“The range of possible (wolf) mortality rates (may be) as high as 35–55 percent, or 7–27 percent higher than reported by the state.” — wolf biologists’ letter to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
When nature organized this country, 2 million wolves graced the United States. Now state agencies man-handle nature as a game preserve for the 6 percent who kill. Less than 5,000 (0.025 percent of 2 million) wolves survive, under assault, about half of them in Minnesota. Red wolves are near extinction.
Wolves were the first endangered key predator species to be delisted legislatively, for a political agenda, not for scientific recovery. It was a gross violation of the Endangered Species Act. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, a rancher, wanted wolves for his constituency to kill, and the Democrats wanted to keep his seat and the Senate — so the ESA was violated, as were the wolves and our…
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Exposing the Big Game 
Fire the Wildlife Agencies (USFWS, state agencies, USDA Wildlife Services, BLM)
The US government has long been in the wildlife killing business. It offered bounties on predators, poisoned and gassed prairie dogs, allowed the near extinction of bison, prairie dogs, black footed ferret, the wolf (wolf bounties), wolverine, and marginalized the grizzly, lion, and many others. The war on coyotes has been unrelenting. Hunters and ranchers, bedfellows of the wildlife agencies nearly wiped out most wildlife. With the advent of wildlife agency hunting regulations, the hunter has been somewhat contained; and now even count themselves as “conservationists” because they have essentially farmed game sport (recreational killing opportunities) animals and marginalized predators on the erroneous rationale of less predators to share game with the more game (recreational killing opportunities). Instead of an emphasis on wilderness and wildlife ecology, USDA Wildlife Services kills nearly 4 million animals a year and state agencies millions more in recreational killing opportunities and “management”. State wildlife agencies use hunters to “manage” “sporting” game and predators. Ranchers may tolerate big bird and other sport game birds, elk, bison and deer and antelope; but are very hostile to predators. Ranchers and farmers destroy wildlife habitat with the plow and grazing not only on private land but ever more and more on public land facilitated by the US government in leased grazing, leased farming and leases to extraction industries avenues. Encroachers on public land often, in turn, adding insult added to injury, asks the federal government, such as Wildlife Service, to kill animals that are convincing their encroachment. Conservation efforts and new agencies such as ESA and EPA and private conservation agencies have and are battling for balanced ecologies, the predators, and many animals of no concern to sportsmen, ranchers and farmers, and extraction industries and development interests. Agencies, like the USFWS often cave into ranchers hunters, state wildlife agencies, conservative state legislatures, a government tradition of really prioritizing those interests. The arguments that threatens remaining wilderness and wildlife is as old as civilization, making a buck by the traditional enemies of wildlife. What is not appreciated enough is what little is left: In the US roughly 2.6 % in the lower 48 and another 2.5 % in Alaska; and this is under continuing and unremitting pressure from, guess what, the traditional enemies of wilderness and wildlife, still too often facilitated by the wildlife agencies. Private conservation agencies often find themselves in conflict with wildlife agencies who should be on their side and the side of preserving wilderness, balanced wildlife ecology, and the predators who are essential to the balanced wildlife ecology. The wildlife agencies, state and federal, need firing and revamping to emphasize wildlife preservation, wildlife viewing, and a heritage of wilderness and wildlife in what is left of the available habitat. There is something terribly wrong when we see wildlife agencies aligning with ranchers, farmers, “sportsmen”, conservative state legislatures. It is time for major upheavals of them, their agendas, their heads and replacing them with priorities on preserving, recovering, protecting what is left of wilderness and wildlife, not siding with the traditional enemies of wildlife and wilderness (ranching, hunters, conservative state legislatures and populace, extraction industries, and development and such parochial ilk that echoes their sentiments)
Wolves do not purchase hunting licenses, and most state wildlife managers draw their pay from revenue derived from sale of hunting, fishing, and trapping licenses. That, in brief, is what is wrong with wildlife management in America….Ted Williams, 1986
“To look into the eyes of a wolf is to see your own soul.” Aldo Leopold
“Whenever and wherever men have engaged in the mindless slaughter of animals (including other men), they have often attempted to justify their acts by attributing the most vicious or revolting qualities to those they would destroy; and the less reason there is for the slaughter, the greater the campaign for vilification.”
― Farley Mowat, naturalist, conservationist and autho
r of Never Cry Wolf
References:
http://missoulian.com/lifestyles/recreation/federally-funded-open-fields-program-provides-access-for-montana-hunters/article
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/judge-orders-reconsideration-of-prairie-dog-ruling/article_
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/judge-orders-reconsideration-of-prairie-dog-ruling/article_
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/federal-judge-won-t-give-wyoming-control-of-wolves/article
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/conservation-groups-oppose-wyoming-wolf-management/article_71d1afd4-480f-11e4-8a18-f75365d4af06.html#.VCnisc_BdeY.email
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/09/28/hunter-conservationists-the-most-ridiculous-spin-of-the-day/
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/08/17/idaho-wolf-hunting-derby-seeks-5-year-permit/
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/patricia-randolphs-madravenspeak-human-denial-causing-great-dying-on-earth/
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/06/07/wild-horse-roundups-undermined-by-new-blm-data/
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/wyoming-fights-wolf-decision-files-emergency-rule-to-allow-hunting-season/
Landers,Rich, “Court reinstates endangered status for Wyoming wolves,” The Spokesman-Review. 23 September 2014.
http://missoulian.com/news/local/fwp-investigates-missoula-man-s-i–wolf-kill-brag/article_
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/montana-fwp-approves-killing-of-100-wolves-per-year-by-landowners/
http://missoulian.com/news/local/updated-idaho-proposes-wolf-baiting-to-protect-elk-herds/article_748230ce-94cc-11e3-8053-001a4bcf887a.html
Click to access infographic-wolves_earthjustice.pdf
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/one-million-protest-stripping-wolves-of-endangered-listing/
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/idaho-wolf-and-coyote-derby-hunters-shoot-themselves-in-the-collective-foot-have-to-have-it-amputated/
http://missoulian.com/news/local/idaho-group-sponsors-youth-wolf-coyote-derby/article_de89fb6e-6781-11e3-9a45-0019bb2963f4.html
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/oregon-panel-oks-last-resort-wolf-killing-rule/
http://thoughtsfromthewildside.blogspot.com/2014/03/killing-wolves-hunter-led-war-against.html?m
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/wildlife-denali-wolf-packs-hammered-by-hunting/
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/whither-the-hunterconservationist/
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/sportsmen-donate-15000-to-wildlife-services
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2014/05/30/rocky-mountain-elk-foundation-donates-25000-to-fwp-for-wolf-management/9768067/
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/08/01/whats-a-minnisota-wolfs-life-worth-4-00
RDH 0/29/2014
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