht said.

Public’s chance

Fish and Wildlife Commission chairman Dan Vermillion, who lives in Livingston, supported the Paradise Valley landowners for coming forth with recommendations to address the problem. He noted that some of the ranches where infection has occurred were open to public hunting, that elk numbers are within FWP’s objectives and that the elk causing problems aren’t showing up during the hunting season, but arrive in March.

But he also expressed concerns about the methods landowners proposed and the difficulty of solving an issue when Wyoming and Idaho continue to congregate elk on feedgrounds during the winter.

“It’s now time for Montanans to weigh in,” Vermillion said, noting that proposals will come before the commission again at its April 10 meeting. Comments will be taken until March 21.

“Let us know what you think, because this is huge,” he said.

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Thousands of zoo animals killed in Europe yearly

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By MALIN RISING / Associated Press / February 14, 2014

STOCKHOLM (AP) — People around the world were stunned when Copenhagen Zoo killed a healthy 2-year-old giraffe named Marius, butchered its carcass in front of a crowd that included children and then fed it to lions.

But Marius’ fate isn’t unique — thousands of animals are euthanized in European zoos each year for a variety of reasons by zoo managers who say their job is to preserve species, not individual animals. In the U.S., zoos try to avoid killing animals by using contraceptives to make sure they don’t have more offspring than they can house, but that method has also been criticized for disrupting animals’ natural behavior.

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HOW OFTEN ARE LARGE MAMMALS KILLED IN ZOOS?

U.S. and European zoological groups refuse to release figures for the total number of animals killed. But David Williams Mitchell, spokesman of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, or EAZA, estimates an average zoo in its 347-member organization annually kills about five large mammals, which adds up to 1,735. The number doesn’t include zoos and animal parks that don’t belong to the association.

Animal rights groups suggest numbers are much higher. The Associated Press contacted 10 zoos in Europe — two refused to comment, four said they never kill any animals unless severely ill and four said they kill between one and 30 animals every year. Two zoos in the U.S. said they only ever kill animals for ‘‘quality of life reasons.’’

More: http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/2014/02/14/thousands-zoo-animals-killed-europe-yearly/3koKD1JKOLi9acnRo8YSQK/story.html

Another giraffe named Marius may be killed changedotorg

US government could drive grey wolf to extinction

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http://www.salon.com/2014/02/14/outrageous_the_u_s_may_take_the_grey_wolf_off_the_endangered_species_list_paper/

Friday, Feb 14, 2014

OnEarth About 300 wolves live in the nearly 2-million-acre swath of central Ontario forest known as Algonquin Provincial Park. These wolves are bigger and broader than coyotes, but noticeably smaller than the gray wolves of Yellowstone. So how do they fit into the wolf family tree? Scientists don’t agree on the answer—yet it could now affect the fate of every wolf in the United States.

That’s because last June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed removing gray wolves across most of the country from the endangered species list, a move that would leave the animals vulnerable to hunting. To support its proposal, the agency used a contested scientific paper—published, despite critical peer review, in the agency’s own journal—to argue that gray wolves never existed in the eastern United States, so they shouldn’t have been protected there in the first place.

Instead of the gray wolf, the service said, an entirely different species of wolf—the so-called “eastern wolf,” a species whose remnants perhaps survive in Algonquin Park—once inhabited the forests of eastern North America. Canid biologists have argued over the existence of this “lost species” for years. Yet researchers on all sides say that even if the Algonquin wolves are a separate species, that shouldn’t preclude continuing protections for the gray wolf.

On Friday, an independent panel of five leading geneticists and taxonomists came down hard on the agency’s proposal to delist gray wolves, unanimously concluding that the service had not relied on the “best available science.” Individual panel members described “glaring insufficiencies” in the supporting research and said the agency’s conclusions had fundamental flaws.

“What’s most significant,” says Andrew Wetzler, director of land and wildlife programs for the Natural Resources Defense Council (which publishes OnEarth), “is that this is coming from a group of eminent biologists who disagree with each other about the eastern wolf—and even so, they agree that the agency hasn’t properly understood the scientific issues at hand.”

copyrighted wolf in water

BBC filmmaker Martyn Stewart locked up in Japan accused of being ‘eco-terrorist’

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BBC filmmaker Martyn Stewart locked up in Japan accused of being ‘eco-terrorist’

Martyn Stewart posted this picture on his Facebook from Osaka airport in Japan Martyn Stewart posted this picture on his Facebook from Osaka airport in Japan

Kate Nelson Thursday, February 13, 2014 1:52 PM

 BBC filmmaker Martyn Stewart who documents the bloody dolphin hunts in Taiji is reportedly locked up at Osaka airport claiming he’s accused of being an ‘eco-terrorist’.

Stewart, who films documentaries about the dolphin hunts in Taiji, said his conditions and the way he has been treated was ‘nothing short of criminal’.

He posted on his Facebook account: “I am locked in a cell room at Osaka airport waiting on an appeal to the high minister regarding my entry into Japan.

“I’m accused of being sea shepherd and an eco terrorist. My footage is not liked in Japan apparently and have been accused of assaulting members of the public.

“In 4 years of being here for the dolphins I have maintained the law and abided by their rules. My words and pictures did the rest. The government of Japan will do anything to protect the rights of the fishermen of Taiji and the barbaric treatment of the animals involved.

“Please share far and wide to bring awareness to this corrupt government and those that want to continue to brutally treat these amazing animals.”

Stewart has visited Japan several times to film the dolphin hunts in Taiji where hundreds of animals are wrestled into nets. Some are killed for meat, others are trapped and sold to aquariums.

Japanese fisherman say the annual hunt is part of their culture.

Writing on his blog last year, he said: “What I learnt from these visits was that we (westerners) cannot stop this war on the oceans. Japan and most of its people have to end this and in some way, make them believe it was their idea. Pressure from outsiders only gets their goat and they become stubborn. I got the impression that if you tell the fishermen to end this atrocity, they tried harder to kill. They are now actually being blasé about the capturing and killing. Yes, tarpaulin is still being used heavily but they are not as vigilant in stopping people from seeing the odd dead dolphin or tail draped outside of the boats that carry the corpses to the butcher house anymore.”

Marius, the baby Giraffe’s Last Peaceful Moments Caught On Surveillance Camera

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Nabeki's avatarHowling For Justice

Here is beautiful Marius, so graceful and calm, having no idea a death sentence is hanging over his head. What a sweet baby. This hurt me to the core, it’s the senseless murder of an innocent, just like the wolves are slaughtered every day, for absolutely no reason. RIP Marius!

Warning Disturbing Image

Zoo visitors, including young children, look on as Marius is skinned Picture AFP_Getty
“Zoo visitors, including young children, look on as Marius is skinned (Picture: AFP/Getty)”

Now another zoo in Denmark is considering repeating this terrible tragedy with a giraffe, named of all things, Marius. Apparently they see nothing wrong with the way Marius was treated and are just as defiant as the Copenhagen Zoo, despite outrage from around the world over the baby giraffe’s brutal slaying. Sounds like they’re circling the wagons over there, stubborn to admit what happened to Marius was reprehensible!

“Jyllands Park zoo has announced that it might have to kill Marius 2, the Guardian reports…

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Another Danish Giraffe Named Marius Could Be Killed By Zoo

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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/another-danish-giraffe-named-marius-could-be-killed-zoo-n29516

A zoo in Denmark might euthanize one its giraffes, media reported Thursday,
days after another Danish zoo slaughtered an ‘unwanted’ giraffe and fed its
carcass to the lions.

Jyllands Park Zoo in western Denmark might put down its seven-year-old
Marius if the zoo manages to acquire a female giraffe, zoo keeper Janni
Lojtved Poulsen told a local news agency.

“We can’t have two males and one female. Then there will be fights,”
Poulsen said.

Staff at Copenhagen Zoo received death threats after it killed an 18-month-old healthy male giraffe – coincidentally also called Marius – because the animal’s genes were already well represented in an international breeding program.

Poulsen said that it might be possible to find another place for the giraffe to live, but that the probability is small. Like its namesake in Copenhagen, Jyllands Park Zoo’s Marius is considered unsuitable for breeding.

“If the breeding programme coordinator decides that he should be put down, then that’s what we’ll do,” Poulsen said.

She said that zoos in Denmark have been killing surplus animals for many years, and that the wave of protests following Sunday’s killing in Copenhagen is not deterring Jyllands Park Zoo.

“Many places abroad where they do not do this, the animals live under poor conditions, and they are not allowed to breed either. We don’t think that’s ok,” she said.

The giraffe at Copenhagen Zoo was dissected in front of crowds at the zoo, and afterwards, some of the carcass was then fed to other zoo animals and some was sent to research projects in Denmark and abroad for study.

Poulsen said Jyllands Park Zoo has not yet considered whether it should carry out a public dissection as the one in Copenhagen.

Reuters
First published February 13th 2014

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