Wolves Are Set to Become Fair Game in the West

Published on Monday, August 31, 2009 by The New York Times

by William Yardley

A wolf hunt is set to begin in Idaho on Tuesday if a federal judge does not stop it. It would be the first time in decades that hunters have been allowed to pursue the gray wolf, an animal that has come to symbolize tensions over how people interact with wilderness in the West.

 

Wolf season is set to open for hunters in Idaho and Montana. Gray wolves had long been on the endangered list. (United States Fish and Wildlife Service, via Associated Press)

On Monday, the judge, Donald W. Molloy of Federal District Court, will hold a hearing to determine whether to issue an injunction sought by wildlife advocates against the hunt and reopen the question of returning the wolf to the endangered list. 

Gray wolves were taken off the list five months ago, after being protected under federal law for more than 30 years. More than 6,000 hunters in Idaho have bought licenses for the chance to participate in the hunt, in which wildlife officials will allow 220 wolves to be killed. In 2008, the population stood at about 850. Montana will allow 75 animals to be killed, starting Sept. 15.

The states’ hunts will be over when the limit is reached or when the season ends, which is Dec. 31 in most areas.

“The first day is the best day when it comes to an animal as smart as a wolf,” said Nate Helm, president of Idaho Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife.

The resurgence of the wolf population, rooted in a federal effort to reintroduce the animals to the Northern Rockies in the mid-1990s, has long angered deer and elk hunters and cattle and sheep ranchers who say the wolves are depleting game and killing livestock. Federal wildlife officials said that in 2008 a record 264 wolves were killed in the region for the legal reason of protecting livestock.

The clash illustrates a persistent divide in the West, where environmentalists and wildlife conservationists have long gone to court to fight laws they say favor powerful groups like hunters, ranchers and others. Wolves have been one of the most tangled issues of late, including in front of Judge Molloy.

In March, the Obama administration announced it would remove wolves from the endangered list. The Bush administration made a similar decision the year before, but Judge Molloy, in a lawsuit by plaintiffs including Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club, ordered wolves returned to the list last fall.

In the years since they were reintroduced to parts of the Northern Rockies, including Yellowstone National Park, the wolf population had risen to more than 1,640 in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming as of 2008. Federal officials say the population has recovered and no longer needs protection as if it were endangered.

Idaho and Montana game officials say their hunts will keep the population from growing and eventually reduce it, while the limits will make sure enough animals endure to keep them from becoming endangered. Idaho game officials say they would like to have a little more than 500 wolves in the state, though the official plan calls for at least 150.

Wildlife advocates cite several reasons for wanting to stop the hunt. They say that the state plans do not have enough protections, that hunting will prevent the wolves from roaming the Northern Rockies freely enough to preserve genetic diversity and maintain access to the proper habitat.

Part of the claim is rooted in the federal government’s continuing effort to protect wolves in Wyoming because it has not come to terms with that state on a management plan.

“It’s a matter of whether we’re going to have a healthy recovered population or isolated animals that are always struggling to survive,” said Suzanne Stone, the Northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife, one of the parties seeking the injunction.

Doug Honnold, the lead lawyer for the environmentalists in the case, said, “Our vision of recovery is 2,000 to 5,000 wolves in a connected population and with a legal safety net to keep them there.”

State and federal wildlife officials overseeing the wolf population say the number of wolves is more than enough and that multiple studies, including those on genetic diversity, have established that the animals are roaming widely and intermingling with others elsewhere.

“Clearly, wolves are restored in the Rocky Mountains,” said Ed Bangs, the wolf recovery coordinator for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in Helena, Mont. “They’re always going to be here, and nobody is talking about getting rid of all the wolves. That’s never going to happen. The population is doing great. There are not genetic problems. There are not connectivity problems.”

Mr. Bangs added, “But they’re starting to cause a lot of problems, and the question is what’s the best tool for the future management of wolves.”

He said the wolves had caused about $1 million in livestock losses and other damage.

© 2009 The New York Times

Protect Our Public Lands and Wildlife

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/434099627?z00m=19775465

Protect Our Public Lands and Wildlife

Target: U.S. Congress
Sponsored by: Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund

The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administer 449 million acres of magnificent landscapes and diverse ecosystems. These public lands support an incredible array of fish, wildlife and plants – including the American marten (pictured).

But forest dwellers like martens and other wildlife are threatened by unbalanced management of our public lands. Population growth, poorly planned energy exploration and production and a changing climate are placing a strain on our public lands as well as the fish and wildlife that depend on a safe and sustainable habitat to survive.

Americans and our wildlife depend on important resources from our public lands – such as clean air and water, recreational opportunities and other benefits. Fortunately, America’s Wildlife Heritage Act (H.R. 2807) would provide a common sense, science-based solution to restore balance on these public lands.

Help protect our public lands and wildlife. Please send a letter to Congress today – and encourage your Representative to cosponsor America’s Wildlife Heritage Act.

Save Jaguars and Other Borderlands Wildlife

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/379969332?z00m=19769123

Target: U.S. Congress
Sponsored by: Care2.com

The borderlands of the U.S. and Mexico are home to thousands of species of wildlife – including endangered jaguars and ocelots.

But the construction of an enormous border wall and hundreds of miles of roads will have devastating impacts for the surrounding wildlife and communities – and could doom hopes for recovery of jaguars and ocelots in the U.S.

There is a better way. The Border Security and Responsibility Act (H.R. 2076) introduced by Rep. Raul Grijalva (AZ) will secure our borders and protect our wildlife and wild places.

Please send a letter to Congress today and urge your Representative to support legislation that secures our border and protects our wildlife.

 

 

Save Endangered Species in Malaysia from Unnecessary Logging!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/508876624?z00m=19766013

Target: Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib, Prime Minister of Malaysia
Sponsored by: Care2

In the region of Terengganu, Malaysia, a stretch of forest filled with endangered wildlife is disappearing. In preparation for a new hydroelectric project, the Terengganu state government is logging and then flooding the forest. But here’s the twist: They are logging three times more land than is needed.

As this valuable forest disappears, so will many species that inhabit the area, such as the endangered Sumatran rhinoceros and the Malayan tiger. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has deemed 94 plant and animal species in the region threatened by extinction. In the face of reckless logging, these species have little hope of survival.

Urge the Malaysian prime minister to protect the wildlife and stop the unnecessary logging of the high-value forest in the Terengganu region.

Wanna Shoot a Wolf? Come to Idaho!

Published on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 by Mother Jones

The Obama administration has lifted protections for gray wolves in a handful of Western states. Soon, it could be hunting season on them once again.

by Todd Wilkinson

Before she was found slain 120 miles west of Denver in late March 2009, wolf 341F charted an extraordinary course, tracked only by satellite, through the heart of Western ranch country, where her kind are still regarded as lupus non grata. A young female lobo-a “disperser” born into a wild pack inhabiting Montana’s Absaroka Mountains just north of Yellowstone National Park-she completed a solo odyssey covering 1,000 miles. Only after crossing Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah did 341F’s life meet a sudden tragic end near the ski resort town of Vail, Colorado. Researchers discovered her body after the GPS collar around her neck emitted signals indicating she was no longer on the move-and authorities say she did not die of natural causes. A criminal investigation is ongoing and, so far, no human suspect has been apprehended.

These days, Mike Jimenez can relate to 341F’s perilous journey. The veteran wolf biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service runs his own gauntlet between haters of wolves and conservationists now challenging the federal government’s latest action.  

Fifteen years after gray wolves were successfully reintroduced to Yellowstone and a separate expanse of wilderness in central Idaho, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday implemented a decision made previously by the Bush administration to formally remove these wolves from the federal list of endangered species in Montana and Idaho. A coalition of environmental groups led by the green law firm Earthjustice says it intends to seek an injunction in US district court to reverse the delisting decision. They argue it is both premature and grants states, including Idaho and others, a license to start killing large numbers of wolves using hunters and, potentially, aerial sharpshooters. A year ago, when wolves were briefly delisted until environmentalists overturned that decision in court, more than 100 were shot regionwide in a matter of weeks. Some were run down and trampled by snowmobilers in Wyoming who won praise as local folk heroes.    

Few wildlife advocates dispute Salazar’s assertion that, with more than 1,645 wolves in the northern Rockies today, their restoration rate is one of the greatest conservation achievements in US history. Except for a few packs that wandered back and forth along the Canadian border, gray wolves were wiped out in the West by the middle of the 20th century. The original goal of a restoration plan written by the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1994 was to have 100 to 150 wolves in each state. Today, there are an estimated 500 wolves in Montana, 850 in Idaho, and 300 in Wyoming. Environmentalists maintain that biological recovery will be complete once the population reaches between 2,000 and 5,000, while ranchers and some state officials insist the current number is already way too high.

In Idaho, Republican governor Butch Otter has endorsed a proposal to halve the state’s wolf population of 88 packs and more than 1,000 individuals (counting new pups born this spring). Otter has said he plans to apply for a wolf-hunting permit so he can be the first Idahoan to fell a wolf. The governor claims that wolves have taken a huge toll on big game animals, namely elk-even though his own fish and game agency noted recently that elk numbers in Idaho are actually meeting or surpassing population objectives in most areas.

Ironically, just over the state line in Wyoming, wolves will remain protected under the Endangered Species Act even if they are delisted elsewhere-largely because the state has been even clearer than Idaho in announcing its intention to kill them. The management plan Wyoming submitted to the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2007 classified gray wolves as vermin to be shot on sight, at any time, over roughly 85 percent of the Cowboy State; a court threw it out the following year. Wyoming’s Democratic governor, Dave Freudenthal, says he intends to sue the federal government to gain control of wolf management, and some ranchers have also threatened to take matters into their own hands.

With attitudes on both sides hardening, Jimenez may be one of the few people aiming for a middle ground. From his perch at the Fish and Wildlife office in Lander, Wyoming, Jimenez says it’s clear that while environmentalists’ fears of a potential Old West-style wolf slaughter are likely overblown, claims of the predators wreaking massive havoc on livestock and wildlife herds are grossly exaggerated. “For some of my conservation friends, it’s hard to appreciate how the other side is impacted by wolves,” Jimenez says. “The challenge is that there is a disproportionate cost-benefit aspect of having wolves back. One side, often a more urban population, disproportionately gets the benefits of wolves at the expense of people coexisting with them on a daily basis in rural areas.”

Across Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming in 2008, biologists documented that wolves killed 214 cattle, 355 sheep, 28 goats, 21 llamas, 10 horses, and 14 dogs; for perspective, more than 1,200 beef calves and lambs were killed by a prairie blizzard along the Montana-Wyoming state line this past April. To investigate those killings (and destroy 246 offending wolves), federal and state agencies spent a total of $1 million. Livestock owners were paid $500,000 in restitution.

“It’s easy to want wolves when they don’t live in your backyard,” concludes Jimenez. “And it’s also easy for some in the livestock community to deny the biological significance of wolves and what their survival means to millions of Americans. This respect for both perspectives is what is missing from the current discussion.”     Renowned wolf expert L. David Mech, who has studied the animals since the late 1950s and who helped draft the blueprint for returning wolves to the West, strikes a similar chord. Reached at his office in Minnesota, where he has helped lead wolf recovery in that state, Mech said wolf populations can sustain annual losses of 35 percent without falling into decline. However, he warns that if Western states attempt to purge wolves using aircraft, excessive shooting, and trapping, they will likely face a massive public backlash and a possible return to federal control.

Noting that it’s “a miracle” to have thriving wolf numbers in the northern Rockies at all given how close they were to extinction, Mech says the animals’ survival should be vigorously defended in some areas, such as Yellowstone and the central Idaho wilderness; by contrast, environmentalists should expect public tolerance for wolves to be low in traditional ranching areas. It’s the same in his home state of Minnesota, whose wolf population of 3,000-the largest in the Lower 48-was also removed (along with Wisconsin’s and Michigan’s) from federal protection on Monday. Timber wolves are now vigorously protected in the state’s north woods-though there’s talk of a sport season on the animals-but they risk being killed when they venture into farm country.

Ultimately, Mech says, those in the pro-wolf camp may have to accept that states will eradicate wolves wandering beyond the core recovery area. But until the gray wolf population has fully recovered in the Rockies, says Earthjustice attorney Jenny Harbine, the Obama administration-rather than staying on the course set by the Bush administration-should keep Canis lupus protected. “We’re really close to having a sustainable wolf population and achieving recovery the way the Endangered Species Act was intended,” she says. “We don’t want to see this golden opportunity squandered away.”

© 2009 Mother Jones

Todd Wilkinson is a writer based in Bozeman, Montana. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, Audubon, Mother Jones, and many other publications.

Sarah Palin: Stop the Aerial Killing of Wolves!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/579425122?z00m=19754585

Target: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin
Sponsored by: Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund

Governor Sarah Palin’s administration has launched a terrible new assault on wolves in Alaska. In just a few days, 66 wolves were killed by aerial gunners with high-powered rifles. Even worse, Palin’s Board of Game has also approved the use of poison gas and deadly snares to kill defenseless wolf pups and their families in and around their dens.

Governor Palin is escalating her bloody war on wolves, and we need your help to stop her. Too many wolves have already died needless deaths – this brutal practice has to stop. Sign our petition to send a message to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin urging her to end her war on Alaska’s wolves.

 

Lucrative Palm Oil Crop Putting Red Apes in Danger

Published on Monday, December 15, 2008 by The Toronto Star

by Marc Kielburger and Craig Kielburger

Kesi’s name could not be more fitting. It means “child born in difficult times.”

 

A Sumatran orangutan is seen at a zoo in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, in June, 2008. (BOS/SAVETHEORANGUTAN.CO.UK)

Kesi was given the Swahili name at a rescue centre on whose doorstep she arrived at just 3 months old. Her mother had been killed by machetes. Kesi survived the attack but lost her left hand and received a deep wound on her foot. 

She was brought to the Nyaru Menteng Rescue Center wrapped in a blanket. She was nursed back to health by the staff. Soon, the baby orangutan learned to play and climb like the others.

The Nyaru Menteng, in Indonesian Borneo, is one of world’s largest ape rescue operations. It’s seeing an influx of orangutans like Kesi, born into difficult times.

“The orangutans are being slaughtered,” says Richard Zimmerman, director of Orangutan Outreach, a U.S.-based NGO that works to preserve the orangutan’s habitat. “We prefer to say murdered because these creatures are so closely related to us.”

It’s hard to believe anyone would want to hurt Kesi. Orangutans are gentle creatures and Kesi’s eyes have the intelligence that so closely resembles that of humans.

But, it’s humans who are clear-cutting Kesi’s rainforest habitat in Indonesia and Malaysia. Orangutans are being forced from their homes. Adults are shot on sight while babies are sold into the black market as pets.

And, it’s all happening in the name of palm oil.

Palm oil is one of the most widely used vegetable oils in the world. It is found in products ranging from ice cream and cookies to soap and detergents. More recently, it has been used in biofuels.

In the past year, the palm oil business has been on a roller-coaster ride. The price of the commodity derived from the oil palm plant hit an all-time high of $1,239 per ton in March before falling to a three-year low of $376 in October. During that period, farmers in Borneo and Sumatra began clear-cutting rainforest to plant more of the lucrative crop.

But, despite the fall in price, the razing of rainforest continues. It’s estimated an area the size of three football fields is cut down every minute of every day, displacing forest residents – including the already endangered orangutan.

“It’s absolutely devastating,” says Zimmerman. “It’s been a free-for-all because the prices were so high. Now that prices are low, we have a worthless crop and now we have people starving, too.”

Independent farmers, who make up about 30 to 35 per cent of Malaysia’s palm oil industry, are seeing their profits disappear and businesses pushed to bankruptcy.

While Kesi may have been born in difficult times, Zimmerman says things can improve.

Palm oil has alternatives like corn or soy oil. Or, as Zimmerman says, “good, old-fashioned butter.” As well, it could be a sustainable crop, with proper regulations. The oil palm grows easily on degraded grassland, meaning that clear-cutting is unnecessary. Plantations could expand onto barren lands without encroaching on the rainforests.

Cutting out unsustainable palm oil can be tough. It is often labelled vegetable oil and some companies don’t know where it comes from.

By pushing for clearer labelling practices, consumers can make more informed choices. And, better enforcement of illegal clear-cutting on the ground in Borneo and Sumatra could save what remains of the orangutan’s habitat.

But, measures need to be taken soon. Since 2004, the orangutan population has declined by 14 per cent in Sumatra and 10 per cent in Borneo. Some scientists fear they could become extinct in the wild as soon as 2011.

Without drastic changes, orangutans like Kesi won’t be born into difficult times – they won’t be born at all.
Craig and Marc Kielburger are children’s rights activists and co-founded Free The Children, which is active in the developing world. Online: Craig and Marc Kielburger discuss global issues every Monday in the World & Comment section. Take part in the discussion online at thestar.com/globalvoices.

 

© Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2008

Stop Canada’s 2009 Commercial Seal Hunt

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/553233753?z00m=17975835

Target: The Right Honourable, Stephen Harper – Prime Minister
Sponsored by: International Fund for Animal Welfare

Canada’s annual commercial seal hunt is a cruel and unethical practice that produces a product nobody needs. 98 percent of the animals killed in the past two years have been baby seals between 2 weeks to 3 months old. And despite the potentially devastating effects of global warming to harp seal breeding grounds, the Canadian government has raised the annual seal hunt quotas to the highest levels in history.

Protect the Habitat of Endangered Beluga Whales NOW!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/937474107?z00m=17874109

Target: James Balsiger, NOAA Acting Assistant Administrator
Sponsored by: Ocean River Institute

On October 17, NOAA’s Fisheries Service determined that the Cook Inlet beluga whales would be listed under the Endangered Species Act. This is a great victory for these irreplaceable creatures!

This success is, however, bittersweet – the whales are still an endangered species, and we need to do everything we can to protect their habitat. With their numbers having fallen steadily since 1979 to only 302 whales today, the beluga is in danger of extinction throughout its range in Alaska!

Join us in urging NMFS to follow through on their proposal to designate critical habitat for the Cook Inlet beluga whale now that it is an endangered species. Only by addressing troubled waters in Cook Inlet can beluga whales recover and thrive once again.

Supreme Court On Sonar: Navy Trumps Whales

Published on Thursday, November 13, 2008 by The San Francisco Chronicle

by Bob Egelko

WASHINGTON – Threats to national security are more important than possible harm to whales and dolphins, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in lightening restrictions on the Navy’s use of sonar in anti-submarine training off Southern California despite its potential effects on undersea creatures.

 

A humpback whale breaches out the ocean not far from the Farallon Islands. The Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary protects 948 square nautical miles off the California coast, just a few miles west of San Francisco. Threats to national security are more important than possible harm to whales and dolphins, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in lightening restrictions on the Navy’s use of sonar in anti-submarine training off Southern California despite its potential effects on undersea creatures. (SFC)

The ruling, the first of the court’s 2008-09 term, accepted the Navy’s arguments that the limitations would hinder vital exercises in the use of sonar to detect enemy submarines. The restrictions, imposed by lower courts, would have required the Navy to reduce or halt underwater sonar pulses when marine mammals might be nearby. 

“Forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained anti-submarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. The resulting damage to the Navy and the public interest, he said, outweighs the injury that environmental groups that challenged the use of sonar might suffer from “harm to an unknown number of marine mammals that they study and observe.”

The ruling – endorsed by six of the nine justices, and in part by a seventh – overturned decisions by a federal judge in Los Angeles and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco restricting sonar use during training exercises scheduled to end next month.

The court kept its ruling relatively narrow, however, and did not address the legality of an order by President Bush in January seeking to remove all legal restrictions on sonar by exempting the Navy from environmental laws. The judge in Los Angeles ruled that the order was invalid.

The case was also limited by the Navy’s decision to challenge only two of the six restrictions on sonar use that the lower courts imposed. One unchallenged restriction, which remains in effect, bans the Navy from using sonar within 12 miles of the coast.

“It’s gratifying that the court did not accept the Navy’s expansive claims of executive power,” said Richard Kendall, an attorney who represented the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups in seeking to maintain the restrictions.

Joel Reynolds, a lawyer with the same organization, said the ruling would have little effect on the Navy’s one remaining anti-submarine exercise off Southern California. He also noted that the Navy is preparing an environmental impact report for future anti-submarine training, which he said had been the plaintiffs’ main goal all along.

After 10 years of litigation, he said, “we have seen significant progress.”

Navy officials declared victory.

“This case was vital to our Navy and our nation’s security,” said Navy Secretary Donald Winter. “We can now continue to train our sailors effectively, under realistic combat conditions, and certify our crews ‘combat ready’ while continuing to be good stewards of the marine environment.”

The Navy has used sonar for 40 years in anti-submarine training off the Channel Islands and nearby coastal areas. Environmentalists say scientific studies show that sonar pulses damage the hearing organs of whales and dolphins, can interfere with their ability to navigate, mate and find food, and have caused whales to strand themselves on shore.

The Navy says its voluntary safeguards protect marine mammals. Those safeguards include the posting of lookouts and requirements to reduce sonar when vulnerable creatures are nearby.

But U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of Los Angeles said in an August 2007 ruling that the protections were “woefully ineffectual and inadequate” and would leave nearly 30 species at risk, including five species of endangered whales. She also said the Navy had failed to show that a mandatory buffer zone on sonar use and other restrictions would disrupt training.

Cooper’s injunction was modified by the appeals court to allow commanders to reduce buffer zones at crucial times in training. The injunction has been in effect since March, affecting several exercises in a series that began in January 2007.

The Supreme Court said Wednesday that Cooper and the appeals court had given too little weight to the Navy’s concerns.

Roberts’ opinion quoted top Navy officials as saying sonar training under realistic conditions would be hindered by the two restrictions they challenged: a requirement that sonar be shut off whenever a marine mammal is spotted within 2,200 yards, and a requirement to reduce sonic pulses by 75 percent during conditions in which underwater sound travels farther than usual.

Judges must defer to those expert assessments, the chief justice said, especially because the Navy has conducted sonar training for four decades “with no documented episode of harm to a marine mammal.”

Dissenting Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justice David Souter, said Cooper had properly used her authority under the environmental law after finding that unrestricted sonar use could harm thousands of creatures. Instead of conducting an environmental study as the law required, or asking Congress to change the law, Ginsburg said, the Navy undermined the law with a “self-serving resort to an office in the White House” for an exemption.

Ruling on whales and sonar

How the Supreme Court voted Wednesday in a ruling loosening restrictions on the Navy’s use of sonar in anti-submarine training off the Southern California coast:

— Majority: Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

— Concurrence: Justice John Paul Stevens.

— Partial dissent: Justice Stephen Breyer. He agreed with the majority that national security concerns outweigh possible harm to whales and dolphins from sonar use, but said buffer zones imposed by lower courts, with exceptions for critical points in the training exercises, should remain in place while the Navy completes an environmental study.

— Dissent: Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter, who said the restrictions were validly based on evidence of potential harm to thousands of marine mammals.

The full opinions in the case, Winter vs. Natural Resources Defense Council, 07-1239, can be read at links.sfgate.com/ZFJA.

© 2008 The San Francisco Chronicle