Wolf Weekly Wrap Up

Another Predator Killing Derby Proposed in Idaho: Idaho for Wildlife, a “hunters’ rights organization”, has requested permission from the Bureau of Land Management to hold a three day predator-killing contest starting in January, 2015 on wide expanses of national public lands around Salmon, Idaho. The proposal requests permission to kill a range of different species in the area – including wolves, weasels, coyotes, and even jackrabbits. Last year, the same group scheduled a wolf-killing competition in December in the same area. Thankfully, no wolves were killed during that 48 hour wolf killing competition, but this year’s proposed derby is intended to be bigger and longer. Indeed, if Idaho for Wildlife has its way, this derby would enable up to 500 hunters to kill a vast array of predators and other wildlife with no regard for what this would do to the area’s ecosystem health – and they would conduct this event every year for the next five years.

We don’t need to tell you that condoning predator killing derbies is all too reminiscent of the policies of slaughter and extermination tactics that led to the near extinction of wolves, grizzly bears and other imperiled wildlife in the early 1900s. There is no excuse for this in the 21st century of wildlife management, not when we have effective non-lethal management tools available to manage our wildlife. You can help us stop this by telling the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) at the Department of the Interior to deny the request to conduct this organized killing spree.

Calling all Arizona and New Mexico Residents: We Need You at an Upcoming Hearing to Help Us Protect Mexican Gray Wolves: We’ve been keeping you updated about a new proposal from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that if passed, will change the rules about how Mexican gray wolves are managed in the wild. Today there are fewer than 90 wild Mexican gray wolves, but this proposed rule would make it easier for people to kill these endangered animals. While the proposed rule will provide a little help to the current struggling population, in the long run it will assure that Mexican gray wolves can never fully recover, because it bars them from the habitats that scientists say are essential for recovery. We need to tell the Service to make this rule work for wolves! Thankfully we have an opportunity to do just that. If you are a New Mexico or Arizona resident, we need your help. Join us for a public hearing next week on August 11th (Pinetop, AZ) or August 13th (Truth or Consequences, NM) to tell the Service that the public wants full recovery of Mexican gray wolves. If you want to testify, we’ll show you how. Even if you don’t want to speak, just showing up will help the wolves.