Wolves
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Efforts by Washington state anti-wolf forces intercepted- Below is an alert from anti-wolf folks in Washington State. This is an interesting example of the kind of email campaign that is being used by anti-wolf forces in a state where pro-wolf opinion is strong. Those who support wilderness and wolves and other wildlife might want to…
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Pop. estimate says 625 wolves, down 4%- Montana wildlife officials plan to reduce the size of the state’s recovered wolf population was successful in 2012. The “count” is public, and the estimate is a minimum of 625 wolves arranged into 147 wolf packs. Among the packs were 37 breeding pairs as of the end of 2012.…
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Big donations followed by big returns in policy and Utah government dollars- The Salt Lake Tribune has been following the Utah legislature’s big payout (or payback) to Don Peay and his hunting organizations. The stories presented by the Tribune are breathtaking in the showing close correspondence between him personally or his organizations giving a large contributions…
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Don Peay, Ryan Benson to receive 300K to spread fables- Utah is dead last place in America in per-pupil spending on education. The state legislature does want to innovate, however. So for a second year it appears they will grant $300,000 to Don Peay, founder of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife and the related anti-wolf group Big Game Forever, headed…
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Recent discussions about how wolves are portrayed in the news media got me thinking about public attention to this issue, generally. Is the wolf issue heating up or cooling down following their removal from federal protections? I used Google Trends, a tool for examining the content of web searches over time to see how issue…
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By George Wuerthner State Fish and Game agencies are in the midst of a funding and mission crisis. They appear unable to adapt to shifting political and demographic changes much as the Republican Party is failing to adjust to new voter realities. The crisis is nowhere more evident than in their attitudes towards predators like…
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Rare Fishers Heavily Impacted A response to a state public records request, submitted by Western Watersheds Project to the Idaho Fish and Game Department, shows widespread capture and mortality of non-target species related to wolf trapping and snaring in Idaho during the 2011/2012 trapping and snaring season. For the last two years, since wolves in the Northern…
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Hard information about wolves or anything else does not come from rants- Discussion of politics and many other things, including wildlife, seems to have broken down. Instead of discussion, people yell. Instead of facts they tell stories (anecdotes) and cite folklore, urban myths and rural conspiracy theories. Very importantly, a number soldier on, citing scientific…