Oct. 5, 2015
MEDIA CONTACT:
Brooks Fahy
Executive Director
(541) 520-6003
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– Screenings Oct. 12-16 in Coeur d’Alene, Moscow, Boise and Pocatello | See schedule
EUGENE, OR – An award-winning wildlife documentary that Jane Goodall wants millions to see is coming to Idaho, the biggest wolf-killing state in the nation. Idaho also has a reputation as a veritable playground for hunters, trappers and federal agents, who slaughter hundreds of thousands of wild animals unnecessarily there each year.
The film, EXPOSED: USDA’s Secret War on Wildlife, features three former federal agents and a prominent Congressman blowing the whistle on a barbaric and wasteful wildlife management program within the USDA called “Wildlife Services.” Every year agents from this program kill millions of animals across the nation. They are highly active in Idaho, and their methods-which are taxpayer funded-ignore science, harm humans, and kill pets and endangered species.
Idaho earned its reputation as the country’s biggest wolf-killing state by slaughtering close to 2,000 gray wolves since 2011, when they lost federal endangered species protection and management was turned over to state wildlife agencies. Idaho has even allowed Wildlife Services agents to gun down wolves from helicopters over the “Lolo Zone,” a prime wolf habitat in the North-Central part of the state. The Lolo Zone features some of the most rugged and beautiful public wildlands in the Lower 48. Idaho’s stated goal is to reduce their wolf population to 150, a scientifically disastrous objective that destroys the positive effect apex predators have on ecosystems and the biodiversity they foster.
Wildlife Services is charged with taking out any threat to livestock-real or alleged. This killing is done largely for the benefit of private individuals who don’t take responsibility for protecting their animals.
The whistle-blowers in the film “EXPOSED” reveal deeply entrenched problems within this federal agency, not the least of which is lack of accountability with federal funds. Another problem is Wildlife Services’ obstinacy in ignoring science, which clearly shows the exponentially accelerating ecological damage caused by killing off predator species.
But the biggest outcry is about the inhumane and indiscriminate methods the agents use-traps, snares, aerial gunning and poisons. Ironically, these devices often pose a greater risk than the very wild animals they purport to control. Many proven nonlethal alternatives that minimize conflicts with wild animals are available, but Wildlife Services does not require landowners to use them before their trappers apply lethal force.
To date, countless people and pets have suffered injury and death due to negligent use of traps and poisons. And while Wildlife Services’ own directives require agents to post warnings to alert the public, they often don’t post them. When they do, the signs are only marginally effective, as animals and young children don’t understand them.
Wildlife Services has been publicly condemned by Jane Goodall, PH.D., DBE, who said “I hope EXPOSED will be watched by millions, so Americans will learn of the unforgivable actions of those who have exercised their power to cause untold agony to thousands of innocent fellow creatures on our planet.” The agency has also been excoriated by The Humane Society of the United States, the American Society of Mammalogists, and many other credible organizations and individuals.
“EXPOSED” won Best Short Film at the 2015 Animal Film Festival and Best Wildlife Activism at the 2014 Wildlife Conservation Film Festival.
Screenings will be held in four cities and will be followed by an audience question and answer session with film co-producer/director Brooks Fahy. The events are being sponsored by Predator Defense, Friends of the Clearwater, Advocates for the West, Western Watersheds Project, and the Kootenai Environmental Alliance.
COEUR D’ALENE
Monday, October 12, 6 p.m.
Coeur d’Alene Library Community Room
702 E. Front Ave.
FREE
MOSCOW
Tuesday, October 13, 7 p.m.
1912 Center, Great Room
412 E. Third St.
FREE
BOISE
Thursday, October 15, 4 p.m.
4:00 p.m., Boise State University
Student Union Building, Lookout Room
FREE
Thursday, October 15, 7:30 p.m.
The Flicks, 646 W. Fulton St, Boise
$5 at door
POCATELLO
Friday, October 16, 7 p.m.
Idaho State University
Student Union Building, POND Wood River Room
$5 at door
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“EXPOSED” Screening Schedule
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About Predator Defense
Founded in 1990, Predator Defense is a national nonprofit working to protect native predators and create alternatives for people to coexist with wildlife. Our efforts take us into the field, onto America’s public lands, to Congress, and into courtrooms. Visit us at
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Exposing the Big Game 
The problem is that this idea of “co-existing with wildlife” always puts the burden of proof on the wild animal, and does nothing really to help stop the slaughter going on. Most people do not realize that these “landowners” are grazing livestock on public lands allotments–almost for free—and they get lots of other subsidies to boot, including Wildlife Services (aka Animal Damage Control) to slaughter native wild animals for them. These public lands belong to the wildlife, not the destructive livestock industry. It’s time to get them off our public lands. Let them graze livestock on their private lands. No native wildlife will be safe until we do this. Ranchers do not want so-called predators on the public lands they are grazing to the bone.
http://www.foranimals.org
Yes, co-existing means that the wildlife are the ones to have to do the compromising and giving in. With mounting human population pressure in the area, more wild lives are in danger of being redefined as “pests,” and there may be “no-existing” left for them. It’s the same population pressure that leaves more defenseless cattle in wilderness areas near the predators. There is just not enough land for all human desires, including that for more steaks, and large numbers of cattle degrade the land by grazing and trampling it. Thus the need for land increases. So wild lives don’t matter.
Then there is just the deep-rooted hunting culture in the West, so tied up with the concepts of human supremancy, masculinity, and remnants of frontier self-sufficiency. For some of the guys (yes, mostly men) I believe there is an element of escaping society during hunting season and acting with a kind of meanness and violence (often alcohol fueled) that must be curbed in their daily lives. The torture of wild animals comes from a very ugly place in human nature, but with wolves the killing is easier to justify because the animals have been demonized for centuries. That medieval mindset seems alive and well in “red neck” country.
I wish they would have the shows on TV also. The reception in Idaho will be interesting and I’m glad the predator defenders are being heard. The question and answer sessions should be interesting, especially of the hunters show up.
Thanks. Great response and clarity.