South Dakota Reclassifies Wolves as “Varmints”

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Exposing the Big Game

Earlier today I posted an action alert to Urge Your Representative to Stand Up for Wolves. Well, here is an article by the AP and Mark Watson in the South Dakota’s Black Hills Pioneer (a newspaper that boasts being “local and independent since 1876”—and whose attitude toward wolves obviously has remained unchanged since then), titled, “Wolf bill likely signed into law today.” The “wolf bill” in question is actually a state anti-wolf bill which unintentionally underscores why wolves need to remain on the federal Endangered Species List…

SPEARFISH — Gov. Dennis Daugaard is expected to sign a bill today that would reclassify wolves from protected species in the state to predators or varmints in East River counties.

SB 205 received final Legislative action on Feb. 26 when the House approved it 60-9. It passed in the Senate unanimously 35-0.

The bill will classify wolves the same as coyotes, foxes, skunks, gophers, ground squirrels, chipmunks, jackrabbits, marmots, porcupines, crows, and prairie dogs, but only in Eastern South Dakota. They will still remain protected by federal and state law West River.

In 2012, wolves residing in the Great Lakes population, which includes Eastern South Dakota, were removed from the federal Endangered Species Act. Now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working on plan that would delist the wolves West River as well.

Wolves don’t often roam across South Dakota, however there have been confirmed sightings. Wolves are occasionally killed by vehicles. One was killed in Harding County by a lethal trap set for coyotes and one was shot in 2012 near Custer. Olson said that one was seen just south of her Harding County ranch in February, however that sighting, like most others, lack physical evidence and are not confirmed.

The wolves that do traverse the state come from both the Rocky Mountain packs as well as the Great Lakes packs. They are typically younger males searching out mates and new territory.

Montana officials said that 255 wolves were killed in the 2012-2013 hunting and trapping season. Wyoming reported about 60 wolves killed. In Wisconsin, 117 were killed and in Minnesota, 395 were killed.

Scott Larson, a field supervisor with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Pierre, said a proposed rule by the service regarding the delisting wolves in West River should be issued this spring.

“It will be part of a larger effort,” Larson said. “The Rocky Mountain population and the Great Lakes populations have been delisted, but they are protected in most of the Lower 48 where we don’t have plans for any recovery efforts. … When you have a recovered population you have transients that move out into area where there is not suitable habitat. It doesn’t make any sense to have the protection status different.”

But dozens of U.S. House members don’t want that to happen.

A letter signed by 52 representatives [the good guys] urged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to not drop wolves from the endangered species list in areas where it hasn’t already been done. The comeback of the wolf populations in the western Great Lakes and the Northern Rockies is “a wildlife success story in the making,” the lawmakers said in a letter distributed by Reps. Peter DeFazio of Oregon and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats. But it added that because of lingering human prejudice, “federal protection continues to be necessary to ensure that wolf recovery is allowed to proceed in additional parts of the country.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to return wolves to the Southwest, despite court battles and resistance from ranchers. It’s also reviewing the status of wolves and their potential habitat in the Pacific Northwest, where perhaps 100 of the animals are believed to roam, and in the Northeast, which has no established population although occasional sightings have been reported.

“The outcome of these reviews will identify which, if any, gray wolves should continue to receive protections under the Endangered Species Act outside of the boundaries of the recovered populations and the Southwest population,” agency spokesman Chris Tollefson said.
…

…And which wolves, by contrast, will be classified as “varmints,” the same as coyotes, foxes, skunks, gophers, ground squirrels, chipmunks, jackrabbits, marmots, porcupines, crows, and prairie dogs, as South Dakota has done.

Speaking of prairie dogs, please sign on to this pledge for that beleaguered cornerstone species:

Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

Your Call Are Making a Difference for Wolves

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Exposing the Big Game

I heard some encouraging news today from a diehard activist who has called every one of the Minnesota state representatives listed as contacts for the bill to reinstate a five-year moratorium on recreational wolf hunting and trapping. She learned that of all the issues, they were hearing the most about the wolf issue and one staffer said, “he has not taken ONE call against the bill.

Her message to us is, “Please keep up the calls people—its making a difference!”

Here’s the info again and the contact info, from Howling For Wolves:

Today, legislation was introduced into the Minnesota House of Representatives to reinstate a five-year moratorium on recreational wolf hunting and trapping. Chief house author, Rep. Jason Isaacson (DFL – Shoreview) introduced H.F. 1163, the companion bill for S.F. 666 introduced by Sen. Chris Eaton. The bill calls for a five-year wait before another wolf hunting season can be proposed, and only for population management purposes after other options are explored. Read the press release here.

Mark your calendars! A Senate hearing of the bill has been scheduled on Tuesday, March 12 at noon before the Environment and Energy committee. Let’s fill the hearing room and the halls for the wolf. It was your efforts making calls and sending emails to committee members that pushed us forward.

Now we need your help to secure a hearing in the House Environment and Natural Resources Policy committee. A bill must be heard and passed out of one committee before March 15, 2013 to stay alive. Please call the committee members listed below to voice your support for H.F. 1163 and request the bill be heard and passed through committee.

House Environment and Natural Resources Policy Committee Rep. David Dill (Chair) 651-296-2190 Rep. Peter Fischer (Vice Chair) 651-296-5363 Rep. Tom Hackbarth 651-296-2439 Rep. John Benson 651-296-9934 Rep. Tony Cornish 651-296-4240 Rep. Dan Fabian 651-296-9635 Rep. Andrew Falk 651-296-4228 Rep. Steve Green 651-296-9918 Rep. Rick Hansen 651-296-6828 Rep. Clark Johnson 651-296-8634 Rep. Denny McNamara 651-296-3135 Rep. John Persell 651-296-5516 Rep. Mark Uglem 651-296-5513 Rep. Jean Wagenius 651-296-4200 Rep. JoAnn Ward 651-296-7807 Rep. Barb Yarusso 651-296-0141

Please know that to work a bill into law requires many repeated actions to push it through. We will have several urgent requests for actions over the next few weeks to keep each bill moving forward to a final floor vote. In the meantime, mark your calendars for the Senate hearing on Tuesday, March 12 at 12 pm. Please email us atrespond@howlingforwolves.org if you are able to attend. We want a strong showing of support at this hearing.

_____________________

Meanwhile in Montana,

Another activist writes, “I counted the public comments MTFWP received in January about the Wolf Hunt closure next to Yellowstone National Park (YNP). Overwhelmingly the votes were in favor of a closure. I kept a strict count of all the Montana comments and was pretty close on the others too. Here’s my count:

There were a total of 1811 comments.

750 of those comments were from Montanans:

•554 in favor of a wolf hunt closure around YNP

•196 opposed to a closure around YNP

1061 comments were from out of state, USA citizens and some from overseas

•~1058 were in favor of a wolf hunt closure, protecting YNP wolves

•~3 were opposed

As wolf advocate Justin Forte put it, “This dictatorship that hunters and ranchers have had over the rest of us on wildlife policy has gone on for too long! It is time for all of us to stand up and say ‘No More!’”

Impossible to Imagine

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Exposing the Big Game

To those of us who care deeply about wildlife issues and the abuse of non-humans, it seems that no matter how many horrors you hear about, there’s always something else happening to animals somewhere we’re shocked to learn. Even after writing a book against hunting and trapping, I guess there are still places my mind doesn’t want to go.

That’s how I felt when I read the article, “Montana, Idaho trappers catching more than just wolves,” in the Ravalli Republic, which I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, “Stop the Spread of Psychopathy—End Hunting and Trapping.”

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

For a few years my wife and I lived in a house surrounded by a small field on a forested hill above Washington’s Willapa River valley. The field was once an upper pasture of a now long-defunct dairy. We were happy to see it returning to nature. Sword ferns, wildflowers and Douglas fir trees were starting their advance across the expanse of grass, finding soil churned up by moles for their seeds to take root.

Common wildlife there included black-tailed deer, black bear, raccoons, coyotes, field mice and the red-tailed hawks attracted by the latter. Meanwhile, our feeders attracted everyone from squirrels and chipmunks to a varied assortment of birds—Steller’s jays, juncos and chestnut-backed chickadees, as well as flocks of band-tailed pigeons and American goldfinch, the Washington state bird.

But it was always a special treat to wake up to the sight of the local elk herd bedded down in the upper corner of the field, less than 50 yards from the house.

People often panic at the thought of 20 or 30 large animals competing with their cows for pasture grass, but elk are anything but sedentary grazers—they’re always on the move. Sticking together as a group, they make a circuit around their range through forests and across rivers to find themselves in a new place every day for a week or two, before starting the circuit anew. It was always sad to see them move on from the protection of our posted private property, yet you could almost predict to the day when they’d show up again.

But there was one lone elk cow who seemed to shadow the herd, always a few days behind. We saw her far more often than the herd, and we soon figured out that she was staying nearby in the surrounding forest rather than migrating over the miles-long circuit like the rest of her kind. The reason became obvious—she had a pronounced limp as though barely able to use her right front leg.

When we got a good look through binoculars we saw that her foot was in fact missing! What the hell could have happened to cause that? My first thought was that she caught her leg in some overgrown barbed wire, a familiar threat since “livestock growers” almost never remove unnecessary fencing when they finally quit the business.

Asking around to the locals, their standard reaction was a snicker and a half-assed guess that someone must have shot it off during hunting season. Either scenario seemed remotely possible, but not necessarily all that probable, considering the horse-like size of the animal in question. One bullet or a strand of barbed wire shouldn’t do that much damage.

Twice over the years I’ve found dogs caught in steel-jawed foot-hold traps in other parts of the state (one of them had to have his lower leg amputated) and I started to wonder if the elk might have stepped into a trap set for coyotes (whom the locals hate with extreme prejudice).

I knew that smaller mammals, as well as hawks and eagles, were often unintended victims of trapping; but the thought of an animal as large as a deer or elk being caught in a trap was just too hard to get my mind around. It wasn’t until I read the following lines in “Montana, Idaho trappers catching more than just wolves,” and then saw a photo of a hunter-killed cougar who had earlier lost his toes in a trap, that I suddenly knew for sure—that’s how she lost her foot!: “Trappers reported capturing 45 deer. Twelve of those died. They also captured 18 elk and four moose. One of the elk died.”

The article goes on to quote the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s state “game” manager, looking out for his cronies while objectifying the animals, “No one wants to catch a deer. It costs them a lot of time.” I don’t even want to try to imagine what an ungulate like that goes through to try to escape a trap—even before seeing an approaching trapper.

Traps are often compared to landmines set for any passing animal. But the difference is that while a landmine blows an appendage off instantly, a steel-jawed trap works its evil slowly—the more its victim struggles to escape, the more damage is done.

In the case of the elk, escape meant not only catching up with the rest of the herd, but also getting away from anyone who might happen by. If determined enough, an animal as powerful as that could eventually pull herself free of a trap’s steel jaws, but freedom would likely come at the expense of a foot.

Bill to stop wolf hunts in MN introduced today

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Exposing the Big Game

From Howling For Wolves

House Environment and Natural Resources Policy Committee
Rep. David Dill (Chair) 651-296-2190
Rep. Peter Fischer (Vice Chair) 651-296-5363
Rep. Tom Hackbarth 651-296-2439
Rep. John Benson 651-296-9934
Rep. Tony Cornish 651-296-4240
Rep. Dan Fabian 651-296-9635
Rep. Andrew Falk 651-296-4228
Rep. Steve Green 651-296-9918
Rep. Rick Hansen 651-296-6828
Rep. Clark Johnson 651-296-8634
Rep. Denny McNamara 651-296-3135
Rep. John Persell 651-296-5516
Rep. Mark Uglem 651-296-5513
Rep. Jean Wagenius 651-296-4200
Rep. JoAnn Ward 651-296-7807
Rep. Barb Yarusso 651-296-0141

Stop the Spread of Psychopathy—End Hunting and Trapping

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Exposing the Big Game

In light of the rise in violent crime, many have pondered the question: “How do I know if my neighbor is a psychopathic serial killer?” Well, unfortunately, it’s not easy. Unless of course you happen to live in any number of rural areas across the country where hunters are required to wear blaze orange—then the psychopathic serial killers stand out like a bunch of sore thumbs.

Okay, so maybe it’s a bit hyperbolic to compare hunters to serial killers. Yes, they both obsess on and stalk their victims, whom they objectify and depersonalize in their single-minded quest to boost their self-esteem, and the kills made by both hunters and serial killers are followed by a cooling off period, but serial killing usually has a sexual component to it.

Let’s hope hunters aren’t literally getting off on their exploits.

Maybe a better comparison for a hunter would be to a mass murderer: the inadequate type who snipes with a hunting rifle at innocent passers-by from a clock tower, or fires an AR-15 at cars from an embankment over a freeway.

Either way, the plain fact is cruelty to animals often leads to the killing of people. The perpetrators of the Columbine mass school shooting in Colorado honed their slaying skills by practicing on woodpeckers with their hunting rifles. David Berkowitz, the self-proclaimed “Son of Sam” serial killer, who habitually took sport in shooting lovers in parked cars along the streets of New York City, began his criminal career by shooting his neighbor’s dog.

Why does the public put up with these people in their midst?

The mainstream media downplays the behavior of serial animal killers as though hunting was just another “sport” to report on; like they were covering some Boy Scout Jamboree. They repeat by rote hunter/”game” department jargon like the animals were inanimate objects, using emotionally void terms such as “crop” for deer or “wolf harvest” for the unnecessary torture and murder of sentient beings vastly more admirable than their pursuers.

Worse yet are the noxious spread of anything-goes anti-wolf/anti-wildlife websites and chat rooms now widespread in social media. Consider the following comments made in response to a hunter showing off the cougar he killed (photo below)…

February 11 at 8:34am – “Nice cat bud.”

February 11 at 8:34am via mobile – “Colter! I had no idea you were into cougars.”

February 11 at 8:39am via mobile – “Hahahaha only old hairy ones like this one!!”

February 11 at 8:51am via mobile – “Good cat man congrats.”

February 11 at 9:15am via mobile – “That’s a nice cat bud!”

February 11 at 10:25am via mobile – “Thanks! Damn fun hunt.”

February 11 at 4:39pm – “what did you do, shoot its paw off!”

February 11 at 5:25pm via mobile – “It had been stuck in a trap at some point. Either chewed it off or pulled it off.”

In other words the poor cougar suffered, possibly for days, in a trap, before being shot by a trophy hunter. “Non-target” species like cougars often end up in traps set for other undeserving animals.

The Ravalli Republic reports (in typical mainstream media passionless fashion) in their article, Montana, Idaho trappers catching more than just wolves:

In the first year that wolf trapping was allowed in Idaho, trappers captured a total of 123 wolves.

But according to a survey by the Idaho Fish and Wildlife Department, those same trappers in 2011-2012 also inadvertently captured 147 other animals, including white-tailed deer, elk, moose, mountain lions, skunks and ravens.

Trappers reported that 69 of those animals died as a result.

Trappers reported capturing 45 deer. Twelve of those died. They also captured 18 elk and four moose. One of the elk died.

The same number of coyotes ended up in traps as deer. Trappers reported that 38 were killed. Mountain lions also took a hit. Nine were captured and six died.

“There are a heck of a lot of people out there trapping furbearers,” said the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife management chief. “And there also are a lot of people trapping coyotes, which aren’t even regulated.”

Meanwhile, Idaho allows trappers to use wire snares that collapse around an animal’s neck as it struggles to free itself.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s state wildlife game manager vacuously adds, “No one wants to catch a deer. It costs them a lot of time.”

…

Any society that looks the other way when people murder animals for fun does so at its peril. Marine biologist, Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, had this to say about the growing problem:

“Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is—whether its victim is human or animal—we cannot expect things to be much better in this world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity.”

It doesn’t get much more cruel or moronic than this…

Wolf-Murder by Numbers

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Exposing the Big Game

Here are the totals of wolves murdered in the tri-state area, not including those who were victims of our taxpayer-funded assassins—the hit men from the federal “Wildlife Services” agency. (Note: all three of these states share a border with Yellowstone National Park)…

Latest Posted Idaho Wolf Hunt Kill total (current season): 169
Latest Posted Idaho Wolf Trapping Kill total (current season): 76
Final Posted Montana Wolf Hunt Kill Total (most recent season) 128
Final Posted Montana Wolf Trapping Kill total (most recent season): 97
Wyoming Wolf Kill Total (current season): 74 (Note: as of March 1st Wyoming’s season has been extended indefinitely)
Regional Total Reported Killed This Season: 544
Regional Total Reported Killed Since Delisting: 1,089

Meanwhile, a new National Park Service report for 2011 shows that the 3,394,326 visitors to Yellowstone spent $332,975,000 in communities surrounding the park. This spending supported 5,041 jobs in the local area.

(Michigan State University conducted this visitors’ spending analysis for the NPS. The report includes information for visitor spending at individual parks and by state. It can be downloaded at http://www.nature.nps.gov/socialscience/products.cfm#MGM click on Economic Benefits to Local Communities from National Park Visitation 2011.)

Needless to say, most people who visit national parks want to see the wildlife unmolested. They are not there to hunt; the money they spend reflects their strong interest in the quiet enjoyment of nature. Pro-hunting factions like to boast about the money their bloodsport brings to local communities. I don’t know if anyone has taken a survey on how much those kill-happy cowboys add to the communities around Yellowstone, but you can bet your boots it’s nowhere near $332,975,000.
One thing I know for sure is that the number of dollars spent by Yellowstone visitors is going to drop as the wildlife they went there to see continues to disappear.

Yellowstone wolf photo ©Jim Robertson. All Rights Reserved

Washington Another Hostile State Wanna-be

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Exposing the Big Game

It’s clear from the irrational outbursts at a recent WDFW public meeting on wolves that Washington wants to join the ranks of the hostile, hateful anti-wolf states. At least the eastern Washington cattle ranchers do.

Here are some excerpts from an article in an eastern Washington newspaper, the Wenatchee World entitled, “Wolf management will include lethal removal, state officials say.”

(My comments are within parenthesis.)

OKANOGAN — State wildlife officials assured Okanogan County residents Thursday that some problem wolves that kill livestock will be trapped and euthanized this year.

(Is that a threat or a promise?)

“The lethal side of management is controversial, but it is a very real part of management,” Dave Ware told a standing-room-only crowd that included many cattle ranchers. The state Department of Fish and Wildlife game division manager added, “We’re trying to be more aggressive, and we’re trying to be more responsive.”

(By “responsive” he was no doubt speaking to bloodthirsty cattle ranchers, not those who suggest that wolves have their place and should be allowed to live in the state.)

Ware said his agency has also created a wildlife conflict section to stay on top of problem wolves, and has hired someone in Northeast Washington whose only focus will be on wolf conflicts.

(Sounds like some kind of a bounty hunter).

And, they will share radio-collar information about where the wolves are with ranchers who have cattle in the area.

(I knew there was a reason I hated those burdensome radio collars wolves are forced to wear; while the public is led to believe they are for “research purposes,” those collars can actually be used against the wolves by giving their locations to their sworn enemies.)

Still, more than 200 people who crowded into the Okanogan County PUD auditorium for Thursday night’s wolf meeting weren’t satisfied.

(In other words, they were out for blood.)

Some told Wildlife officials they plan to manage wolves their own way — by shooting them on sight.

(You don’t get much more hostile than that.)

An Okanogan County commissioner told them the county is interested in giving jurisdiction over the wolves to the Colville Tribes. Tribal officials last year issued nine permits to kill wolves on the Colville Indian Reservation.

(The Colvilles were the first in the state to initiate a hunting season on wolves.)

Ware said if problem wolves are located east of Highway 97 — where wolves are federally delisted — they’ll consider trapping and killing them.

(Meanwhile, the feds are planning to delist wolves elsewhere across the country—see below.)

It’s a decision that will still be made by Fish and Wildlife Director Phil Anderson, he said, but added, “Lethal removal is going to be part of that management.”

(Of course, “lethal removal” is standard practice for “wildlife managers”).

Ware also said he’s expecting the federal government to include the rest of Washington in the area where wolves are no longer protected.

(No comment).

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2012. All Rights Reserved

Wolves Are Getting it From the Left and the Right

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Exposing the Big Game

Since 2011, when Congress stripped wolves of their Endangered Species status, an estimated 1,084 wolves have been killed in the Northern Rockies. Again, that’s ONE THOUSAND AND EIGHTY-FOUR living, breathing, social, intelligent wolves killed by scornful, fearful, vengeful and boastful humans, often in the most hideous ways imaginable.

Of course, that number might not seem so shocking if you consider that 5,450 wolves were killed in the Montana Territory in 1884, after a bounty on wolves was first instated there. Clearly, there were a lot more wolves in the country then as compared to now, but that didn’t stop the Obama Administration from declaring the species “recovered” in 2011 and handing them over to eagerly awaiting hostile, hateful anti-wolf states to “manage” as they see fit.

Now, under a plan supported by the federal government, the state of Wyoming is opening even more wolf habitat to unlimited killing. As of today, March 1^st, until at least October, wolves can be slain there at will. How many will survive such an onslaught is anyone’s guess, but I can guarantee the number of “recovered” Wyoming wolves will be in the dozens or very low hundreds, not the thousands.

Doubtless, a few will survive…for a while. The famed “Custer wolf” eluded hunters and trappers for over ten years and over 2600 square miles along the Wyoming-South Dakota border, even though he had a $500.00 bounty on his head. The crafty fugitive was aided in out-witting the best hunters in the country by a pair of coyotes who flanked him on both sides, serving as sentinels. Finally a government hunter was assigned to track down the Custer wolf. He first shot the two coyotes, and six months later, in October 1920, he caught up with and killed the wolf, making him one of the last of his kind to live and die in the region for nearly a century.

Anyone (well, anyone with a conscience) should be ashamed to read about the gruesome war on wolves carried out in this country during the 1800s which resulted in the extinction of the species over most of the Lower 48. Common “extermination” practices used by “wolfers” included killing pups in their dens.

But where is the national outrage today as hunters and trappers in bloody red states like Wyoming, Idaho and Montana wipe out entire packs, including fathers, mothers and their pups? Wyoming’s expanded wolf-killing season is all the more tragic given that spring is the time of year that wolves are denning.

From the group, Defenders of Wildlife: “This expanded hunt puts the most vulnerable population of wolves – pups and pregnant or nursing mothers – in greater danger of being shot on sight. This kill-at-will approach is exactly the kind of flawed policy we knew would happen if wolves prematurely lost their Endangered Species Act protection – this is why Defenders is suing the U.S. Department of Interior to restore Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection for wolves in Wyoming.”

It’s not like the administration didn’t know what might happen when the fate of the wolves was turned over to states with extreme anti-wolf plans already in place. In just two years over 1,000 wolves have been ruthlessly murdered by hunters and trappers eager to relive the gory glory days of the 1800s.

Obviously some people have a different reaction when they read their history books than those of us with a conscience.

Back To the Bad Old Days

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Exposing the Big Game

What’s up with all the anti-wildlife legislation going on around the country these days? Everywhere you look there’s some state senator or representative introducing bills to keep non-human animals down and implement some new form of cruelty to punish them for the crime of not being born of our privileged species.

A few examples: a self-amused eastern Washington representative is calling for east-side wolves to be moved out of his district to the west side of the Cascade Mountains; at the same time Washington State politicians just introduced three bills to make it easier for ranchers to use lethal measures on wolves whenever they see fit; and of course you’ve heard that Montana’s public servants are on a rampage to get rid of their resident wolves. Now one of their legislators wants to lower the minimum hunting age for that state to nine years old.

Meanwhile, in Alaska, a senator just put forth legislation to instate a $100.00 bounty on sea otters! Never mind that these playful, aquatic mammals were nearly completely wiped out during the fur trade era, are critically endangered or extinct from much of their former range and are still listed in Alaska as Threatened or Endangered under the federal ESA, those poor, underpaid (sarcasm intended) commercial crab fishermen see them as competition. (Far from downtrodden, crabbers take pride in being the wealthiest of commercial fishermen; no doubt the senator who proposed the bounty is counting on a kickback into his campaign coffers from the crabbing industry for his otter oppression bill.)

And the list of detrimental anti-wildlife legislation goes on and on.

Is it just me, or have good ol’ boy state politicians stepped up the pace of non-human animal persecution? It’s as though they’re intentionally trying to drag us back to the bad old days of the 1800s, arguably this country’s most reckless period for uncontrolled animal exploitation—besides, perhaps, the present.

Take Action:

Not surprisingly, state legislators only take input from residents of their given state, but since there are bogus bills and measures cropping up across the country, there should be something to speak out against wherever you live. For instance, if you live in Washington State, contact your senator and urge them to oppose anti-wolf bills SB 5187, SB 5188 and SB 5193. Let them know:

These three bills would undermine the state’s wolf management plan by giving authority to the county legislators and local sheriffs over the state wildlife agency biologists, and would allow the public to override the state and kill wolves perceived to be a threat to livestock on public and private lands.
There are only 50 wolves in Washington. Now is not the time to remove their protection.
Washington’s wolf management plan was created with massive public involvement and adopted unanimously by the Washington Wildlife Commission; powerful ranching advocates should not be allowed to undermine it.

Go Manage Yourself

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Exposing the Big Game

Whenever I hear people use words like “manage” or “control” in reference to wildlife, my first thought is: go manage yourself. How arrogant of “game” departments, hunters or even so-called conservationists to pretend they know better than Mother Nature.
Wolves and elk have been managing themselves for eons. If elk were too numerous, wolves thrived; if elk populations dropped, wolf numbers were sure to follow. And whenever either of their populations got too far out of hand, Nature would step in with a few tricks up her sleeve to restore the balance.

By the time humans dreamed up notions like wildlife “management,” they’d so severely disrupted the natural order that nothing short of a reintroduction of elk or wolves could ever put it right. Of all the Earth’s invasive species, Homo sapiens is the one in dire need of controlling. Yet, we’ve been able to cleverly avoid or survive every effort Nature has so far come up with to regulate our numbers.

Know this, lowly human: Mom N still has a few tricks to throw at us if we aren’t willing to manage our own population.

Exposing the Big Game

Forget Hunters' Feeble Rationalizations and Trust Your Gut Feelings: Making Sport of Killing Is Not Healthy Human Behavior

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