As many as 184 wolves must be shot in British Columbia, Canada, in order to save the caribou, according to a statement from the provincial government. The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations announced plans on January 15 to address what they consider the threat of wolf predation in the areas of the South Selkirk Mountains and the South Peace, along the border of US states Washington and Idaho.
The caribou, one of Canada’s most recognized national symbols, “is at high risk of local extinction,” according to the ministry’s statement.
The government claims the South Selkirk caribou population declined from 46 in 2009 to just 18 as of March 2014, adding that “evidence points to wolves being the leading cause of mortality.”
The ministry further cites a joint-research project between officials from British Colombia, Washington and Idaho states, First Nations, the US Forest Service, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which found wolves killed two of the remaining caribou in the past 10 months.
Authorities also claim that in the area of South Pearce, inhabited by four caribou herds, at least 37 percent of all “adult [caribou] mortalities have been documented as wolf predation.”
In order to “remove” the wolves from these areas, the government will deploy “trained sharpshooters” to shoot the animals from a helicopter. The operation will cost over
US$500,000.
This latest wolf cull follows the killing of more than 1,000 wolves in the forests of Alberta, between 2005 and 2012, in an attempt to protect 100 caribou living there.
However, while the wolf hunt in Alberta stabilized caribou numbers in the region, it did not result in a population increase, according to a study published in November 2014 in the Canadian Journal of Zoology
The War on Wolves
Ian McAllister, conservation director for Pacific Wild, believes the government’s focus on wolves ignores the real issue concerning the caribou’s habitat.
“While the government is not moving forward to protect adequate amounts of habitat to save the caribou, they’re instead using wolves as a scapegoat and planning just a horrific level of aerial killing in the coming months,” McAllister said. “This is truly a war on wolves in British Columbia.”
McAllister, who started an online petition against the cull, told local newspaper the Province that the fundamental threat to caribou is human encroachment and the destruction of their natural environment.
“Killing every single wolf in this province will not save those caribou. But they’re killing wolves anyway. The wolves are being used as scapegoats.”
Moreover, McAllister argues that the government’s wolf cull violates the guidelines set forth by the Canadian Council on Animal Care regarding wild animal euthanasia.
According to the guidelines, the only “acceptable methods” for animal euthanasia produce “death with minimal pain and distress when used on conscious or sedated animals.”
“There’s no way they can kill that many wolves without missing shots and injuring animals,” McAllister told the Province. “You will have wounded wolves returning to ripped-apart family units … their suffering will be extreme.”
“Foolish and Inhumane”
David Shellenberger, a self-described advocate of international liberty and animal welfare, told the PanAm Post that the mass killing of wolves in British Columbia is typical of the government’s treatment of wolves and other predators.
“States almost always serve themselves and their cronies,” said Shellenberger. “When it comes to wolves, this means doing the bidding of the hunting and livestock industries. Governments also fear monger regarding wolves, exploiting ignorance and prejudice.”
Shellenberger further explained that wolves benefit prey species, including caribou, and argued that they are “essential to the general ecological health of habitats.”
“The decline of caribou,” he states, “is the result of government’s mismanagement of land; it is not the fault of wolves. Killing wolves is foolish and inhumane. Wolves are not only ecologically essential, but also intrinsically and economically valuable.”
There are more efficient ways to preserve caribou herds, says Shellenberger, without sacrificing other species. “The long-range answer for the health of the caribou population is better stewardship of land, ideally through the government giving ownership to conservation organizations or creating a trust structure.”
“An immediate possible answer,” he added, “is the farming of caribou.”
Edited by Guillermo Jimenez.
Exposing the Big Game 
Fire the Wildlife Agencies: (USFWS, Interior, state agencies, USDA Wildlife Services, BLM), and Canada which has killed thousands of wolves in name of ungulate farming:
The US government, Canada and other nations (The march of civilization and rancher-hunter war on wildlife) have long been in the wildlife killing business. They have 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. Wildlife agencies, state and federal, are not friendly to predators and defer to hunters, ranchers, conservative state legislatures, and their ilk and their interests in development and extraction and leases. 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 Services, to kill animals that are “encroaching” on their leased public land. 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 where, 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 protocols, 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).
USFWS, the very agency that should be out front protecting wolves is not. USFWS turned wolves over to state management (2012) in the midwest and northwest. Since then hundreds have been killed by state agencies’ management by hunting and trapping. Federal judges have returned wolves in WY and the midwest (MI, MN, WI) to the protected list where they belong indefinitely. Wolves do not need to be “managed” by general hunting and trapping seasons; that is a anti-wolf myth and a state wildlife agency myth that goes along with a state level management of wildlife by hunting and trapping. State management means turning wolves over to about 6 percent of the population that hunts and and and traps and their buddies in the state wildlife agencies that sell them licenses, an unholy alliance of hunters, trappers and agencies. Wolves do no need to be managed in the way state wildlife agencies do; they will manage their own populations. Maybe particular wolves or wolf packs need to be “managed” but managing them by general hunting and trapping seasons is likely counter productive. Ranchers would be better off with nonlethal management and managing their livestock better vis a vis predators.
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 author
r of Never Cry Wolf
Unethical Wildlife Agencies and Governments and “Sporting” Organizations
Barbaric idiots amongst us, no matter what their titles or rationalizations: It is a violation of public trust and ethics tor agencies, state or federal, in this country or another, to be having killing contests on public land as was the case in ID recently and such as is being planned in Sanders County Trout Creek Montana for Jan. 2015. ID hunts have occurred and are are planned. The ID hunts like the proposed Sanders County event was a contest targeted at wolves and coyotes. It is also 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, such as is happening in the USA, Canada and other countries. 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.The public pays for 94% of wilderness and wildlife management, not 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. There should be no hunting on preserves and state or national parks or near them or killing contests on public land. We are losing wildlife to encroachment on a large scale. Hunting per se is a major form of encroachment; and is way out of bounds in the areas and conditions described above. 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 and wildlife conservation and protection, not slaughter. Such hunts and the attitudes and rampant ignorance and hate of predators, especially the wolf and coyote are prime examples of why wolf management should not be in the hands of states like MT, ID and midwestern states.