:: Murdering Protected Specie: The Wolves of Idaho, Montana & Wyoming ::

I am sickened, yet again, by the Governor of Idaho (Bitch Butch Otter) and the States of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming for their inability to learn to live with protected species of animals.  In this case the Wolves population.  Ex-Interior Secretary Gale Norton continues to make a negative mark on the natural environment, including protected species, even after her recent departure from government to work for Shell Oil.

Idaho's governor said Thursday he will support public hunts to kill all but 100 of the state's gray wolves after the federal government strips them of protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter told The Associated Press that he wants hunters to kill about 550 gray wolves. That would leave about 100 wolves, or 10 packs, according to a population estimate by state wildlife officials.

According to Defender's of Wildlife (a wildlife advocacy group whom I am, admittedly, a member of), not only is aerial hunting of Wolves populations still going on, but Idaho and Wyoming want to hunt and kill the majority of Wolves populations back down to near extinction levels.  When you have attitudes like the Governor of Alaska and Idaho, it makes it damned difficult to protect anything:

At a Boise rally of anti-wolf zealots, Idaho Governor “Butch” Otter told the crowd, "I'm prepared to bid for that first ticket to shoot a wolf myself." He then endorsed a plan to kill 54 of the state’s 65 packs -- over 80 percent of the state’s wolves.

In Wyoming, the state legislature is moving forward with a bill to “aggressively manage” their wolf populations by killing up to 66% of wolves in their state outside national park boundaries.

Defenders of Wildlife, among other organizations, provides programs and funds to pay for the deaths of livestock by Wolves populations, which are about 1% of livestock populations in these states.  These programs also provide a number of other benefits for non-lethal wolves/predator control.  With programs such as these, why do these states demand the execution of over 80% of the wolves population?

Over the last 20 years, Defenders of Wildlife has paid livestock owners in the northern Rockies nearly $700,000 from The Bailey Wildlife Foundation Wolf Compensation Trust, the first privately funded program to reimburse 100 percent of the market value of verified livestock losses to wolves. Defenders initiated the program to help reduce the economic impact of wolf reintroduction on local ranchers, despite the fact that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) reports that less than 1 percent of all livestock mortalities in the northern Rockies have been caused by wolves. Reports issued by the National Agricultural Statistics Service show that significantly more livestock are lost to disease, birthing problems, injuries, theft and other predators than wolves.

"The ranching community is a valued partner in our effort to recover the wolf in the American West," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife. "Compensating ranchers for verified livestock losses has made a huge difference in our conservation efforts."

'There has been a plethora of debate through the centuries on the Wolve.  Even fairy tales and legends, creating mystical imaginings about the Big Bad Wolve, thereby creating misunderstanding of this inherently wonderous creature.  Wolves are beautiful predators, live in the wild and primarily live a hard spare life.  I personally believe the wolf to be one of the most majestic, mysterious, and beautiful creatures on this earth.  The fact that they have been almost annihilated from the planet is a tragedy, it’s a genocide of a population or species of mammal, and the U.S. can take its share of the blame for the decimation of this population - primarily due to greed and the ever popular land and range rights of humans as well as spreading human populations and development.  (The "I love nature crowd" who doesn’t like the critters that live there!)  The Bush administration has, from day one of taking office, done nothing but destroy our environment and remove the protections from endangered and protected specie of wildlife.' 

And, Bush is about to allow the death of over 1,000 protected Wolves, a population that is barely marginal right now as one that has just come back from near extinction.   Just like the Wolves slaughters that occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries.  I often hate humans.  For we are, indeed, the most dangerous of all predators.

Learn more about Wolves at the International Wolve Center and do something to protect them from slaughter before it's too late. 

NOVA series on Wolves 

tag: wolve, wolves, ESA, endangered species act, protected specie, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, aerial hunting, slaughter, defenders of wildlife, NOVA, PBS, Gayle Norton, Butch Otter, nature, environment, species, survival