SALMON Idaho
(Reuters) – U.S. land managers approved a recreation permit on Thursday allowing a controversial hunting contest open to children to take place on public lands in Idaho, where contestants will seek to kill the most wolves and other wildlife for cash and prizes.
The hunting group Idaho for Wildlife requested the permit for the so-called predator derby to take place each January for five years on millions of acres (hectares) overseen by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in east central Idaho near Salmon.
In granting the permit, the BLM found the event posed “no significant conflicts” in its management of natural resources.
“We are aware of the social controversy regarding the event,” Joe Kraayenbrink, BLM district manager in Idaho Falls, said in a statement. “However, from our analysis, we could not find significant conflicts with other environmental resources that would prohibit the competitive event from occurring.”
Approval of the hunt comes as animal-rights advocates mark an increase in such competitions in Western states including Oregon, New Mexico and California, where wildlife commissioners in December will vote on a proposal to ban such events.
The competition, which targets wolves, coyotes and other quarry and is expected to draw up to 500 hunters annually, is opposed by conservationists as a “killing contest.”
The contest also invites children as young as 10 to pair with an adult to kill animals including jackrabbits, starlings, skunks and weasels for an event promoted as a form of family recreation.
Derby opponents pledged to file suit asking a federal judge to order the BLM to revoke the permit for failing to adequately assess the event’s impacts on the environment and public safety.
“The BLM abdicated its responsibility as steward of our public lands. A cruel and dangerous killing contest has no place on lands held in trust for all Americans,” said Bethany Cotton, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians.
The BLM received tens of thousands of letters criticizing the event during a public comment period. Fewer than 20 letters favored it.
Steve Adler, head of Idaho for Wildlife, could not immediately be reached for comment but has previously said critics were seeking to restrict gun rights spelled out in the U.S. constitution and tarnish a decades-old hunting tradition in the American West.
“We’re stereotyped as a bunch of Idaho rednecks out to kill as many animals as we can,” he told Reuters last month.
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Sandra Maler)
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Defenders of Wildlife to Challenge BLM’s First-ever Approval of Wolf Hunting Derby on Public Lands in Idaho
Contact:
Suzanne Stone: sstone@defenders.org; (208) 861-4655
Laird Lucas: llucas@advocateswest.org; (208) 342-7024 ext. 209
BOISE, Idaho – Defenders of Wildlife will ask the courts to reverse a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) decision granting a permit for an Idaho anti-wolf group to hold a predator killing contest annually over the next five years on over 3 million acres of public land in eastern Idaho.
The court challenge will allege that, by allowing the predator derby targeting wolves, coyotes and other predators on public lands around Salmon, ID, BLM has undermined the Northern Rockies wolf recovery program that began in 1995 with reintroduction of wolves in Idaho and other states, and has violated the management standards set in place for potential and designated wilderness within the permit area. Defenders and other conservation groups have asserted that such commercial predator-killing derbies are a reflection of 19th century thinking and hatred towards predators and have no place on federal lands in the 21st century. They also say this persecution of predators flies in the face of modern day science that recognizes the valuable role that predators play in maintaining healthy ecosystems.
BLM received over 100,000 comments from Defenders of Wildlife members and other conservationists, strongly opposing the proposed Idaho wolf derby. But rather than fully assess the proposal through an Environmental Impact Statement as required by federal law, BLM “fast-tracked” its approval and failed to address the many potential adverse impacts from such an event, including impacts on local and regional wolf and other predator populations and on 17 areas specially managed to preserve their wilderness characteristics.
“Commercialized killing contests to slaughter predators are something right out of the 1800s. It’s the same archaic tactic that pushed wolves toward extinction in the first place,” said Suzanne Stone, Idaho resident and Defenders of Wildlife Senior Representative for Rockies and Plains. “These events also show that Idaho’s state-sponsored war on wolves is spreading to federal agencies. By issuing the permit, BLM is reinforcing the belief among local residents that wolves should be treated like unwanted vermin. It is shocking that BLM is willing to embrace the 19th century anti-wildlife tactics that led to the demise of wolves and other native predators across the West.”
“BLM’s action approving the Idaho Wolf Derby on Idaho public lands over the next five years is contrary to the federal government’s commitment to recover gray wolves in the Northern Rockies,” added Laird J. Lucas, Director of Litigation at Advocates for the West, which is representing Defenders in the lawsuit. “Human persecution of gray wolves is the reason why they were listed under the Endangered Species Act more than forty years ago; yet BLM’s action puts the federal government’s stamp of approval on further persecution and anti-wolf sentiment, which is a wrong step for the government to take.”
Defenders will be represented in this case by Laird Lucas and Bryan Hurlbutt of Advocates for the West, a public interest environmental law firm based in Boise, Idaho.
Defenders of Wildlife is dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities. With more than 1.1 million members and activists, Defenders of Wildlife is a leading advocate for innovative solutions to safeguard our wildlife heritage for generations to come. For more information, visit www.defenders.org and follow us on Twitter @defendersnews.
Exposing the Big Game 
Hunters and ranchers have been displacing and destroying wildlife and wilderness for thousands of years, since the dawn and march of civilization. They do not see themselves as such, but ranchers, farmers, hunters have led a war on wildlife. They see themselves as stewards of the land and conservationists because they allow some animals on the land, even if the the land is public leased land. But they are not tolerant of predators. wild horses, bison. Hunters often see themselves as conservationists because they work to expand and protect the game species for their blood sport traditions, but they create a huge distortion in wilderness ecology by marginalizing predators and farming ungulates and game birds. These groups are hugely into entitlement thinking. Ranchers, particularly in the West, see all public land as “their land” and they are against wild horses, bison, predators. Hunters and fishermen see their sports targets as theirs and resent sharing with raptors, storks, apex predators. They are wrong about it all, not seeing the benefits of balanced ecology and the healthy roles of predators. But their thinking errors get in the way of any change: Entitlement, power and control, victim stance, use of delusional righteous anger to control others, dehumanization of opponents to their views, self centered thinking. Major obstacles to change are society’s own ignorance and indifference to the unsustainable animal farming and game farming effects and sports killing, most are oblivious to inevitable extinction of land and sea wildlife and maybe our own existence (too abstract a concept for most).
A federal judge just ruled, September 23, 2014, that Wyoming wolves have to be re-listed and Wyoming must come up with a conservation plan which is not a wolf killing plan and that hunting is ceased immediately. He stated that Wyoming is too hostile toward wolves to manage them. The same can be said of Montana and Idaho and Wisconsin and elsewhere. These wolf jihad states should be relieved of wolf management indefinitely because they are run by traditional wolf hating elements. Wyoming had wolves classified as varmints and eligible for shoot on sight and allowed only a narrow corridor outside Yellowstone where they could exist and even there hunted in season. In Montana last year (2013) “sportsmen” got 5 wolves for one $19.00 ticket. Since then landowners have been given permission to kill up to 100 “threatening” wolves, which really amounts to an open season year around for landowners and their designated “agents”. This year there are no quotas for any areas except outside Yellowstone and Glacier. Idaho intends to get their wolf numbers down to as little as 150. Who was it, Ed Bangs (?), that pulled that out of their arse for number of wolves as target numbers for delisting, 150, 30 breeding pairs. ID, MT, WY can easily support 700 wolves. Actually, the wolf numbers seem stabilized in in the 600’s in MT and ID, but both states want much more killing. But these states, sportsmen and yokels have latched onto those numbers as a rationale for liberal kill policies. Wolves will manage their own populations relative to wolf pack elbow room and prey. General killing called “management” is asinine. The hunting, trapping season starts in Montana in September and goes to February 2015. Matters for wolves seem to be getting worse each year with the traditional enemies of ranchers, sportsmen, and yokels with their folklore, lies and myths and parochial ignorance, mostly about elk predation and stock predation, wolves as threatening, wanton killing of wolves, wolf size (giant, alien, Canadian wolf), and degree of wolf predation, numbers of wolves. State management of wolves is wolf jihad, not science, a hunter-rancher-wildlife agency led war on wildlife.
It is inappropriate, unethical and violation of the public trust mandate to be hunting wolves, killing predators (lions, wolves, bears, coyotes), and manipulating normal prey-predator relationships, established through millenniums of time to follow the unethical and mythological hunter myth of bolstering ungulate populations for hunters to kill. This amounts to game farming in the wilderness and is a violation of the trust put in state and federal wildlife agencies to protect the natural balance of wild places, which is basically to leave them alone and protect them from humans. Wildlife viewing is usually much more remunerative than wildlife killing. The American public pays for wilderness, wildlife, preserves and national parks much more than hunters and trappers. Nationally, hunters only represent 6% of the population and fishermen 15%. It may be higher in Alaska, as it is in a couple of western states, but not that much higher. Wolf viewing alone in Yellowstone brings in $35 million to the states surrounding Yellowstone. It is my understanding that the Denali wolf packs have already been diminished by hunters outside the park, indicating that there should be a buffer zone around Denali as there should be around Yellowstone, Glacier and other national parks, game preserves, and sanctuaries. We are losing wildlife to encroachment on a large scale. Hunting is a form of encroachment. People come to states that still have significant wilderness to see wilderness and the wildlife that should not be diminished by an unholy alliance between hunters, trappers, their fees and sports game targets and wildlife agencies. The role of wildlife agencies: wilderness.
Fire the Wildlife Agencies (USFWS, Interior, 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)
Reblogged this on Wolf Is My Soul.
Reblogged this on Sherlockian's Blog.
“Steve Adler, head of Idaho for Wildlife, could not immediately be reached for comment but has previously said critics were seeking to restrict gun rights spelled out in the U.S. constitution and tarnish a decades-old hunting tradition in the American West.
“We’re stereotyped as a bunch of Idaho rednecks out to kill as many animals as we can,” he told Reuters last month.”
That’s because those fuckwits ARE rednecks out to kill as many animals as they can! And what do animal killing contests have to do with gun rights anyway?
You’re right, Maureen, how else can they be described? And the constitution never said anything about contest hunts.