The state has very nearly reached it’s wolf hunt quota of 251, which has prompted the DNR to end the season.
A flood of wolves killed by hunters prompted the Department of Natural Resources to close the state’s wolf hunting season at 5 p.m. on Monday.
Hunters stepped up their shooting of wolves in northwest Wisconsin over the weekend, and the state is now very close to its harvest quota of 251 wolves. Hunters using dogs are responsible for almost all the weekend kills, and the state says the number of wolf deaths where dogs did the chasing is about 30.
Tom Hauge of the DNR says dog use over the last three weeks apparently went pretty well. “[It] seems to have been performing within normal side bars as far as we know,” says Hauge. “If there are problems out there, they may not surface right away.”
Hauge rejects the rumor that the state rapidly shut down the hunt because it’s embarrassed by hunters posting more wolf kill pictures on social media. Some photos have hunters their arms around the wolves, holding the dead and bloodied with animals up for the camera.
Rachel Tilseth of the animal education group Wolves of Douglas County Wisconsin says it’s vital that independent experts can now verify that dogs didn’t illegally fight with wolves.
“I’d like to have those wolves examined by an independent veterinarian,” says Tilseth. “This is a very controversial subject – this wolf-hounding – and I believe we need to see all the evidence.”
Tilseth says she’ll continue to try to get dogs banned from future Wisconsin wolf hunts. Republican lawmakers have refused to allow a hearing on a recently introduced bill ordering such a ban.
This holiday, a killing contest takes aim at two of the most persecuted predators in North America: wolves and coyotes. The contest, scheduled in the Salmon-Challis area and hosted by the anti-predator organization Idaho For Wildlife, is billed as fun and wholesome entertainment for the entire family. Children as young as 10 can participate in the kill-fest and entrants who bag the largest wolf and the most female coyotes will win trophies and cash prizes.
The “1st Annual 2 Day Coyote & Wolf Derby,” is scheduled to begin December 28 — ironically on the 40th anniversary of the passage of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), our nation’s safety net for wildlife, that brought wolves back from the brink of extinction. On this very day, teams of hunters will enter public lands to kill as many wolves and coyotes as they can. They will use bait, calling devices and high-tech rifles. Is this fair chase? Or is it wanton blood-sport?
Idaho is not alone in this carnage. More than 15 other predator-killing contests are scheduled throughout the country in January and February 2014. Species targeted include coyotes, foxes and bobcats. Many of these species are classified as “non-game” by state wildlife agencies; this means they can be killed 24-7 by almost any method imaginable. Moreover, the populations of the targeted species and the scheduled mass killings are often not even monitored by the state wildlife agencies.
Regarding the Idaho “Coyote and Wolf Derby,” Blaine County, Idaho, Commissioner Larry Shoen said, “Shooting contests conducted in the name of killing animals for fun, money and prizes is just not consistent with the values of most people in the modern world,” as reported in the Jackson Hole News & Guide.
Agreeing with Schoen’s position, Ted Chu, an Idaho Fish and Game supervisor, wrote on his Facebook page:
“I have hunted all of my adult life. Hunting is not a contest and it should never be a competitive activity about who can kill the most or the biggest animals. The supporters of these sorts of activities would no doubt claim to be great defenders of hunting, yet they go out of their way to publicly present the worst possible image of hunting. If we hunters don’t clean up our own act, someone else will do it for us and we won’t like the results, but when that time comes, and it surely will, these ‘hunters’ will have only themselves to blame.”
Let’s start with wolves. Economically, a killing contest strips money away from Idaho. A wolf tag can be purchased for as little as $11.75, permitting each hunter to shoot four to 10 wolves, depending on region. Wolf watching generates approximately $30 million annually to the towns around Yellowstone. This does not include the ecological benefits that accrue as wolves help restore balance and biodiversity to the to the ecosystem — services unaccounted for by state and federal wildlife agencies. What is the value of a wolf alive — over the course of his or her lifetime — compared to one shot dead for a $11.75 wolf-hunting license? The ethics of recreational killing of wolves aside, the economics does not justify this insanity.
Coyotes are the other target species included in this killing contest. Too often, the justification used for mass killing of coyotes is that their populations need to be reduced and controlled to help ranchers and game hunters. However, science has shown indiscriminate coyote killing is not effective at reducing their populations; they quickly rebound and fill any vacancies. Coyotes, like other predators, self-regulate their population based on the biological carrying capacity of an area. Unexploited, coyote family groups establish territories which they defend from transient coyotes seeking new territories and mates, and will thus keep the local population stable. Lethal coyote removal, including killing contests, disrupts this stable social structure, allowing for vacant territories to be filled by outside coyotes.
The importance of wolves, coyotes and other predators in maintaining stability and productivity in ecosystems has been well-documented in peer-reviewed scientific literature. Coyotes provide many ecosystem services that benefit people including their control of smaller predators, disease-carrying rodents and jackrabbits, which compete with domestic livestock for available forage. As apex predators, wolves increase biodiversity and ecological integrity.
Even the contest sponsors are unwilling to defend their contest. When contacted by Reuters, “organizer and Idaho big-game outfitter Shane McAfee said media inquiries were not welcome.” Reuters reports that the sponsor, Idaho for Wildlife, according to the group’s website is “a nonprofit whose aim is ‘to fight against all legal and legislative attempts by the animal rights and anti-gun organizations’ to impose restrictions on hunting or guns.” An examination into the charitable status of Idaho for Wildlife, Inc. found no listing of the organization as a tax-exempt entity with the IRS.
What are we teaching our children by allowing killing sprees like this — and inviting children to participate? Wildlife killing contests desensitize children, sending dangerous messages that killing for fun is acceptable, that an entire species is disposable, and that life is cheap.
And what about the public safety hazards for the many families and their dogs who will be out in the Salmon-Challis region during the two-day predator blitz? Earlier this month USA Today reported that a pet malamute was shot dead by a wolf hunter in Lolo National Forest’s Lee Creek campground in Montana. According to the report: “Spence said he looked up just as Little Dave’s hind leg was struck by a bullet… Spence said a man, dressed mostly in camouflage, was standing on the road approximately 30 yards ahead of him and was aiming a semiautomatic assault rifle in his direction.”
It is time we decide as a nation that gratuitously slaughtering wildlife as part of killing contests or “derbies” is not acceptable in the 21st century. “A society that condones unlimited killing of any species for fun and prizes is morally bankrupt,” stated Dave Parsons, a Project Coyote Science Advisory Board Member who led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s effort to reintroduce the endangered Mexican gray wolf to portions of its former range in Arizona and New Mexico.
Please help Project Coyote and allies stop this barbarity. Take action here and here.
Project Coyote is a national non-profit organization based in Larkspur, California that promotes compassionate conservation and coexistence between people and wildlife. More info. here.
BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho outfitter is organizing a post-Christmas contest where two-person teams of hunters will be awarded $2,000 in cash prizes and trophies for shooting wolves and coyotes, angering animal advocates who brand it as a “wolf slaughter.”
Shane McAfee, who guides clients on hunts around Salmon, Idaho, downplays the bloodlust angle of this hunting derby, which encourages kids to participate. He expects relatively few predators to be shot during the event Dec. 28-29.
McAfee contends he’s mostly aiming to boost local business — 300 hunters might participate, he said — and raise awareness about a parasite he believes could be transmitted from wolf feces to domestic dogs and possibly humans.
By contrast, the Humane Society of the United States labels the derby as inhumane. Lisa Kauffman, its Idaho director, said the tapeworm angle is a red-herring, too, as foes “use every excuse they can come up with” as they seek to reduce predator numbers and turn public opinion against wolves reintroduced to the state in 1995.
“This is a wolf massacre,” wrote Wayne Pacelle, the Washington, D.C.-based animal-rights group’s president, in a letter to members Thursday. “Rewarding shooters (including young children) with prizes takes us back to an earlier era of wanton killing that so many of us thought was an ugly, ignorant and closed chapter in our history.”
McAfee counters that Pacelle’s group is blowing his event out of proportion to appeal to deep-pocketed donors. “We might harvest two or three wolves in the derby. It’s mainly for coyote control,” McAfee said.
He also hopes the derby succeeds in publicizing Echinococcus granulosis, a tapeworm whose hosts include elk, wolves and domesticated dogs. He worries dogs infected by sniffing or eating wolf feces could transmit the tapeworm to humans, where they could cause cysts.
“The people of our town are tired of the threat of the disease,” McAfee contends.
In fact, human infections are rarely reported in Idaho. A firm link between humans and wolves isn’t established.
A 2011 report produced by Mark Drew, a wildlife veterinarian with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, found just a few documented human cases that may have originated in Idaho. All were reported before wolves were re-introduced 18 years ago.
In 2011, state epidemiologist Dr. Christine Hahn issued a call to Idaho’s medical community for possible cases as concerns surfaced about the parasite being transmitted to humans.
In an interview Thursday, however, Hahn said that effort uncovered no evidence of such cases. People concerned about the parasite should take appropriate precautions, she said: Treat their dogs and cats for tapeworm, practice good hygiene, avoid harvesting sick animals, and wear rubber gloves when field dressing wild game, among other things.
“Echinococcus granulosis is one of many naturally occurring parasites that occur in wildlife,” she said. “Precautions for Echinococcus are really no different than for a host of other diseases that occur naturally in the environment and can infect humans.”
Wolves are game animals in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming after federal Endangered Species Act protections were lifted starting in 2011. There are annual hunting and trapping seasons.
Idaho has about 680 wolves, according to 2012 estimates.
The Department of Fish and Game isn’t promoting McAfee’s predator derby. But its wildlife managers also won’t intervene to stop it, provided participants follow state regulations and secure the requisite tags to hunt wolves. “That’s the key,” said spokesman Mike Keckler.
Contests where hunters target predators aren’t unusual in the West. In northeastern Washington last year, derby hunters shot nearly 300 coyotes over a two-month span in three counties. Similarly, an Idaho group held a “Predator Derby” coyote shoot in 2007.
But Keckler can’t recall the West’s last wolf derby.
“I’ve not heard of one — outside of this one,” he said.
The New West / By Todd Wilkinson Jackson Hole News&Guide
Idaho guide and outfitter Shane McAfee appears to have a pretty good business deal that private land competitors do not enjoy. He makes his living by selling clients the opportunity to hunt public wildlife on federal public land.
For $7,150, a big game enthusiast can buy a five-day “elk, mule deer, black bear, wolf combo” package from Castle Creek Outfitters, which operates under a special use permit with the Salmon-Challis National Forest.
Despite the heated rhetoric swirling around his hometown of Salmon, Idaho, declaring that wolves have devastated the hunting, McAfee offers this website guarantee:
“If for any reason you don’t harvest a mature six-point bull on your hunt with us, we will discount a return trip for you to do so.” The hunting is so good that, unlike other outfitters, Castle Creek tells clients not to kill five-point bull elk because they’re the seed stock for next season.
Ever an innovator, McAfee is organizing an event in time for this holiday season between Christmas and New Year’s. He and others are hosting a predator-shooting competition in Salmon billed as fun and wholesome entertainment for the entire family.
McAfee’s “Coyote and Wolf Derby” is awarding trophies and cash prizes to those who bag the most coyotes and kill the biggest lobo.
Some of the shooting will be conducted as teams in which adults are paired with kids as young as 10.
“It’s my [11-year-old] daughter’s first big adventure and she thinks it’s awesome,” Barbara Soper told a reporter for Reuters.
…
“Shooting contests conducted in the name of killing animals for fun, money and prizes is just not consistent with the values of most people in the modern world,” Schoen says.
Since they were stripped of federal protection in Idaho, 859 wolves have been killed in the state. But Idaho wants to take its slaughter one gruesome step further: The state is planning cruel contest hunts sending hired killers into our public lands to gun down wolves.
This despicable wolf and coyote “derby” is planned for Dec. 28 and 29 — and it’s actually partly aimed at children. There will be cash prizes, and trophies will be awarded for the largest wolf caught and the most coyotes killed.
Wolves were nearly eradicated in the lower 48 states by government-hired killers. After nearly 40 years of work to restore these beautiful animals to the American landscape, Idaho wants to hold its cruel, throwback killing contest and send a gunman to mow down two entire wolf packs.
Wolves and coyotes evolved over millions of years to create balance with prey animals like elk and deer. Healthy ecosystems need these magnificent creatures.
In central Idaho, local hostility to wolves expresses itself on signs along the highway. Many residents don’t like the wolves because the animals kill elk, livestock and pets. (NPR)
Conservation groups howled when Congress removed the Rocky Mountain gray wolf from the federal endangered species list. The “delisting” in most of the Northwest was attached to the budget deal in April between the White House and Congress.
The head of one environmental organization likened it to Congress throwing the wolf off Noah’s Ark. But now that states like Idaho have full authority over the wolf’s fate, they’re eager to use it.
Idaho Fish and Game Regional Supervisor Dave Cadwallader welcomes the delisting because it allows the state to treat the wolf like any other animal.
“Wolves are classified as a big-game animal in Idaho, and we fully intend to manage them like we do our other big-game animals that we’ve done successfully, bears and lions, for example,” he says. “And we want to be able to do the same with wolves.”
That most likely means annual wolf hunts. The state hasn’t yet settled the details of its wolf management plan, but it’s already started shooting them. Idaho Fish and Game recently sent helicopters to a part of the state where wolves are thought to be killing too many elk; the “aerial gunning,” as it’s called, killed five wolves.
Wolves A Menace To Some Locals
Residents of Elk City, a tiny town in Idaho’s Clearwater Mountains, say they’ve been especially plagued by wolves. They say the wolves are killing huge numbers of elk and driving the frightened survivors right into town. And other animals have been killed. Stan Denham lost one of the hunting dogs he keeps on his land just outside town.
“They attacked her right over here and then dragged her down over to the timber,” Denham says. “The whole hillside here seemed like it was covered with blood.”
Denham also happens to be one of the sheriff’s deputies in Elk City. In May, the state gave the deputies special authorization to shoot wolves in town.
“This is actually a request to hunt them and put some effort into shooting them, whether they’re causing problems or not,” he says.
Anti-Wolf Feelings Have Deep Roots
The science isn’t clear on whether killing wolves will bring back the elk. But when it comes to wolves, science is sometimes beside the point.
John Freemuth, a political science professor at Boise State University, tracked the politics of this issue. He says anti-wolf feelings have deep historical roots. “The wolf was viewed as a sort of a bad species, a predator that needed to be removed so the West could be settled and developed,” Freemuth says.
People worked hard to eradicate the wolf. And then, a few generations later, the federal government said those methods were wrong. In the 1990s, it brought in fresh wolves from Canada.
“Suddenly it’s being brought back and it’s a good species to have on the land,” he says. “The history there just suggests that some Befuddled — or just plain angry. And in the West, it’s not unusual for the wolf to become a symbol for other contentious issues.
Anger An Undercurrent On Both Sides
Sitting in the general store in Elk City, Carmen Williams considers the feds’ insistence on bringing back the wolves and sees a deeper motivation.
“Gun control in disguise,” he says. “If we don’t have any game left to shoot, what’s the sense to carrying a rifle?”
These aren’t majority opinions in Idaho, but they represent powerful political undercurrents, which have been intensified over the past few years by the prolonged court battles over when and how to take the growing wolf population off the endangered species list.
Randy Stewart has seen some of that anger over the years at the Wolf Education and Research Center, in the small town of Winchester, Idaho.
Behind a chain-link fence, a gray wolf silently touches its nose to Stewart’s hand in greeting. Stewart, who guides tours at this wolf center, says he has seen attitudes sharpen in recent years, on both sides.
“There are probably still people that don’t want wolves here, that want to see them all removed, and there’s still people who say don’t hunt a wolf,” Stewart says. “But we’re not in a society in my opinion that we can have one or the other extreme.”
Some Western conservationists are hoping the delisting of the wolf also has a silver lining. They say now that the wolf is no longer federally protected, maybe it can also shed its reputation as the federal government’s pet.
You may recall that, last April, Congress removed the Rocky Mountain gray wolf from the federal endangered species list. And conservation groups howled. As part of a budget deal also approved by the White House, states like Idaho now have full authority over the wolf’s fate. And they are eager to use that authority, as NPR’s Martin Kaste reports.
MARTIN KASTE: Environmentalists see the wolf de-listing as a calamity. But in Idaho, there’s a different take.
Mr. DAVE CADWALLADER (Idaho Fish and Game): We’re not going to annihilate wolves or remove wolves from the landscape.
KASTE: Dave Cadwallader is regional supervisor with Idaho Fish and Game. The way he sees things, the wolf is finally just another animal.
Mr. CADWALLADER: You know, wolves are classified as a big game animal in Idaho, and we fully intend to manage them like we do our other big game animals that we’ve done successfully, bears and lions, for example. And we want to be able to do the same with wolves.
KASTE: That means regular wolf hunts, probably starting this fall. The state is already shooting. Fish and Game recently sent helicopters to a part of the state where wolves are thought to be killing too many elk. The aerial gunning, as it’s called, killed five wolves.
(Soundbite of dog barking)
KASTE: Stan Denham keeps hunting dogs on his land just outside Elk City, a tiny town at the end of the highway in Idaho’s Clearwater Mountains.
Mr. STAN DENHAM (Deputy, Sheriffs Department, Idaho County): That’s Penny, it’s a little female. That’s Digger down there. My kids named them all.
KASTE: Residents of Elk City say they’ve been especially plagued by wolves. They say the wolves are killing huge numbers of elk, and driving the frightened survivors right into town. Other animals have also been killed. Denham recently lost one of his dogs.
Mr. DENHAM: They attacked her right over here and then drug her down the hill into the timber. The whole hillside here seemed like it was covered with blood.
KASTE: Denham also happens to be one the two sheriffs’ deputies here. And in May, the state gave them special authorization to shoot wolves in Elk City Township – any wolves.
Mr. DENHAM: This is actually a request to hunt them and put some effort into shooting them, whether they’re causing problems or not.
(Soundbite of barking dogs)
KASTE: It’s debatable whether killing wolves will bring back the elk – the science just isn’t clear. But when it comes to wolves, science is sometimes beside the point.
John Freemuth is a professor at Boise State, who’s tracked the politics of this issue. And he says anti-wolf feelings have deep historical roots.
Professor JOHN FREEMUTH (Political Science, Boise State University): The wolf was viewed as a sort of a bad species, a predator that needed to be removed so the West could be settled and developed.
KASTE: People worked hard to eradicate the wolf. Then, a few generations later, the federal government came along and said that was all wrong. In the 1990s, it brought in fresh wolves from Canada.
Prof. FREEMUTH: Suddenly it’s being brought back and it’s a good species to have on the land. The history there just suggests that some people are going to be a little befuddled by that.
KASTE: Befuddled or just plain angry. And in the West, it’s not unusual for the wolf to become a symbol for other contentious issues.
Sitting in the general store in Elk City, Carmen Williams considers the fed’s insistence on bringing back the wolves and sees a deeper motivation.
Mr. CARMEN WILLIAMS: Gun control in disguise.
KASTE: How do wolves lead to gun control?
Mr. WILLIAMS: Well, if we don’t have any game left to shoot, why what’s the sense of carrying a rifle?
KASTE: These aren’t majority opinions in Idaho, not by a long shot. But these are powerful political undercurrents. And over the last few years, they’ve been intensified by the prolonged court battles over when and how to take the growing wolf population off the Endangered Species List.
Randy Stewart has seen some of that anger over the years at the Wolf Education Research Center, in the small Idaho town of Winchester.
Mr. RANDY STEWART (Education Coordinator, Wolf Education Research Center): Here comes the alpha male. He is beginning to shed his undercoat
KASTE: Behind a chain-link fence, a gray wolf silently touches its nose to Stewart’s hand in greeting. Stewart, who guides tours at this wolf center, says he’s seen attitudes sharpen in recent years, on both sides.
Mr. STEWART: There are probably still people that don’t want wolves here and would like to see them all removed. And there are still people that say don’t hunt a wolf. But we’re not in a society, in my opinion, that we can have one or the other extreme.
KASTE: Some Western conservationists are hoping the delisting of the wolf also has a silver lining. They say, now that the wolf is no longer federally protected, maybe it can also shed its reputation as the federal government’s pet.
Martin Kaste, NPR news.
INSKEEP: It’s MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
Like me, you’re probably getting fed up with mainstream media’s coverage of wildlife issues lately. Although hunters make up a paltry 6% of the country’s overall population, every source, from the nightly news to Timemagazine has been reporting on hunters’ atrocities against animals like a bunch of star-struck, goo-goo eyed fans, rather than impartial journalists.
Why else would news of a “contest” hunt for coyotes and wolves planned for December 28th in Salmon, ID, go unnoticed on the media’s radar screen?
You can bet if Justin Bieber (whoever the hell that is) stepped in dog crap, they’d be all over that shit.
But when an endangered species makes a bit of a comeback only to provide “recreational hunting opportunities” for psychopaths bent on their renewed extermination, they give it the coverage they would a company picnic.
That’s why Exposing the Big Game(ETBG) is starting a new series: “Headlines We’d Like to See” (based on Mad Magazine’s “Scenes We’d Like to See.”) Watch for installments over the coming weeks…
Anyway, getting back to my original point, adding wolves to the cast of potential derby victims should indeed shoot Idaho hunters in the collective foot—figuratively, if not literally.
Montana’s gray wolf season around the town of Gardiner ends 30 minutes after sunset Thursday after hunters filled a four-wolf quota in the area near Yellowstone National Park.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim says the closure applies to both hunting and trapping in Wolf Management Area 313. That’s one of two areas near Yellowstone where hunting has been restricted following requests from federal park officials.
The only other place in Montana with restrictions on how many wolves can be shot is west of Glacier National Park, where there’s a two-wolf quota.
Hunters statewide have reported shooting 106 wolves since the season began Sept. 7. Wolf hunting ends March 15.
Trappers have taken three wolves so far, in a season that began Sunday and runs through February 28…..
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY THEY WILL BE ACCEPTING COMMNTS!
In addition to written comments earlier this year, I just sent them the following comment:
In light of the fact that Western and Great Lakes states have proven time and again that they can’t be counted on to manage an endangered species such as wolves fairly–Wisconsin uses hounds to run wolves to exhaustion; Montana changes their wolf hunting rules, to the benefit of hunters, on a regular basis; Wyoming treats wolves like vermin outside the park; Idaho has hired a professional hunter/trapper to kill off two packs within a Wilderness Area at the behest of trophy elk hunters and now has added wolves to a coyote contest hunt–I respectfully urge you not to delist gray wolves from the Endangered Species List.
States with small populations of wolves adjoining the tri-state area are poised to start in with the same misguided policies of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Utah has taken steps to disallow wolves to expand their territory, South Dakota has listed wolves as vermin–ahead of their possible expansion–and Washington has implemented the same loopholes for ranchers to kill wolves that their neighbors came up with a few years ago.
The job of wolf recovery is unfinished. Please don’t remove them from ESA protections only to see them subjected to irresponsible contest hunts and eradicated once again.
Regarding allowing ranchers to kill perceived “threatening wolves” (Senate Bill 200): Montana policy wolf qualifies it, from wolf conservationists’ perspectives, as a backward wolf massacre state.
This attitude is evidenced by $19 tags for five wolves; not having a real quota; by having a trapping season beyond and through the hunting season; an attitude of “we need to drive down the population” without any science behind such thinking; an attitude of not holding the rancher responsible in any way for taking preventive, good husbandry, measures.
It is political management, not scientific management. Now it will be in evidence with a policy of allowing a rancher to kill a wolf “perceived” as a threat, which to a rancher and guests will likely mean any wolf seen, which will all equate to open season on wolves, with much of it on leased public land.
Wolves kill around 65 cattle annually in a state that has 5.5 million which is 0.001 percent. There are 3,776 leases on BLM land and 772 on national forest lands. Ranchers are reimbursed for losses. Oregon has a model for Montana, although Montana rule makers are too backward and obstinate to listen and learn. The Oregon wolf management model requires ranchers to have nonlethal deterrents in place and to have used them, and then only kill chronic offenders.
Wolves are not vermin. Wolves are apex predators that are good for wildlife ecology, having a positive cascading effect throughout the food chain versus ecological unhealthy man wildlife killing.
References: The Hidden Life of Wolves, Jamie and Jim Dutcher; The Wolf Almanac, Robert Busch
Three conservation groups asked a federal court Monday to stop coyote hunting in five coastal N.C. counties, saying the practice is killing lookalike red wolves.
Five of the endangered wolves have been shot since mid-October, and only the cut-off radio collar of a sixth animal has been found. Rewards totaling $26,000 have been offered for information on the shootings.
The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission allows an open hunting season on coyotes, which have spread across the state in recent decades. Young red wolves look very much like coyotes.
The motion filed Monday asks that a U.S. District Court judge stop coyote hunting in Dare, Tyrrell, Hyde, Washington and Beaufort counties. Those counties include the 1.7 million acres where about 100 red wolves run wild on the Albemarle Peninsula.
Filed on behalf of the Red Wolf Coalition, Defenders of Wildlife and the Animal Welfare Institute, it says the practice allows the illegal taking of endangered wolves that are protected by federal law.
The Wildlife Resources Commission had no immediate response, spokesman Geoff Cantrell said.
The commission said in a statement last month that its coyote hunting rules are “in the best interest of the public, the environment and the agricultural community.” It denied breaking federal law.
So far this year, 14 red wolves are known to have died. Eight gunshot deaths were confirmed and two more suspected. Killing red wolves is punishable by up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
The Southern Environmental Law Center, which represents the conservation groups, argues that wolves mistakenly shot as coyotes are hurting the breeding success of the recovery program. Eleven breeding pairs of wolves are now down to eight, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has said.
Five shooters in the past two years have said they mistakenly killed wolves they thought were coyotes, the law center said.
Research shows that breaking up established pairs increases the odds that succeeding litters will be wolf-coyote hybrids, pairings that federal biologists go to great lengths to prevent.
In 2012 the Wildlife Resources Commission expanded coyote hunting by allowing shooters to spotlight coyotes, blinding them, and shooting them at night.
With that, said the injunction motion, the problem of telling young wolves and coyotes apart “becomes virtually impossible at night.”
Exposing the Big Game 