Category Archives: Wolves

Idaho: Year-round wolf hunting on private land approved

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http://www.rgj.com/viewart/20140323/NEWS/303230055/Idaho-Year-round-wolf-hunting-private-land-approved

Mar. 23, 2014 8:58 AM
In this 1987 photo released by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, a wolf stands in the snow near Ishpeming, Mich.

In this 1987 photo released by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, a wolf stands in the snow near Ishpeming, Mich.  /  AP/Michigan DNR, Dave Kenyon

LEWISTON, IDAHO

    — Wolf-hunting season will be open 365 days a year on private property in northern Idaho’s Clearwater Region.

The Lewiston Tribune reports that the Fish and Game Commission made the rule change in the last week as part of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s 2014 Big Game Hunting Rules Package.

The commission also moved up the opening of wolf-trapping season in the Lolo and Selway zones.

The commission in 2012 approved year-round wolf hunting on private land in the Panhandle Region. Adding the Clearwater Region means wolf hunting on most private land from the Canadian border to the Salmon River is legal in Idaho.

Dave Cadwallader, supervisor of the department’s Clearwater Region at Lewiston, said the change likely won’t greatly increase the number of wolves killed in the region. He said it’s mainly to give private landowners the ability to kill wolves to protect property.

“It gives them an opportunity to help themselves if that is what they need,” he said. “In the end, I don’t think you are going to see an active hunting effort.”

He said the change in the Panhandle Region hasn’t resulted in a large increase in wolves being killed.

The season for hunting wolves on public land varies, but it typically runs from late August to March or June.

The start of wolf-trapping season also changed, moving from Nov. 15 to Oct. 10 in various Idaho hunting units. Cadwallader said the change is intended to kill more wolves in areas where elk herds aren’t doing well.

“A lot of trappers have told us some of the areas we are trying to focus on are extremely difficult to get to in November when the season opens up,” Cadwallader said. “This just facilitates some of that.”

But starting the trapping season earlier could put more pets at risks as people are still recreating in the area. Cadwallader said the agency is working to make the non-trapping public more aware their pets might come across traps. The department is working with trappers to reduce and prevent conflicts with pets, he added.

Another change is that wolf trappers will be able to use road-kill and other salvaged wildlife as bait for wolf traps.

The wolf hunt returns to France as species makes a European comeback

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/10716224/The-wolf-hunt-returns-to-France-as-species-makes-a-European-comeback.html

Conservation groups furious as government allows limited hunting of protected grey wolf amid rise in attacks on farm animals

Henry Samuel and Lewis Whyld 22 Mar 2014copyrighted Hayden wolf walking

As day broke, around 50 French hunters, wolf lieutenants and local farmers stood motionless, rifles in hand, gazing silently into the forest of Caussols in the Alpine foothills of Provence.

A few miles upwind, dozens of beaters in fluorescent orange and yellow tops began their arduous march though deep snow over steep, wooded terrain, making strident calls and firing shots into the air as they went.

Sandwiched between the two lines, the hunters hoped, were anything up to three packs of wolves that local sheep farmers say are ruining their age-old pastoral existence with incessant attacks on their flocks. Camera traps caught images of them only 48 hours previously. The clamour of the beaters was designed to flush them of the woods and into the line of the hunters’ fire.

But the danger was not just for the wolves. “The trackers will be behind the animals. Be sure to shoot downwards,” Louis Bernard, regional head of the hunting and wildlife commission, ONCFS, told the party beforehand.

“We’ve already had one fatal accident in the area this year, so please be careful. Only shoot when you have identified the animal.”

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Situated in the pre-Alps just 25 miles inland from Nice and 15 miles from Grasse, France’s perfume capital, the wild, rugged landscape of Caussols could not be further removed from the glitz of the Riviera.

In January alone, farmers in these hills lost around 100 sheep to the grey wolf, which is making a lightning comeback in France and other parts of Europe; in Spain, packs are breeding a mere 40 miles from Madrid.

For Ludovic Bruno, 20, whose 350 sheep graze here in the winter months before he takes six days to walk them to higher summer pastures, respecting the age-old practice of “transhumance”, the hunt was personal.

“Over there just behind that hill on January 5, four wolves attacked my flock and there was nothing I could do about it. I had no gun on me,” said the young farmer who suffered eight attacks last year killing scores of animals and has lost 18 in the past month.

“I saw one running off with one of my lambs in its jaws. Two more sheep lay dead. I felt only rage. The wolf is a threat to my way of life and my future.”

Miraculously, he managed to save his black billy goat, which the wolves had pinned to a rock by its throat. The wound was still raw.

“Look,” he suddenly said, pointing to tracks in the thick snow ahead. “Paw prints. This is a wolf. He must be quite big. A male of around 30 kilogrammes. But these are several days old, made in fresh snow that has frozen over now.”

With official encouragement, herders and farmers hunted wolves to extinction in France in the 1930s but in 1992, an alpha mating pair crossed the border from Italy.

Since then, Canis lupus has spread throughout the French Alps, across the Rhône valley into the Massif Central and up the eastern border of France to the Jura and Vosges mountains.

It recently reached the sparsely populated plains of eastern France, and last month the corpse of an illegally shot wolf was found in Coole in the Marne, just 100 miles east of Paris.

Today, there are at least 300 individuals in up to 25 packs across the country. As their number and reach increase, so do attacks, resulting in the death of more than 6,000 sheep last year – double the number five years ago. More than a third occurred in the Alpes-Maritimes département where the hunt took place.

The wolf is a protected species under the Berne convention and European law. It can no longer be hunted or poisoned. Yet culls can exceptionally take place when all other attempts at protecting local livestock have failed. Under a government wolf plan, some 24 individuals can be “removed” – the official term – in this way per year.

Initially this was a job only for state marksmen, but given their lack of success – only seven were killed last year – the government widened the remit to “wolf lieutenants”. Now, wolves can be shot in ordinary hunts in areas where they pose problems.

Conservation groups are furious. “To return to wolf hunts as if we were in the Middle Ages is scandalous. That the local authorities are organising them is even worse,” said Jean-François Darmstaedter, president of Ferus, who threatened to challenge their legality in the European courts.

“We call them ‘political killings’ as their only aim is to allow farmers to let off steam but they will solve nothing. Blindly shooting wolves will have no effect other than to exacerbate the problem. If you kill the alpha male, you can split up a pack, which will cause far more damage.”

The only solution, he said, was to protect flocks properly by using fierce Pyrenean “patou” mountain dogs, penning sheep inside high electrified fences at night and firing warning shots if wolves approach. “These measures can reduce predation to almost nil,” he insisted.

But Pierre and Deborah Courron, who own 900 sheep and goats near Caussols, have tried all this and despite their best efforts – including sleeping beside flocks in the summer months – lost 60 animals last year and have suffered eight attacks in 2014.

Mrs Courron scoffed at the suggestion they were not doing enough to protect their sheep.

“We already have four patous. If I had 15 of them, we would doubtless have no wolf attacks, but a pack that big would pose a threat to humans as they are semi-wild. They would make mincemeat of hikers.”

As for electrified enclosures, they help, but the wolves are deft at spooking the sheep so much they knock down fences in panic. The wolves are now so bold they sometimes attack yards from the farm. Techniques such as linking a sheep’s heart rate to an alarm have proved ineffective.

While farmers are compensated for the loss of animals they can prove were eaten by wolves and receive a “stress bonus” to cover potential miscarriages, the psychological strain is permanent.

“In 2013, we lost almost 2,500 sheep in 719 attacks,” said Jean-Philippe Frère, vice president of the chamber of agriculture for the Alpes-Maritimes.

“You can imagine the distress this causes farmers. To live 24 hours a day with the strain of thinking the wolf is going to eat my sheep is unbearable.”

Jean-Marc Moriceau, a historian who has studied the relationship between man and wolf over the ages, said that it was a “lie to simply say if you add more means, there will be no more problem”.

“As a historian I can tell you there has never been perfect cohabitation between man and wolf. It has always been imposed and under constraint,” he said.

In April, Mr Moriceau is launching a website documenting the 8,000 humans killed by wolves between the 17th and 20th centuries, many of them children between six and 15 sent to guard flocks.

“There is a kind of law of silence about this because it is seen as not politically correct to describe what is a historical reality. It was a tiny minority, but it is the reason for our ancestral fear of the wolf.”

Today public opinion is very much on the wolf’s side. A recent poll, commissioned by a pro-wolf group, found that 80 per cent of French people wanted wolves to be protected from farmers, rather than sheep from wolves. But Mr Moriceau said that could change as the wolf approaches built-up areas.

“The wolf is an indicator of all humanity’s weaknesses throughout the ages, including today. It will exploit any drop in the strength and domination of man on his environment,” he said. “The closer the wolf physically gets to people, the less they are in favour of its presence.”

With little to stop the wolf spreading all round France, some are calling for certain areas to be declared “wolf-free zones”.

“The wolf is gaining ground. If we left nature run its course, then certainly we will see them soon in the forests around Paris,” said Jean-Pierre Poly, national head of France’s wildlife and hunting commission, whose delicate mission is to protect the wolf, compensate farmers and organise culls.

“Some think that we should hem the wolf in to certain areas and organise a sort of defence zone to make sure it doesn’t get too close to built up areas. The jury is out,” he said.

Wolves undoubtedly prowl these woods, but they are remarkably elusive and can smell a man more than a mile off. At one stage, Mr Courron paused to point out fresh tracks in a clearing.

“Look at the pads, all in a line. When they follow each other, they step in each other’s paw prints. It looks like one, but could be several,” he said, pushing another cartridge into his rifle and firing into the blue sky.

“These are probably from yesterday.”

Despite what are, for the hunters, these encouraging signs, after an exhausting three-hour march the packs local farmers say are causing them such trouble were still nowhere in sight.

And help was at hand for the wolves: just as the trackers entered the final furlong, at last approaching the stationary marksmen’s line of fire, the hunt was abruptly cut short by furious ramblers demanding to know why their Sunday stroll had suddenly taken them into a war zone.

As tempers flared and the guns fell silent, the farmers railed against “tourists” whose right to roam had foiled their hunt. “All these people mobilised against the wolf, yet we get stopped by a bunch of walkers. It beggars belief,” said Mr Courron.

In truth, however, this is the third such hunt in the area in which the wolf has evaded his ancient foe. Last time, a marksman even missed one that dashed for cover right past his sights.

“Today is Sunday. If we had done the hunt on Friday we would probably have come across wolves,” said Mr Bernard. “But as they roam over a large territory of around 30,000 hectares (110 square miles) per pack, they constantly move around and today were not on the Caussols plain.”

Gripping his gun and clenching his jaw, Mr Courron stared dejectedly into the middle distance. “Better luck next time,” he murmured. “Even if we just get one or two, we will be a little less troubled.”

• Wolf hunt returns to France: 360 degree view

Idaho Passes Bill to Kill Hundreds of Wolves

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http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/21/idaho-bill-to-kill-hundreds-of-wolves/

The Idaho Legislature yesterday passed House Bill 470, a bill to create a new lethal “Wolf Depredation Control Board” to administer a fund for widespread killing of wolves in the state. The bill, expected to be signed into law by Gov. Otter (R-ID), sets aside $400,000 in state funds to kill roughly 500 wolves, leaving just 150 in the entire state.

wolfFI
The wolf population in Idaho is under serious threat of dropping near—or even below—minimal recovery levels that Idaho promised to maintain in 2011. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

The new board will consist of members appointed and overseen by Gov. Otter, who said in 2007 that he wanted to be the first to kill an Idaho wolf after federal protections were taken away. The board will be made up of representatives of the agricultural, livestock and hunting communities. The bill does not require any members of the board to represent the wolf conservation community.

“Political leaders in Idaho would love nothing more than to eradicate Idaho’s wolves and return to a century-old mindset where big predators are viewed as evil and expendable,” said Amaroq Weiss, West Coast wolf organizer at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The new state wolf board, sadly, reflects that attitude. The legislature couldn’t even bring itself to put a single conservationist on the board, so the outcome is predictable: many more wolves will die.”

Congress in 2011 stripped Endangered Species Act protection from wolves in Idaho and Montana. Since then, 1,592 wolves have been killed in those states.

The bill is the latest in a series of anti-wolf actions in Idaho that could ultimately backfire and force the return Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains. Other commitments made by Idaho, including promises to maintain refugia for wolves in remote areas and wilderness, have been rolled back. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game sent a hunter-trapper into the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness this winter to eliminate two wolf packs. It recently announced a new predator-management plan designed to kill 60 percent of the wolf population in the Middle Fork area over the next several years, and contracted with USDA’s Wildlife Services to gun down 23 wolves in the Lolo management zone in February.

“Yet again, Idaho has put a black eye on decades of tireless work to return wolves to the American landscape,” said Weiss. “This bill sets aside $400,000 in state funds to wipe out as many wolves as legally possible in Idaho. Reducing these wolf populations to below even the absolute bare minimum sets a dangerous precedent and ensures that true wolf recovery will be little more than a pipedream in Idaho.”

In combination with mortality from annual hunting and trapping seasons, the wolf population in Idaho is under serious threat of dropping near—or even below—minimal recovery levels that Idaho promised to maintain when wolves in the northern Rockies lost federal protections in 2011. The sponsor of H.B. 470, Rep. Marc Gibbs (R-Dist. 32), says the intent of the bill is to reduce Idaho’s wolf population to as few as 10 packs.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is required by its own delisting criteria to review the population if changes in Idaho law or management objectives significantly increase the threat to the population. It must then decide whether to reinstate federal Endangered Species Act protections or extend the post-delisting period for federal oversight.

Living in wolf country

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March 21, 2014 By BJORN DIHLE

  FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE

This Monday, during a hike with my brothers, we came across fresh tracks of wolves. Three or four had milled around the trail before heading off into the dark woods. There was something electric knowing they were nearby, perhaps watching and listening. When we returned an hour later the tracks had nearly been erased by the falling snow.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game estimates there’s between 7,000 and 11,000 wolves in the state. The densest populations are in Southeast where deer, by and large, make up their main food source. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates there’s around 5,400 gray wolves in the lower 48. According to the International Wolf Center there are between 53,600 and 57,600 wolves in Canada.

One of many reasons I love living in Juneau is because all I have to do is go outside and I’m in wolf country. Their range stretches from the edge of suburbia to the Juneau Icefield — I’ve seen tracks on the upper stretches of the Mendenhall Glacier, in Death Valley and on the Meade Glacier. Many of us have encountered tracks, kills and if, we’re lucky, wolves in the woods and mountains surrounding town. Watching a pack moving along an alpine ridge, or listening to howling in deep forest is something you don’t easily forget. While healthy wolves almost always avoid people, sometimes if they’re sick, old, starving or if there’s a lot of deer near a residential area, they may come to the edge of a town. Out of desperation or irritation, they’ll occasionally turn to attacking dogs.

In North America attacks on humans are very rare. You’re more likely to be trampled by pigs while vacationing in Iowa. The few attacks that have occurred usually involved habituated, injured, starving or sick animals. There’s been one verified fatal attack in Alaska since statehood. Most people living in wolf country know this, but due to movies like The Grey, the misperception of North American wolves having a penchant for hunting humans is still being perpetuated.

According to ADF&G each year in Alaska around 1,300 wolves are killed by hunters and a trappers, and up to an additional 200 or so are taken in state sponsored control programs. Populations remain stable and in some areas, according to many locals who compete with wolves for moose and caribou, they’re too abundant. With the ability to breed at two years of age and having several pups in a litter, wolf numbers rebound quickly if prey populations are healthy.

In the last month there’s been reports of two wolf attacks on dogs in northern Southeast Alaska. One dog, as reported in the Chilkat Valley News, north of Haines was killed and eaten. The dog’s owner, Hannah Bochart, when interviewed, despite having what for most would be a very traumatizing experience, spoke of the attacking wolf with compassion. She described it approaching her while she was walking four dogs, and looking “weak and wobbly” and “scared and exhausted”. Though it killed one of her dogs, Bochart stated she “wouldn’t want this to end with the wolf being shot”.

Living in wolf country is a gift to some, a curse to others and for some it’s just normal. Many people have strong and sometimes irrational opinions of wolves that frequently tell more about human nature than the actual wolves. No other creature has been as villianized and, in contemporary times, as romanticized.

A while back I had conversation with an older man, a lifelong hunter and fisherman, who offered one of the best opinions on wolves I’ve heard.

“Wolves are perfect,” he said with a twinkle In his eyes, “at being wolves.”

I can’t imagine living anywhere without wolves. A hike would be a lot less interesting. The woods would feel empty. The mountains would seem lonesome.

Thankfully, living in Juneau, wolves are never too far away.

Majority of California’s House Democrats Want Wolves Protected

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March 20, 2014

Unlikely to be able to register to vote any time soon | Photo: USFWS/Flickr/Creative Commons License

Political wonks have long talked about “blue dog” and “yellow dog” Democrats, but now California has a new Democratic dog political tendency: the Gray Wolf Democrat. A majority of California’s Congressional House Democrats have signed on to a strongly worded letter urging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to abandon attempts to strip the gray wolf of protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, written by Oregon Democrat Peter De Fazio, slams USFWS for its ongoing proposal to remove the gray wolf from ESA protection, charging that the proposed delisting is “not based on the best available science.” DeFazio, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources, writes that USFWS “should rescind the proposed rule immediately,” charging that the agency tried to stack the scientific deck against the wolves in its rulemaking.

And of the 73 Representatives that co-signed DeFazio’s letter to Jewell, 19 were California Democrats. That’s just over half the Democratic delegation and more than a third of the state’s total representation in the House, and yet another sign that there’s significant pro-wolf sentiment in California.

The California Representatives signing the DeFazio letter were Julia Brownley, Lois Capps, Tony Cárdenas, Judy Chu, Anna Eshoo, Sam Farr, Mike Honda, Jared Huffman, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren, Alan Lowenthal, Jerry McNerney, George Miller, Grace Napolitano, Raul Ruiz, Adam Schiff, Jackie Speier, Mark Takano, and Henry Waxman.

With the exception of Huffman, Ruiz and McNerney, the California signers hail from relatively liberal coastal urban districts. Ruiz represents the Coachella Valley and Riverside County desert; McNerney took over arch-conservative Richard Pombo’s district in San Joaquin County in 2007. Huffman represents the north coast’s expansive Second District, which runs along the coast from the Golden Gate to the Oregon state line. (Alone among the letter’s California signers, Huffman actually stands a chance of seeing wolves move into his district in the next decade or two.)

None of California’s Republican Representatives signed on to the DeFazio letter.

In the letter, DeFazio pretty much rakes USFWS over the coals for its conduct during the wolf delisting proposal. “The ESA does not charge [USFWS] with restoring only as much of the endangered species as it deems politically convenient,” writes DeFazio, charging that he and his co-signers “have serious concerns regarding the initial attempts to exclude top wolf experts from this process, and the resurrection of a long-dormant government journal to ‘publish’ the study… used to justify the rule.”

The letter charges that delisting would interfere with the gray wolf’s recovery, saying that “recovery has yet to begin in California, Colorado, Utah, and the Northeast, where scientists have identified a significant amount of suitable habitat that would support wolf populations.”

Neither Interior nor USFWS have responded publicly to the letter, but the presence of so many California Representatives on the roster of co-signers should provide a bit of moral support for the state’s wolf advocates, not to mention political cover as the state’s Fish and Game Commission determines whether to protect gray wolves under the California Endangered Species Act.

WDFW asks public’s help to generate leads

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WDFW NEWS RELEASE
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
600 Capitol Way North, Olympia, WA 98501-1091
http://wdfw.wa.gov/

March 17, 2014 copyrighted wolf in river

Contact: Sgt. Pam Taylor, 509-892-1001
Wildlife Program, 360-902-2515

WDFW asks public’s help to generate leads
in shooting of radio-collared wolf

OLYMPIA – The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WFDW) is seeking the public’s help to identify the person or persons responsible for shooting and killing a gray wolf last month in Stevens County.

A 2-year-old black female wolf from the Smackout Pack was found dead Feb. 9 near Cedar Lake in northeast Stevens County. The condition of the carcass indicated it had died between Feb. 5 and Feb. 7, and a veterinarian’s examination confirmed it had been shot.

Wildlife managers had captured the wolf about a year ago and fitted it with a radio collar so they could track its movements and those of her pack members.

WDFW, with the help of three non-profit organizations, is offering a reward of up to $22,500 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case. Conservation Northwest, the Center for Biological Diversity, and The Humane Society of the United States, have each pledged $7,500 to create the reward.

Gray wolves are protected throughout the state. WDFW is responsible for management of wolves and enforcement of laws to protect them. The illegal killing of a wolf or other endangered fish or wildlife species is a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $5,000.

Sergeant Pam Taylor of the WDFW Northeast Washington Region is leading the investigation. She urged people with knowledge of the crime to report it confidentially by calling WDFW’s poaching hotline, 877-933-9847 , or by texting a tip to 847411.

America’s Wolves Are Under Attack

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) received feedback from nearly a million citizens and a host of conservation biologists for its decision to remove federal protections from wolves last year, and recently convened a new panel of experts to revisit the issue. This new panel found that the FWS relied upon one faulty paper to make its wrongful decision to strip wolves of their Endangered Species Act protections.

Without their federal safeguards, several states have opened trophy hunting and trapping seasons, and thousands of wolves have been mercilessly slaughtered. Help protect wolves and demand that they be given adequate federal protections to prevent future inhumane acts.

TAKE ACTION Here.
The FWS needs to hear from you before March 27. Please fill out the form below to submit a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell.
Dear Secretary Jewell,

I value wolves and I want to see them protected by the Endangered Species Act. Without these federal safeguards, wolves are pitted against an unfair arsenal of traps, snares, baits, hounds, and shooters who kill them from low-flying aircraft. Killing wolves puts their family packs in disarray and leaves young pups to starve.

Most Americans love wolves, and wolf-watching tourists spend millions of dollars to see them in places like Yellowstone National Park. After receiving pressure from the livestock industry and extreme groups, the government has given up on wolves and literally put them in the crosshairs before they could recover to most of their historic range. It’s quite simple: wolf populations are still recovering, and the best available science does not support their removal from the protections afforded to them by the Endangered Species Act. Please provide adequate protections for this iconic and beautiful species.

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MN Senate panel favors suspending wolf hunt, gathering more data

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http://www.twincities.com/politics/ci_25322800/senate-panel-favors-suspending-wolf-hunt-gathering-more

By Don Davis
Forum News Servicecopyrighted wolf in river
3/11/2014

A state Senate committee decided more information is needed about Minnesota’s 2-year-old wolf hunt, so voted Tuesday to suspend the hunt.

The 8-6 vote in the Senate Environment and Energy Committee favors a milder version of bills wolf proponents want to permanently end wolf hunting and trapping. Even with the vote, changing the state’s wolf hunting law is far from passing.

The issue pits hunters and cattle producers who favor the hunt against those who want to end it.

“When you disrupt the pack, you now have chaos,” testified Maureen Hackett, Howling for Wolves founder.

She said that killing one wolf could force others to go on lengthy hunts for prey, which could be livestock.

Farmers did not buy her argument.

“We are concerned about the loss of livestock with our cattle,” said Thom Peterson of the Minnesota Farmers’ Union, supporting existing law that allows a hunting season.

Sen. Foung Hawj, DFL-St. Paul, said that he brought the bill forward because not enough information is known about how the hunting season affects wolves. The bill would order the Department of Natural Resources to conduct a comprehensive study of all known wolf kills, ranging from hunting to car accidents.

The “wolf data bill,” as it is titled, calls for an annual wolf population census and creation of an advisory wolf task force. It also would close tribal lands to the hunting and trapping of wolves if tribal leadership requests it.

The DNR opposed the bill, saying more studies like the bill demands are not needed.

“Minnesota has more data on the wolf population than almost any other hunted species in the state,” the DNR’s Dan Stark told senators.

“We feel all of the things in the bill are being covered at this time,” added Assistant DNR Commissioner Bob Meier.

Stark said that hunting “poses no long-term threat to the wolf population.”

Without the law, Stark said, the DNR plans to update the state wolf management plan beginning this year. That could affect the number of wolves allowed to be killed by hunters.

The committee approved the measure only after a parliamentary maneuver. The first vote was 6-6, which would have stopped the measure, but when Democratic Sens. Katie Sieben of Cottage Grove and Matt Schmit of Red Wing arrived at the meeting late, a new vote was called and they voted for the suspension.

The original vote was mostly along party lines, although Sen. Lyle Koenen, DFL-Clara City, joined Republicans in opposing the suspension.

A similar bill in the House has not been acted upon and no hearing is scheduled.

Minnesota held its first managed gray wolf hunting and trapping seasons the past two years after the wolf was removed from the federal Endangered Species List. Some groups and individuals protested the hunt and filed lawsuits trying to prevent it. None of those lawsuits was successful.

Biologist Timm Kaminski, who has spent years studying wolf and grizzly bear interaction with livestock, said that livestock producers he knows often oppose wolf hunts if wolves are not attacking their livestock.

Peterson, however, said that in numerous Farmers’ Union meetings in wolf country, farmers indicated are united in supporting a hunt.

Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, said she wants to make sure that if Hawj’s bill continues to advance that it contains provisions to involve all interested parties, ranging from American Indian tribes to livestock producers to hunters.

“We’re adamantly opposed to the legislation,” said Executive Director Mark Johnson of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association. “It refuses to acknowledge the research and study that’s gone into wolves, not just here in Minnesota but internationally.”

Hawj’s bill must pass other committees before reaching a full Senate vote.

Government-funded wolf slaughter continues‏

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From: Defenders of Wildlife/www.defenders.org

The 23 Idaho wolves shot from a helicopter last month were just the latest in a decades-long trail of carnage and indiscriminate bloodshed. And Idaho Wildlife Services admitted to their plan only after all the wolves werecopyrighted-wolf-argument-settled dead.

It has to stop.

Of the literally millions of animals killed in recent years by the Wildlife Services agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, wolves are a favored target.

Wolves are killed for the convenience of ranchers and hunters. In most instances, essential non-lethal methods are never tried. And the slaughter is funded in part by you.

From the agency’s own records, an accounting of more than 500 wolves killed in one year alone reads like something from a horror movie:

•64 wolves gunned down from helicopters
•316 killed in foothold traps
•30 killed using neck snares
•37 shot from fixed wing aircraft

These were all deliberate killings. Two more wolves were “accidentally” killed by cyanide poison left for other “target” animals.

Wildlife Services is currently being audited by the USDA Office of the Inspector General. But the killing continues.

Wildlife Services has operated for years as killers for hire serving private and state interests, using cruel and indiscriminate methods, covering up gross errors, and resisting all calls for accountability.