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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. House of Representatives voted 196 to 180 along heavily partisan lines to approve a bill (H.R. 6784) to de-list the gray wolf nationwide under the Endangered Species Act, and to block courts from considering violations of federal law for wolves under the Endangered Species Act. The Mexican wolf subspecies is…
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By Scott Lake, Idaho Director Western Watersheds Project The Idaho Rangeland Resource Commission has been claiming that wolves killed a record number of livestock last year. But that’s misleading, because Wildlife Services, the secretive federal agency in charge of killing wolves in Idaho, is using a new method to verify wolf kills that is…
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Carter Niemeyer, with his wife Jenny, has written his second book on his career restoring wolves to the Northern Rocky Mountains. The book is Wolf Land, in paperback and download. It is fourteen unnumbered chapters of his memoirs of wolves and wolf incidents. It is full of action and kept my attention. I read it in…
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USDA’s Wildlife Services Has Killed Hundreds of Idaho Wolves BOISE, Idaho— Five conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal court today challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services’ killing of gray wolves in Idaho. The agency killed at least 72 wolves in Idaho last year, using methods including foothold traps, wire snares that strangle…
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See update at bottom Currently Montana Dept of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is proposing to increase the annual quota of wolves that can be killed near Gardiner, Montana adjacent to Yellowstone National Park. I don’t believe upping the quota from 2-6 wolves is likely to cause wolves to disappear from Yellowstone. That is not the…
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News release. 12/21/15 Court rejects indiscriminate wolf killing- Olympia, WA. In response to a challenge brought by a coalition of conservation organizations, a federal court rejected plans to escalate cruel wolf killing in Washington state by the secretive federal program dubbed “Wildlife Services.” Federal District Judge Robert Bryan held that Wildlife Services should have prepared a…
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Idaho Wildlife Services recently made public an Environmental Assessment (“EA”) supposedly analyzing statewide predator damage and conflict management. However, wolves are notably absent from the 273-page document. Wildlife Services’ recent killing of five wolves in central Idaho—in addition to previous killings of six in response to livestock depredation and 19 to boost elk populations in…
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Action shows fragile nature of state level wolf recovery? Friday in Bend, OR the state’s wildlife and fish commissioners launched a process to delist wolves from Oregon’s State Endangered Species Act. Oregon only has about 80-90 wolves (77 at the end of 2014), but the state rule for delisting wolves mandates the consideration of delisting when the goal…
Author
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.