Environment & Energy

Brenda

(1,355 posts) Fri Dec 13, 2024, 05:35 PM Dec 13

As Wolf Populations Rebound, an Angry Backlash Intensifies

By Jim Robbins • December 12, 2024

Next month will mark the 30th anniversary of a landmark wildlife experiment: the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park. The gray wolf had been nearly extirpated throughout the northern Rockies and had been federally listed as endangered since 1974.

Diane Boyd, a wildlife biologist who had started collaring and tracking wolves that entered northern Montana from Canada in 1979, supported the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s broader reintroduction effort in the West over the last 30 years. “The return of wolves has been wildly successful beyond all expectations,” she says today. “It’s amazing.”

Thanks to reintroduction efforts and protections of the federal Endangered Species Act, which forbids any killing of the animal, wolves are now abundant across the West. They number roughly 3,000 and are now living not just in the Northern Rockies, but in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and among the giant sequoia groves of California.

In the United States, the assault on wolves has ramped up in several northern Rockies states where restrictions have been lifted: Hunters and ranchers are shooting and trapping wolves legally, running them over with high-powered snowmobiles, slaughtering pups in their dens, and pursuing their prey after dark using night goggles, a practice considered unethical by the hunting community. Advocates for wolf protection are still fighting to restore the species, but as the wolf expands its territory, resistance to such efforts — or to any restoration of protections — is growing more widespread and more fierce.

Such views are common in Western states, where the topic of wolves is so emotional that the animal is treated like no other protected species, with both science and the law often taking a backseat to politics. For example: Wolves were listed as endangered in the Northern Rockies until 2011, when Montana Senator Jon Tester and Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson, at the behest of the livestock and hunting industries, attached a rider to a must-pass defense bill that delisted them in those states. It was the first time Congress had directly removed an animal from the endangered species list for purely political reasons.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/wolves-united-states-europe

America is the most perverse and violent nation on Earth with exponentially diminishing ethics.

5 replies

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Highlight:

As Wolf Populations Rebound, an Angry Backlash Intensifies (Original Post) Brenda Dec 13 OP

Proud to be stupid idiots. Botany Dec 13 #1

Here's what Montana and Idaho allow for wolves: Brenda Dec 13 #2

Want to kill a wolf? Get above one of their trials going to a den. And shoot them. Botany Dec 13 #3

Oh damn that's bad Brenda Dec 13 #4

Wolves Can Show as Much Attachment to Humans as Dogs C0RI0LANUS Dec 14 #5

Botany

(72,659 posts)

1. Proud to be stupid idiots.

Reply to Brenda (Original post)

Fri Dec 13, 2024, 05:45 PM

Dec 13

The good wolves do is massive and if you are a rancher and lose livestock to wolves
you can be compensated for your losses and if the wolf continues to be a problem you can
shoot it.

Wolf protection via dogs is possible too.

Brenda

(1,355 posts)

2. Here's what Montana and Idaho allow for wolves:

Reply to Botany (Reply #1)

Fri Dec 13, 2024, 06:02 PM

Dec 13

After the delisting, Montana and Idaho created wolf hunting seasons, but their initial, careful quotas have given way to widespread killing and much more liberal quotas spurred by anti-wolf sentiment. After maintaining a 10-year average population of about 1,000 wolves in Montana, last year hunters killed about a quarter of them. An individual hunter can take 20 wolves a year – 10 by trapping and 10 by shooting. In 2021, Montana’s governor, Greg Gianforte, made headlines after he hunted and killed a wolf wearing a tracking collar that had wandered out of Yellowstone National Park.

The desire to kill wolves has also given way to what some — including Ed Bangs, a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist — consider a violation of the “fair chase” ethics of hunting. Wolves are being killed on private land by people with night vision and thermal imaging equipment. They are lured by bait and then shot, and both Montana and Idaho offer bounties for dead wolves — $2,000 in Idaho.

Botany

(72,659 posts)

3. Want to kill a wolf? Get above one of their trials going to a den. And shoot them.

Reply to Brenda (Reply #2)

Fri Dec 13, 2024, 06:07 PM

Dec 13

Last edited Fri Dec 13, 2024, 06:37 PM - Edit history (1)

In Ohio we have the same kind of sickness because the bobcat has made a comeback
and people already want to hunt them.

Brenda

(1,355 posts)

4. Oh damn that's bad

Reply to Botany (Reply #3)

Fri Dec 13, 2024, 06:37 PM

Dec 13

I lived in Ohio for many years and I adopted a big cat I named Bobcat because he had so many of their markings.

This country has become so bloodthirsty and mean.

C0RI0LANUS

(1,851 posts)

5. Wolves Can Show as Much Attachment to Humans as Dogs

Reply to Brenda (Original post)

Sat Dec 14, 2024, 04:35 AM

Dec 14

"...wolves also share this ability to show attachment behavior towards their human caregivers."

Source:

https://www.zmescience.com/science/wolves-attachment-people-dogs-947246254/

Thanks for posting Brenda, I agree with you. There is a cruel, homicidal streak in many of our fellow Americans. Just ask the Indigenous people who were here before us.

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