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Go Back: Home > Earth Island Journal > Issues > Summer 2011 > Features
Cry, Wolf
How a Campaign of Fear and Intimidation Led to the Gray Wolf's Removal from the Endangered Species List.
"Nabeki" didn't expect everyone to love her when, in September 2009, she founded the website "Howling for Justice" to celebrate the return of gray wolves to the Northern Rocky Mountains and to protest the then-pending wolf hunts in Montana and Idaho. She didn't expect to fear for her life, either. But after she posted the names of Montana wolf hunters on her site, the threats began. On a single day in February 2010 the anti-wolf movement sent to her 3,000 messages. Some of the e-mails expressed their desire for her to leave the Rockies immediately. Some messages contained graphic descriptions of wolf killing clearly meant to cause her anguish. "When I pulled the trigger, I think I saw the wolf cry," one person wrote. "Then it's [sic] guts where [sic] blown onto the hillside and it moaned." A few of the messages hinted at attacking her personally.
Courtesy Lynne Stone, Boulder White Clouds Council
"Until that day I wasn't thinking about the hatred," Nabeki, a professional from California who moved to the Rockies 15 years ago, told me. Nabeki is an Internet ID, a pseudonym that she asked me to maintain since she fears for her safety. "The idea that someone can hate you that much and not even know you is really daunting. It was the first time I got really scared. To this day I'm still scared." What bothers her the most, though, is the sense that no one outside the Northern Rockies grasps the peril wolf advocates face. "I don't know if people realize how serious a culture war this really is."
For the last few years, a new version of an old war against the American gray wolf has raged in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Almost two decades ago, spurred by environmental activists with a vision of restoring a historic wolf population that had been extirpated, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) captured 66 wolves in Canada and released them into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho, where they flourished. To naturalists, wolf reintroduction seemed morally right, a chance to remedy a previous generation's crime of wolf extermination.
But to many in the region, the resurgence of wolves became a source of rage. Wolves killed livestock, infuriating ranchers. Many hunters saw the wolves as competitors for deer and elk. Yet the fury against wolves went deeper than what the animals actually did. For decades, the Rocky Mountain states have been the center of an extreme right-wing culture that celebrates the image of man as "warrior," recognizes only local and state governance as legitimate, and advocates resistance – even armed resistance – against the federal government. To members of this culture, wolf reintroduction became a galvanizing symbol of perceived assaults on their personal freedom. Resistance was imperative. But whereas attacking the federal government could lead to prison, killing wolves was a political goal within reach – something the individual warrior could do. So advocating for the killing of wolves became a proxy battle, an organizing tool to reach out to all those angry about environmental regulations, gun laws, and public land policies. Since the early 2000s, and with increasing virulence since 2009, anti-wolf activists have promoted the image of wolves as demons – disease-ridden, dangerous, and foreign.
Wolf hatred unites the right by emphasizing wolves' connection to the government.
The fear-driven demagoguery has worked. Afraid for their lives, pro-wolf voices like Nabeki have retreated from speaking out at public forums. Mainstream hunters, ranchers, loggers, and politicians from both political parties have signed onto the anti-wolf stance. With the public debate dominated by wolf paranoia – and fearful of wider losses across the West – conservation groups were pushed into a legal compromise that ultimately failed.
The result is an impending slaughter. On April 11, Congress removed gray wolves in Montana and Idaho from the endangered species list and legislated that in those two states, plus Wyoming, all but 300 to 450 of the region's estimated 1,650 wolves may be killed. The remaining wolves will not necessarily disappear as a regional species, but their small numbers mean they will become "ecologically extinct," serving no function within the mountain ecosystem. How this all happened is yet another example of a dysfunctional political system in which fear – both irrational fear and fear harnessed for political gain – determines policy.
Every war has its warriors, and Toby Bridges is in the vanguard of the campaign against wolves – an unmatched propagandist, agitator, and organizer. When I met him in January at Perkins Restaurant in Missoula, Montana he was dressed the part in faded green hunting clothes, his graying hair cut short. A manufacturer's representative for muzzle-loading rifles, Bridges grew up in the Midwest, but visited Montana for decades to camp and hunt. In 2007, he moved to Missoula with his wife. By then, some 500 wolves lived in packs scattered among the mountains. Bridges claims that their presence had utterly altered the state he loved. "I went to places where I'd been ten to 12 years ago and the game just wasn't there. Instead I saw lots of piles of wolf scat."
The idea that environmental groups and the Endangered Species Act had "forced [Montana] to have too many wolves" enraged him. "I didn't move out here to Montana to watch it all die and I don't mind being pushy," he told me. In 2009, he founded Lobowatch.com, a website on which he posted furious anti-wolf essays.
As it happened, 2009 was a pivotal time for wolves in the Rocky Mountains. Because the animals had flourished, the USFWS "delisted" them as endangered and returned their "management" to state governments in Montana and Idaho. (Wyoming was excluded because it hadn't developed a USFWS-approved management plan.) Both states responded by holding hunts in which several hundred wolves were killed. In response, a coalition of 14 national and local environmental groups (including the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife) sued the USFWS, arguing that the agency had violated the Endangered Species Act by subdividing the Northern Rocky wolf population into two groups, when the wolves in all three states represented a distinct population. In August 2010, federal judge Donald Molloy ruled in the conservation groups' favor, and Montana and Idaho were forced to cancel upcoming hunts.
Courtesy Lynne Stone, Boulder White Clouds Council
The court ruling infuriated a right wing already inflamed by the election of Barack Obama. On Lobowatch, Bridges escalated his rhetoric. "It's time to fight dirty," he wrote, then informed readers that xylitol, a readily available artificial sweetener, causes canines to lose coordination, suffer seizures, and die. "If Donald Molloy goes against the wishes of today's hunters, there's going to be a whole lot of very sweet [elk and deer] gut piles and wolf carcasses dotting the landscape this fall."
Bridges also set out to strengthen some important alliances. One was with Gary Marbut, who serves as the executive director of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, a powerful lobbying group in Montana that promotes a broad right-wing agenda including bills legalizing noise suppressors while hunting, formation of state militia groups, and a law prohibiting federal law enforcement from making arrests without a local sheriff's approval. Bridges also connected with Montana State Senator Joe Balyeat, a Bozeman Republican who is an extremely conservative states' and county rights advocate and an avid bow hunter. While reaching out to people in positions of influence, Bridges began addressing hunting groups and publishing on hunting websites such as Black Bear Blog. And he enlisted the support of Jim Beers, a former USFWS agent whose leadership in the "Wise Use" movement – which employs a certain interpretation of the Bible to advocate for increased exploitation of public lands – had made him famous in the region.
Montana's anti-wolf alliance of ranchers, hunters, and militia sympathizers is built around some shared myths that focus on the evils of wolves in general and the Rockies' wolves specifically. The anti-wolf movement asserts that because the reintroduced wolves were captured in Canada, they are foreign – alien and un-American.When we met at a Missoula pizza parlor, Gary Marbut described Canadian wolves as "an invasive subspecies" that spread out from Yellowstone and Central Idaho and "bumped off and wiped out an indigenous species of wolf that were smaller, had different pack structures, and hunted differently." To "prove" this, websites like Lobowatch regularly run pictures of large, fierce-looking wolves looking ready to attack.
These "foreign" wolves also have brought disease, specifically E. granulosus, a tapeworm, the myth asserts. "Wolves in the Rockies dispense billions of microscopic eggs in air and water," Marbut said. "When they get into people they cause cysts ... that can be fatal. We are at risk in Montana."
Anti-wolf advocates also believe that it's only a matter of time before these foreign, disease-ridden wolves attack humans. In 2010, numerous Internet postings told of elk hunters surrounded by howling wolves and saved only by their guns. One Idaho guide told his clients to "never leave the camp without a gun and a buddy," because 24 wolves surrounded them. Val Geist, a retired professor of biology at the University of Calgary, told a Montana blog that when wolves "sit and stare at humans [it's] a prelude to an eventual attack." State Senator Joe Balyeat believes that if wolf populations continue to grow, "someone in Idaho or Montana will be killed or mauled by wolves within a year, and it may very well be a small child."
The anti-wolf movement thinks wolves threaten civilization itself. Marbut sent me his 2003 essay, "Wolves Circling the Fire: Of Beasts and Tyrants." Its first sentence reads: "There was a time in Man's evolution when he huddled around the nighttime fire gazing outward at the glowing ring of eyes – the predators who viewed man only as food." A few good wolves "came in and joined Man at the fire and became dogs." The rest stayed outside, always ready to attack. According to Marbut, "one might reasonably view Man's entire development and creation of civilization as a process of fortifying against wolves."
These claims resonate with many people because they build on a long tradition in western culture of demonizing the wolf. During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church ruled that wolves belonged to the devil: Demons could take the shape of wolves, as could witches. Puritans then brought these ideas to America. Minister Cotton Mather called New England before settlement a "howling wilderness." Asked to investigate Salem's alleged witch infestation, Mather concluded in his book, On Witchcraft, that "Evening Wolves" (werewolves and witches) were but another of the Devil's tests as New England passed from "Wilderness" to the "Promised Land."
These sentiments remain alive in the Rocky Mountains today. Jim Boedner, director of natural resources for the Montana Livestock Growers Association, told me that wolves kill cattle, make them sick from "stress," and scare elk herds down from the mountains onto grazing fields, where they compete with cows for forage. State Senator Balyeat – who wore a turquoise shirt with images of rust-colored elk the day I interviewed him in his capitol office – keeps a computer file full of photos of deer and elk calf remains. "The key thing that animal lovers don't understand about wolves is that there's a difference between wolves and other predators," he said. "Wolves, grizzlies, and mountain lions are all killing machines, but wolves, in distinction, are also a breeding machine. I am an award-winning CPA, but it doesn't take a CPA to do the math." By Balyeat's calculations, wolves have a 30 percent annual reproduction rate. If there are 550 wolves in Montana, and each wolf eats 46 elk a year, in ten years 5,830 wolves will eat 258,180 elk. "That's more elk than we have in the entire state of Montana!" Balyeat says.
Call of the Wild
For naturalists and wildlife aficionados, a month spent wolf-watching in Yellowstone probably sounds like a dream come true. But what if it meant standing exposed in the bone-chilling cold for hours, skiing with a heavy pack for miles each day, and staring out at the blank-white expanse that is the Yellowstone landscape in winter? All to catch a sighting or two of wolves, or signs of their presence.
For about 30 days each winter – from mid-November until mid-December and again during March – a dozen volunteers do just that in the name of science. … more …
While arguing the specifics of wolf behavior, the anti-wolf movement unites segments of the political right by emphasizing wolves' connection to a shared enemy: the federal government. Starting in the 1970s, ranchers in the self-described "Sagebrush Rebellion" claimed that because the National Forest Service had given them permits to graze livestock on public lands, that land had in essence become their private property. Therefore the imposition of environmental laws violated their rights. Some, like Wayne Hage, founder of the private property rights group American Stewards, go even farther. They say that the federal government should have sold its holdings in the West to ranchers in the late nineteenth century, but instead appropriated them. Like this "taking" of land to create national parks and forests, reintroducing wolves that then kill livestock – ranchers' private property – represents another act of government domination.
According to Jim Beers, the wolf reintroduction in the mid-1990s was the result of federal government crime: The Clinton administration had illegally taken $60 million that hunters and fishers had paid in excise taxes on guns and gear and used it to pay for wolf reintroduction. Beers told this story repeatedly to hunting groups; it still circulates widely on anti-wolf websites.
To Gary Marbut, wolf depredation represents a "theft" from hunters. He told me that Montana's game herds were "a savings account we were building up for our children and grandchildren. The wolf advocates elected to raid that savings account to feed their pet critters."
Suzy Foss, a rancher in the Bitterroot Valley and a county commissioner, said that wolves are now in Montana because "monkeys in some government agency in a Washington high-rise think they're good for us. They will destroy our society."
"Not one wolf from Canada volunteered to come down here – they were drugged," she told me. She said that many Bitterroot Valley residents had told her that elk stayed out of the woods because "they're terrorized," that their livestock had been killed, and that they themselves had been "stalked or circled by wolves." This, she said, is the reason why many people in the area carry guns.
The anti-wolf activists speak passionately, sometimes even persuasively, about their cause. But none of their claims are true.
Ed Bangs, director of wolf recovery in the Northern Rockies for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, rejects the idea that Canadian and Rocky Mountain wolves are two different subspecies. "Once there were contiguous wolf packs from what is now Mexico City to the Arctic Ocean," Bangs told me. They interbred and formed one species. Yes, the wolves in southern Canada ran a bit larger. But that's because of what biologists call 'Allen's Rule' – "as you move north, body size gets larger to preserve heat." Hunters did not kill any "giant" wolves in the 2009 wolf hunts; of 188 killed in Idaho, the largest weighed 127 pounds, the average less than 95. What about those huge wolves shown on Lobowatch? They're actually Arctic wolves, which don't live in the Rockies. And while many wolves do carry tapeworms, scientists from the US Geological Survey Wildlife Health Center report that, "We know of no known transmission of E. granulosus from a wolf to a human."
Neither is it true that wolf packs are lying in wait for the region's school children. In the entire twentieth century, wolves attacked about 15 people in North America, killing none. (In 2010, wolves did kill a woman jogging on the outskirts of her Alaskan town.) In contrast, domestic dogs bite about one million people a year and cause about 18 deaths, mostly of children.
I asked wolf biologist Jay Mallone of Kalispell, Montana about the hunters' stories of circling wolves ready for attack. He sounded jealous, and said: "For periods of time, all of us wolf biologists have lived among the wolves we studied and never been approached. I wish they would. It would make studying wild wolves a lot easier!"
Also: Wolves aren't killing all of the West's big game. Even the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, a critic of wolf reintroduction, reports that from 1984 to 2009, the number of elk in Idaho went up 5 percent, in Wyoming 35 percent, and in Montana 66 percent. True, some local declines have occurred, and sometimes wolf depredation is a factor. In 1995, when wolves were first introduced in Yellowstone, there were 16,702 elk in the park. By December 2010, only 4,635 remained. But the cause of this decline is under debate.
Some studies point to bear predation, others to hunters (who are allowed to kill elk that have moved beyond the park), and still others to climate change – increased summer temperatures reduce nutrition, making elk more vulnerable.
It's equally false to say that wolves are "breeding machines." Predator populations change when numbers of prey decrease; climate and habitat conditions also influence reproductive rates. And while wolves do sometimes kill cattle and sheep, the numbers are surprisingly small. Federal statistics report that of Montana's roughly 2.5 million head of cattle, wolves killed 97 in 2009 and 87 in 2010. Wolves killed 202 of Montana's 250,000 sheep in 2009 and 64 in 2010. Suzy Foss's county lost one cow to wolves in 2009 and two in 2010.
Carter Niemeyer, who worked for Wildlife Services in Montana from 1973 to 2000 and investigated more than 100 cases of reported wolf depredation, says he believes that only about 5 percent were verified kills. Pressure on investigators from ranchers and state officials corrupted the system, he writes in his book, Wolfer: A Memoir: "Everyone's kids go to the same schools; everyone shops in the same grocery store. If a rancher thinks a wolf killed his cow, the investigator isn't going to argue with him." Niemeyer told me he thinks the system perpetuates wolf killing. "We have a tremendous amount of livestock loss reported, but very little documentation to prove it. These claims become statistics and statistics drive the urge for predator control."
Ranchers' most ambitious claims – that because they hold grazing permits on federal lands that these lands are their private property – are also specious, dismissed by the United States Supreme Court in 2000. "In Public Land Council v. Babbitt the justices voted nine-to-zero that grazing permits are a license, not a property right," said John Marvel, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project. In fact, the cattle industry is a major recipient of the very type of government largesse that the right often decries as welfare. The federal government charges ranchers $1.35 a month for a cow and calf to graze, when it costs the US Forest Service at least $12.25 per head to maintain mountain rangeland. "The low fee," Marvel said, allows "ranchers to be compensated for risks of grazing on public lands, which includes risk of depredation." Similarly, there is no legal basis to the idea that individual hunters "own" deer and elk as their "savings account" because they pay taxes on guns. As Marvel put it: "Groups like American Stewards and people like Suzy Foss are living in a fantasy world."
The fantastic claims made by the right wing did not go unchecked. Between 2009 and 2010, the major national environmental groups focused on their lawsuit against the USFWS's partial delisting. Mike Leahy, regional director for Defenders of Wildlife, told me that his group decided that the most important fight was "at the national level." Meanwhile, a loose confederation of local wilderness activists tried to counter the anti-wolf propaganda by showing up at public hearings in Idaho and Montana and offering a defense of the wolf's place in the Rocky Mountains.
Most the wolf supporters were relative newcomers to the area. They were middle-aged boomers who had moved to Montana and Idaho to live near wild and beautiful lands. Many of them identified as conservationists: They had read the classic environmental books on the interconnected web of life, they knew about the Native American spiritualism that understands animals as symbolic kin. They included Nabeki, a California transplant who became involved in protecting roadless areas and limiting off-road vehicles. Jerry Black was another one, a retired pilot and long-time wetlands activist from Washington who thought he would just fish and hike when he moved to Missoula to be near his children. But the anti-wolf movement repulsed him. "It's as if wolf advocates are two-legged wolves," Black explained, "and wolves represent four-legged environmentalists." Marc Cooke moved from the East Coast to pursue wildlife photography, only to find the wildlife under siege. In Idaho, Ann Sydow and Nancy Taylor, co-chairs of the Northern Idaho Wolf Alliance, shared a common interest in showing real (albeit captive) wolves to people – "wolf ambassadors" is what they call them – and could not stomach the attacks on the animals. Lynne Stone, an Idaho settler from Washington, had helped form the Boulder White Clouds Council, which tried to stop mines from dumping cyanide and mercury into Idaho's rivers. That work led her to becoming a wolf advocate.
Between 2008 and 2010 this collection of part-time activists did whatever they thought would work to resist the wolf hunts. Jerry Black wrote federal agencies to try to find out why wolves killed by Wildlife Services were photographed with school children. Lynne Stone tried to scare wolves away from livestock with blank shotgun shells. Marc Cooke showed up at state hearings to argue for minimizing the number of wolves allowed to be killed. Nabeki started her Howling for Justice website and a Facebook affiliate, Wolf Warriors.
These ad-hoc efforts were not what you would call a powerful movement. But the fact that anyone would stand up for wolves enraged the wolf hunters. The fury the anti-wolf movement had directed toward animals was extended to humans.
As Gary Marbut told me: Just as wolves prey on animals, wolf advocates prey on society. "They are feasting on our savings account, our culture, our way of life, in order to impose their own culture of wolves." They, too, were foreigners, people who "grew up in cities." Anti-wolf bloggers have called the wolf defenders "pieces of communist crap" who "DO NOT belong in my country, who should be deported … and that's my second choice of things to do with you."
Between 2009 and 2011 the viciousness escalated. Lynne Stone received an e-mail photo of a dead wolf pup lying in the back of a pickup on December 24; the accompanying text read, "merry christmas." Soon the threats extended to the activists themselves. Ann Sydow opened her local paper to find a letter to the editor recommending that she "go for a walk in the woods and not come back." Just showing up to a public meeting became dangerous, Marc Cooke explained. "When I go, they stare at me," he said. "Half of them have pistols at their sides. They say 'Marc, we know who you are. We know where you live.'"
The intimidation worked. Afraid for their lives and their families, regional wolf advocates stopped participating in public hearings held by fish and game agencies and legislative committees and retreated to the relative safety of the Internet to spread their message. In theory, government officials are supposed to run public meetings in an inclusive manner that, in the words of Montana administrative rules, promote "social tolerance." But in the experience of Travis McAdam, executive director of the Montana Human Rights Network, "Public officials never get up and remove the people who scream at meetings. The same ones who are doing cat calls are carrying guns, and they're making democracy fail." Soon, the voices of the wolf haters became the only ones heard in the policy making process.
With few, if any, local constituents speaking up on behalf of the wolves, the political calculus for Montana and Idaho politicians was easy. Office holders across the political spectrum raced to denounce wolves. Montana's sole congressman, Republican Danny Rehberg, repeatedly spoke against wolf reintroduction and federal protection. After Judge Molloy's August 2010 decision relisting wolves under the Endangered Species Act, Rehberg introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to remove this protection – in essence, a Congressional nullification of the ESA. Montana's Democratic Senators Jon Tester (who faces opposition from Rehberg in the 2012 election) and Max Baucus then introduced a similar bill in the Senate.
In October 2010, Idaho's Republican governor, Butch Otter, ordered state wildlife managers to "relinquish their duty to arrest poachers." Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, announced that Montanans could open fire on wolves in the northern part of the state if they felt their livestock were endangered. And in February 2011, Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson and Senator Tester placed into the federal budget bill a rider delisting wolves.
Having successfully captured both Republicans and Democrats in the region, the far-right-wing offensive then shattered the environmental movement's will. Worried that Congress would pass one of the bills and set a dangerous precedent allowing political intervention against any species listed as endangered, all of the national groups that had filed suit to protect the Rockies' wolves (with the exception of the Humane Society of the United States) announced they had reached a settlement with the Department of the Interior (which oversees the USFWS). The agreement basically reversed the environmentalists' 2010 legal victory putting wolves back on the list of endangered species.
Besides the Humane Society, three regional groups declined to settle. John Marvel, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, explained why his group refused to go along with the deal: "Our board of directors came to the conclusion that the outlook for wolves from this settlement or from Congressional delisting was the same and it was inappropriate for us to assist in this outcome." That analysis quickly proved prescient. Neither John Tester nor Danny Rehberg nor Mike Simpson withdrew their bills. Then, on April 9, Judge Donald Molloy rejected the proposed agreement, and kept Montana and Idaho wolves on the endangered species list. Almost immediately, Congress rendered his ruling irrelevant by passing the budget with the anti-wolf rider included. The rider will also remove from the endangered species list some wolf populations in Washington, Oregon, and Utah.
Wolf blood will flow across the Rocky Mountains this fall and winter.
The far right's campaign to scapegoat wolves thus succeeded. Although the courts were prepared to uphold the Endangered Species Act, the anti-wolf voices dominated the political contest. The national organizations had lost track of the basic reality of politics – namely, that all politics are local – and instead concentrated solely on legal maneuvering and online petitions. Local wolf defenders were essentially abandoned; outnumbered, it was no surprise that they should lose. Fear of wolves – and hatred of what they symbolized – spread from the far right, to the Republican Party, to the Democrats. And then that fear, or some form of it, was internalized by the mainstream environmental movement. Afraid of witnessing an even broader weakening of the ESA, environmental groups decided to sacrifice wolves, calculating that doing so might save other species covered by the act.
Wolf blood will flow across the Rocky Mountains this fall and winter. For the right, that blood will represent an impressive victory. For wolf advocates, it means grief. Their only hope lies in the belief that the killing might backfire, creating a national sense of shame. Nabeki, for one, thinks the war is not over. "The delisting has galvanized the grassroots movement," she said. "People are so outraged about this. They're becoming more bold."
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And there is hope in the wolves themselves. When I visited Montana, activists from both sides whispered to me, as if sharing a secret, "You know, wolves are really smart." Perhaps their intelligence will enable them to survive. They will climb higher into the mountains, move about only at night, and hide, somewhere, until times change.
Read James William Gibson's writings at jameswilliamgibson.com. Marc Cooke helped arrange interviews with wolf hunters and advocates for this story.
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I don't see how all these wolf haters can be so ignorant and childish. I have advocated for wolve es for all my life and their hate comments are not going to stop that. There are around 2000 elk in Yellowstone as of now. There are only around 85 wolves. People put them here because elk were destroying the landscape. Wolves are doing their job and now people are complaining. Wolves are not vicious killersand would much rather munch on a tasty deer then a human. They are also not decimating the herds. Were my friend lives there are tons of wolves. But there are so many deer that she can hardly drive to work without hitting them. Moose are also a common sight. Whatever the problem is, its not wolves.
By Anonymous on Wed, October 29, 2014 at 9:30 pm
It is unfortunate when legitimate conservation concerns are overwhelmed by left-wing politics and a clear contempt for the historic residents of a region. As for Nabeki, I bet if I move to CA and then published a list of the names of people involved on the "green" side of debates such as sea lions in some areas around San Diego, I might also get some hate mail. Imagine that, you poke people and they poke back?
It's also unfortunate this article doesn't acknowledge the clear effect wolves do have when they become permanent residents of an area. Some of this is good—more streamside vegetation, because large animals like elk and deer feel less comfortable at streamside. Some is neutral, like changes in where elk herds reside, or the fact that some prey such as pheasants and other similar birds will actually move closer to human activity, in essence using the deterrent of human presence for shelter from wolves. Some is negative, such as the much greater care dog owners have to take in some areas. These are real issues.
It's a somewhat open secret that wolves actually are in areas where they're not officially acknowledged to exist, under a "don't ask, don't tell" policy forced in part by the kinds of distortions displayed in this article. Beyond the practical issues and blowback forced by these distortions, in a big-picture sense it means people who actually use the outdoors can't trust American many parts of the "environmental" movement.
I read the EarthIsland Journal because I do actually support and identify with many of the issues discussed. But, I also hike, hunt, and fish, and am keenly aware that the "Nabekis" of the world might put me on an enemies list, say I support militias, or seek to dramatically limit or ban those activities.
By JS on Fri, August 01, 2014 at 8:23 am
Keep this going please, great job!
By Christie on Thu, July 31, 2014 at 11:24 am
the howl
There was a time the world was ours
No big tall buildings, no noisy cars
No people with guns, shooting at
Everything they see
When we could howl
As a family
When we could roam our world
At will
Not worrying about if we would
Be killed
The moon our beacon, the sun our friend
We did not think this would ever end
By karen lyons kalmenson on Fri, October 19, 2012 at 10:08 am
hey Kayla, you are one of the few people on here who actually look at it in that way. I myself work on a farm, even though we live in a place full of wolves, we've never had a problem with them. We put old shoes out on our fence, and the wolves stay away from our sheep cattle and horses. They are just wolves, they're not spirits, or magical, they can't grant wishes or fly, or turn into humans! They're just beasts who want to live and mate and keep their pack healthy and strong! They also are terrified of humans. Occasionally they get used to humans, but that takes decades. I mean seriously! they're scared of boots covered in cow pies! they're not killers, they're consumers who need to eat like everything else in this twisted world.
By Skylar mccabe on Tue, September 04, 2012 at 2:05 pm
hey toby, who do you think you are? that stuff your saying is just a load of bs. get a life man, and while your at it, check out the wolf conservation centers website. maybe that'll change your walnut sized mind.
By mouse Chapman on Tue, September 04, 2012 at 1:43 pm
Wolves are just a big wild dog. Not a mystical, sacred creature, just a large canine predator that should be as it is now, subjected to management by the DOW in states where they occur.
By lv2hunt on Thu, June 07, 2012 at 7:58 pm
I certainly want no hunting in the state of Oregon. I believe in allowing nature to rule, and not man. Man has done a pretty good job of polluting our lands, our seas, our air, killing off populations of animals where they are now extinct. Too many mistakes, wolves were put here by nature to maintain certain balances in nature such as the deer and elk populations to maintain healthy populations. But no, man thinks he knows better, not so, humans have made a mess of everything, in fact our planet is dying.
By Nina Council on Sat, March 31, 2012 at 11:53 am
Why is every other comment from Toby Bridges? What an idiot. I am sure all he does is dominate every online discussion on wolves that he can find. It is time for the rest of us to unite in defense of the wolves of North America and the anti-wolf fear mongers to go away.
By Linda Rolf on Tue, February 14, 2012 at 10:22 pm
Stop and take a breath, take your mind off of the wolves with me for a second. Imagine a large farm, its fields vast, its cattle fat with grain. Bellow the tall grasses a mouse roosts, just a normal field mouse, nothing special about it other than the fact it is a breeding machine. Foraging through the field, this mouse finds a mate, and pursues to build a home in one of the barns, feeding on the grain the farmer has worked so hard to harvest. This is the first straw upon the camel's back.
These two mice mate, and have nice little cute babies. Soon these babies grow up to have more babies. Within just a handful of years, these mice have over-run the farm. The food has been eaten, the cattle have grown skinny, diseased, and have died. The people have grown sick, and are forced to move. Now ask yourself, where were the predators? When I was young we learned a very important thing in biology, that nature takes care of its self, keeping a perfect balance.
Now lets throw in a couple of predators, whose main diet is these small little morsels. Birds of prey, foxes, coyotes, cats, and yes sometimes wolves. Now the prey population is too high, meaning that the predators have packed bellies full of little mousy morsels. This causes a rise in population, for food is plenty, meaning they can breed and expand in population. Unfortunately by this time, the mice are experiencing famine and a boost in natural predators. Their population begins to decline.
In turn, the now high predator population begins to decline. It will keep trading off, but with each time each species breeds they become faster and stronger in the fight for survival.
What if we decided that mice were our main food? What if it was in out 'culture' to eat these rodents on a regular basis. Would we shoot the eagles, the hawks, the cats, or even the wolves just because they ate them? It makes no sense for us to act as mother nature or what ever god or deity you possess, when they correct it for us. Whether its by natural selection, or by mutation.
Personally I am completely against killing wolves off. Did you know that a wild pack of stray dogs does 100% more damage than a wolf has ever done? Not to mention they are more dangerous, for they show no fear, where as a wolf does. Yet we have them in our houses, coddle them and play with them.
In my point of view, humans are like parasites. We demolish and kill anything we fear, we spread it like the plague. Ruled by superstitious make believe stories. Do you know how the Black Plague started? People were superstitious about cats, believing them to be witches, or familiars. They found them mysterious and creepy, therefore they must be evil right? Well, these people began to kill cats, as many as they could get their hands on. While the cat used to be revered as royal, they were now nothing but evil and disease ridden.
Because of this the rat population exploded, traveling upon ships and spreading from dock to dock, country to country. With the spreading of rats, came the spreading of the plague.
Now days we allow cats into our home, we love them, we care for them. Now here is the question, what kind of drawbacks will there be from killing off wolves.
Now I write this after I have set my emotions aside. No anger, no love, no emotion what so ever. Just pure logic. Now I could write a ton more but quite frankly, I am tired and exhausted from working the cattle today. Next person who says that the only person that defends the wolves are emotional city slickers will get a firm lashing. Just because your not born country doesn't mean you are immature and dumb, it doesn't mean you haven't lead a hard life. I am testament to that. Also just because someone doesn't believe in what you believe in, doesn't make them not American. Americans stand up for what they believe in, our for fathers would be ashamed by the train of words streaming from your fingers or out of your mouth. Why can't you discuss it like adults, trade facts, not insults. I am sure you guys are angry at each other, I understand that. Pro wolf supporters, while I side with you, I can see your love for nature, for preserving what little we have left. Anti-wolves, while i do not understand your side completely, I can understand your fear, its like asking someone to stop hunting deer. I get it.
Both of you need to stop acting like 9 year olds and stop threatening each other. If you believed in your own side strong enough, that it was 100% correct, you wouldn't have to threaten the other side into backing down. Its low, and shameful. Where is your honor?
By Kayla Skalsky on Mon, January 02, 2012 at 11:29 pm
Visualize the wolf, lurking inside shadows, ravenous together with salivating, surveying that flock of plump, wooly sheep, as they munch contentedly at the grain trough. The wolf draws closer, the lamb, realizing danger, bolt out, and instead of providing chase, the wolf saunters over to the feed trough together with greedily scarfs down the contents!
Ridiculous? Of course it is! Why, then, do we insist upon feeding grains to dogs?
Your pet food companies which happen to have set themselves up as nutritional experts have done a great disservice to our canine friends by including copious quantities of grains to dry and canned products which they so adamantly claim is usually 'dog food'.
Pet diabetes, and diabetes mellitus, is a disease of nutrient excess. It usually appears on account of well-intentioned caregivers feeding inappropriate 'foods' to the point of obesity. It is the commonest hormonal disorder found within dogs and, historically, it's appearance is directly associated with the appearance of commercial pet foods.
The signs of diabetes in dogs are weight loss, taking in more water, urinating more often, and the results can be poor skin and hair coat, liver disease, queasiness, weakness in the backside legs, kidney disease, together with blindness. Diabetes in dogs can be a very serious illness, and really should be treated as these kinds of, as the prognosis, if left untreated is not good.
Diabetes develops since animal's body struggles to break down and make use of glucose properly. Sugar appears in the urine, which causes the animal to urinate more, inducing him to drink much more fluids. The pancreas is called upon to make the hormone termed insulin, and when a dog is fed a diet that's high in carbohydrates, the pancreas can't stick to. Carbohydrates turn to sugar inside digestive tract, together with our canine friends shouldn't have the capacity to overcome this amount of sugar.
The wolf, with its wild prey diet, does not suffer the effects of the grain-based diet. As long as prey animals are abundant, that wolf will maintain a good weight, and will not necessarily develop the symptoms, so prevalent in our pet population.
The most effective preventative measure is a meat-based diet that does not contain grains, fillers and also preservatives.
Millions of people today suffer the pain of Type 2 diabetes. Those with such a diabetes have problems controlling blood sugar levels because the body doesn't generate enough insulin or since body has built in place an insulin resistance. In many cases, patients are given prescribed drugs to help control glucose levels. For those dealing with more advanced
a1c levels chart
By Liarrials on Fri, December 23, 2011 at 11:48 pm
Nabeki and her crowd haven't retreated out of fear. They have retreated because they can not defend their position with facts. They now simply hide behind censored blogs to push their raw propaganda.
The science and results speak for themselves, something the pro wolf crowd willfully ignores. Emotion over fact is not truth.
And as far as the claim of fear, the pro wolf side has sent out a plethora of death threats and harassment. I have an inbox full of them myself.
When one really reads the comments from the pro unchecked wolf supporters, one can see through their agenda and the reality they base their position on emotion alone. The pre-columbian utopia they wish to portray is as fairytale based as it gets. That ecosystem is gone forever and it doesn't matter if you agree with it or not, it's gone. In that reality there is nothing to be gained by trying to romanticize it.
The truth is, the wolves are recovered, by ANY scientific definition that truth is undeniable. The time has come to realize that. If ones chooses to ignore that reality for an emotional based belief, that is ones choice. But to portray it as valid is a failed position.
The wolves have returned, they will stay no matter the hunting or trapping they are subjected to. One has to study history and science to understand this fact based truth. It took over 3 MILLION poisoned baits and 30 years of all out assault for the government to remove wolves in the past. That will never happen again, we all know that, but to emotionally believe that wolves are exempt from management in our modern ecosystems to the detriment of all other species is ludicrous.
Simply put, it is time to put emotion away and accept reality.
By Idaho_Roper on Mon, November 21, 2011 at 9:56 am
i believe the wolf is a very special animal and shouldn't be hunted by the inferior human race.
By Jeff on Fri, November 04, 2011 at 1:58 pm
Hmmm, I wonder how all the animals that used to live in the Americas fared so well before the introduction of Europeans and settlers with all of the wolves that were there in the area already.I mean, the way Mr. Toby goes on about wolves is like he's saying that they're human hungry aliens from space that are scheming to take over all of society or something? Dont you just think that most, if not all of the diminishing of game in the wild is at fault of negative human impacts like the dumping of harmful chemicals into your rivers and land? If you are so hanged up about the fact that there are less animals for you to hunt, why don't you go and try to get justice on the people who degrade the environment that the animals have to live on? the animals were just fine in the past, and the only real difference between the time of their abundance and today, is human impact, that has exploded since the settlement of the U.S. and have unbalanced the cycles of nature.
and here's a "scientific study" for you to chew on: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031029064909.htm
and this is even better: http://www.myfootprint.org/en/about_the_quiz/what_it_measures/
why don't you take this test? it might help you be more effective with saving the animals
By Luna Percival on Sun, October 02, 2011 at 4:15 pm
Wolves belong here as much as humans, even more. Ignorance is dangerous. Humans are the most dangerous species in the world.
By Harry Ruffner on Thu, September 01, 2011 at 1:07 pm
By MARIA SONIA ESTRADA-SOLERO on Tue, August 23, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Funny ol' Ramseys The Zero…as the pressure is put on wildlife agencies for truth…they're now coming back around and sharing many studies and reports that say you and those like you know absolutely nothing about wovles. Hey, where's your "data input" on this topic? You haven't shared one iota…and that's probably because when it comes to wolves…you are truly one ignorant human being.
I imagine that's pretty much how you go through life…too lazy and too lame to actually research anything…to study anything…and try disguise your lack of intelligence with pure b.s.
Got to go…I'm in the middle of the final planning of an honest to God anti-wolf protest at the U.S. District Courthouse here in Missoula tomorrow - when Molloy hears oral arguments in regard to the constititionality of the wolf delisting rider being tacked onto the budget rider back in April. Any bets which way it goes?
Our side does not really care. If he sides with the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Center for Biological Diversity, and rules that Congress did not have the right to include the simple delisting they slipped in, he goes against Congress. And that will accelerate Congress to step up legislation to amend the ESA, removing wolves from under its protection, and returning wolf control to all states.
If he agrees that Congress did have the right, Montana and Idaho will get their fall & winter hunts.
Either way he decides, we win…and you lose.
By Toby Bridges on Mon, July 25, 2011 at 3:15 pm
Where do you get your fabricated, silly facts Toby?Out of a gumball machine?? You are one comical person ..... when you write on this blog ~ I just get a good laugh out of your crazy ass facts. Really dude, get a life.
By ramses on Mon, July 25, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Hey Andre…
Because the truth, and those who are behind the truth about wolves, are now kicking all of your greenie butts!!! You've got nothing but lies and "Twight" b.s. behnd your wolf ignornace.
Toby Bridges, LOBO WATCH
By Toby Bridges on Sun, July 24, 2011 at 8:25 pm
Here are a few places to begin research on the benefits of predators besides man to the ecosystem:
Loss of Top Animal Predators Has Massive Ecological Effects
ScienceDaily (July 14, 2011) — "Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth," a review paper that will be published on July 15, 2011, in the journal Science, concludes that the decline of large predators and herbivores in all regions of the world is causing substantial changes to Earth's terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. The paper claims that the loss of apex consumers from ecosystems "may be humankind's most pervasive influence on nature." (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6040/301.abstract?sid=b2d037d0-060b-4939-bbff-58f7f093129f)
Decline of predatory species throws food chains out of whack, report says
Washington Post
The decline of large predators such as big cats, wolves, sharks and giant whales may be "humankind's most pervasive influence on the natural world," causing prey animals to swell in population and throw food chains out of balance, a new report says.
Loss of predators in the food chain can alter the ecosystem
USA Today
Take away the predators at the top of the food chain — the lions, tigers, wolves and cougars — and entire ecosystems start to change. A paper in today's edition of the journal Science suggests that humans' destruction of these top predators is causing reverberations worldwide in ways not apparent even a decade ago, including changes in the landscape and even increases in wildfires.
By animals15 on Sun, July 24, 2011 at 6:48 pm
I wish I could do something, but this has been a nightmare for as long as I can remember (back to the 70's!)
By Pat on Fri, July 22, 2011 at 9:42 pm
Thank You Marc for another great web-site that we need!
By ramses on Fri, July 22, 2011 at 9:22 am
Don't pay attention to Toby Bridges and others that follows the same thought.
Anyone can see what he is…
Why waste time with a moron like that?
By André Luiz on Fri, July 22, 2011 at 12:35 am
Hey Kristi…Why don't you provide some of that documented benefit of having wolves? Stop wiggling your fingers on the keys to fabricate one wolf lie after another.
You cannot. Because since the beginning of time when man began to record things…wolves have never played a beneficial role. Did you know, that during WWII, when the Russians had every armed citizen on the front fighting the Germans…there was no wolf management in that country? And by the end of the war, Russia's wolf population had swollen from appx. 100,000 to more than 250,000. and those wolves were killing more than 1,000,000 head of livestock every year - making it more difficult to keep a war ravaged populaiton fed. After the war, wolf hunting brigades were formed from former military types, and in 1946 some 62,000+ wolves were killed in Russia. In fact, during the 10 years following the war, more than 500,000 wolves were killed…and as late as the late 1980s, 35,000 to 38,000 wolves were being killed EVERY YEAR there. Back when WWII ended, those wolves had pretty much devastated Russia's wildlife populations, one of the reasons why the predators turned to livestock. It has taken stringent wolf control in that country to allow wildlife to recover, and for livestock producers to raise cattle and sheep.
And if you'd like to discuss the health and safety dangers those wolves posed rural Russians…just let me know. I'll gladly share. You see, I actually do correspond with Phd. wildlife ecologists…rather than quote from various spurious sources such as you.
The only thing you kind of got right in your last post was that wolves are wolves…no matter where they are. And the wolves here are just as devastating as the wolves in Russia.
By Toby Bridges on Tue, July 05, 2011 at 10:59 am
Silent Watch, I'm not sure what movie you are referring to. I didn't see where I referred to a movie. My last post didn't come from a movie, that is real life stuff.
I wonder why it is that all over the world, except in pockets of ID, MT and WY, after years and years of study, research, recordings, etc. of the prey/predator relationships, of how predators work, what they do and how they do it, the benefits from that and basically how nature works and has worked since the beginning of time that Toby and his ilk seem to think that it's all wrong, lies, misinformation and myths. I wonder why the 4-5 sources Toby usually uses have not been widely accepted and heralded as breakthrough science and disproves everything that has been proven over decades, centuries. Could it be because it's not true, valid, correct, and serves an agenda?
By Kristi Lloyd on Tue, July 05, 2011 at 6:57 am
Oh phony Native One…now you're quoting Eddie Abbey???
Here's one for all of you socialist tyles…
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.."—Winston Churchill
By Toby Bridges on Wed, June 29, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Oh Toby, I double-dog-dare you to go to Rocky Boy and tell them about you being a "native american" (but do beware the culverts).
By NativeOne on Wed, June 29, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Never in my lifetime have I listen to a person with so much hate and nasty talk! Never cry wolf is not the only story. Wolves were killed for the fur- trade and money. Thousands of them were destroyed. As far as Alaska goes man did not need to step in. In time nature would have fixed the population.
You have no idea how terrible you sound. You logic is totally off. You are not God and you do not have the knowledge or compassion to understand the Natural order Of Law which you will never be able to control.
The power hunger you have and the hate is written and being read by many.
Are you taking out your hate on the Natural world of animals? Do you eat meat? Why are you judging animals and want to kill them for wanting to live just as you?
This is really not worth anyone's time to bother trying to reason with you because it is very clear to us all where you are!
As far as Mad Cow Disease it does exsist I happen to know a lady that lost her husband to this in Co. The other thing is Wastings does exsist and the animals only take the sick and some of the young and old…by selection. There is research going at this moment in Yellowstone National park as to prove those facts by young minds and intelligent people who have love and compassion for life and living creatures.
The buffalo were wiped out by people who think like you. Were you hired by the ranchers to run this thread and tell all these lies to try and put justice for the wolf destruction you so much want honor for?
Is this about getting all the ranchers to vote and policies? Is this about you making money off of killing animals that you know absolutely nothing about what so ever? It is really clear where you are coming from. God have Mercy on your dark soul of night…I would not want to think as you or associate with your shell of hate and production of hate. You are a sad person and I really feel sorry for you. No these words are not by an altered state of mind or a reflection of any substance. My words are from the Heart only.
You are a mirror and your thoughts produce you and who you really ARE.
Though men now possess the power to dominate and exploit every corner of the natural world, nothing in that fact implies that they have the right or the need to do so… Quote Edward Abbey
By Silent watch on Tue, June 28, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Silent Watch for Animal Killers…
Sweetie Pie…you are the one who needs help. You don't have a clue about the wolf issue, do you? Please share some data…some science…some "proven" research…just share something other than your on and on babbling.
You know, there have been many times I too wished some charges were pressed against me. I'd love to take this issue to court, where a whole lot of questions could be asked of a whole lot of others who have dumped non-native and non-endangered Canadian wolves into the Northern Rockies. I can guarantee you…I would not be the only one on trial. The whole Northern Rockies Wolf Recovery Project…and all the fraudulent liars, thieves and politicians who have taken money under the table would be on trial as well. Even the likes of Bill Gibson would come under scrutiny and would have to spend time on the witness stand…and maybe in an interrogation room to investigate their roles in the greatest wildlife disaster of modern times.
By Toby Bridges on Mon, June 27, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Natural Balance Wildlife and Silent Watch…
Come on now…are those your real names, or are you just too chicken to associate your real names with the malarkey both of you just posted?
Mad Cow disease…give us a break. If it was 1/10th as bad as you exaggerate, the cattle industry would be shut down. Same with Chronic Wasting Disease.
My guess is you two are drinking buddies (or whacky tobacky smoking buddies) and just polished off a few too many before knocking out these idiotic posts. They sure read that way…and are pure hogwash.
By Toby Bridges on Mon, June 27, 2011 at 2:12 pm
Toby is a reason NOT to procreate ~ enough said!
By ramses on Sun, June 26, 2011 at 6:48 pm
Found this information very interesting for the general Public to think about! CDC released information some time ago concerning Cronic Wasting Disease. Since 1996 we have a disease spreading between herds of animals Elk, Moose, Deer free range and captive. It is very serious and has a transmission to humans.
It effects the spinal cord and brain. This disease has killed several hunters and young ones in there 20's. This information has not been made public. CDC does not want to alarm the public. The other is the Mad cow disease from the meat. This Disease is running thru populations of animals in WY, Mont, Idaho, Co, Az and all the southwestern states. One of the main reasons is over population of the animals…. the herds need to be thinned and not by hunters…the Natural balance of order has always been taken care of by the animals they know how to do this. We have taken control of the land the animals have managed and taken good care of for thousands of yrs. It seems that man is the animal not in control. We cannot play God or Science. Leave Nature alone and it will cleanse itself. Look at our earth talking back to us and it has just started with the weather. We as man have destoryed the oceans, the land, the soil, and now we all trying to kill the animals that could save our land and us and keep our world in balance. It truely is MANKIND that is the main cause of all the destruction of wildlife, land, and even himself fouling in his own nest.
May the Holy Spirit of All living speak to these pool souls.
By Natural Balance Wildlife on Sun, June 26, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Ms or Mrs. Lloyd,
Could I please ask what film you watched and who wrote the film? The film maker and production private what have you… if it was You Tube often those are staged and not true! Futher if someone really understands the History of our wolves they would understand that it is not the wolve it is the people and there inside fears.
You said the wolves were looking for the healthy cow? How would you know what a wolf is thinking?
Did you know there are over 200 hundred thousand elk just in Az? Why would a wolve care for a cow when they do not eat them? We in Az have over a million Elk roaming and moving around. Did you know that they took on the wasteing diease because the herds are way to large and no thinning was taking place! Did you know that Elk and deer have this diease from over population? The fact that you said the wolves are still in view after someone ran them off tells me it was a fake movie! There are so many varibles to all of this but the fact remains animals were here way before mankind. The Karma is the way people feel. Did you know that fear is wrong and is one of the most dangerous behaviors to all of mankind? I pray you find time to research the killing of these animals back in History and come to realize its not the wolve that is the problem it is the way people think and behave. The other real factor is the fears put in children. The true is there is nothing to FEAR but FEAR itself.
By Silent watch on Sun, June 26, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Mr Bridges,
After reading your comments it is really clear that you need mental help beyond what a facebook thread can do for you. It seems you are confused and so mad at the world and our animals. It also appears from your writings that you could be dangerous to man kind and animals…it might be a good idea for anyone that knows you to help get you professional help.. a person that is like you does not need to carry a gun or even be exposed to humans or animals.. It might be a good idea for you to be charged with threats of killing innocent animals that is a really big fine futher you could go to prison. Futher thanks for all the information about the hunting groups and people's names. We can all gather this information and help to protect our wolves from killers like yourself the prisons are full of people like you. Its clear you hate Indians and animals. You have written and Earth Island Journel is a witness and so are all the people here. I am sure they would all agree that you need help…
By silent watch for animal killers on Sun, June 26, 2011 at 11:55 am
Come on now Devonna…which do you want, an abundance of wildlife to enjoy…or wolves? You cannot have both.
During the 1930s and 1940s, an explosion in the wolf population in Canada resulted in massive losses of caribou. The herds of the Canadian Arctic plummetted from around 4,000,000 to fewer than 500,000 by the late 1940s. The first radical pro-wolfer, Farley Mowat , was sent north as the junior member of a research team to determine the cause. And against his feeling, the team established that the wolves were destroying the herds by both direct depredation of adult animals…and by wiping out nearly 100-percent of spring calf crops.
It took a massive elimination of wolves to reverse the situation, and tens of thousands of wolves were culled. By the late 1970s, the herds had rebounded to more than 2-million.
Of course, Farley Mowat still went ahead and wrote it in his own biased (and wrong) way in his book "Never Cry Wolf". Even though the wolf culling process was showing that the caribou numbers were growing again by 1960, Mowat still claimed in his book that the wolves had not been the cause for the decline - blaming it on parasites (which he failed to acknowledge that the wolves had carried and spread)...and blaming human hunters.
Well, Mowat's lies became clearer and clearer as the wolf population became even more stringently controlled…and caribou numbers continued to grow, even though more were being harvested by Arctic native people and hunters.
The falacy of the environmental approach of letting nature take care of its own is that these radicals, perhaps including you, want to rule man out of the equation…while most of the life we now know on Earth has shared that equation with man for most of the past 2,000,000 years. Man is actually the ONLY predator with the ability to refrain from overkilling its prey base, and to conserve game for the future.
One of the worst predators for overkilling, until there is not enough of a prey base to support its population is the wolf.
By Toby Bridges on Sun, June 26, 2011 at 11:55 am
Thanks to Earth Island Journel for sending all of us awareness of our wonderful creatures that we are trying so hard to protect and save. MY love for this amazing creature will remain for aways in my heart if they are completely removed from our earth I know in my heart they will remain alive always. May these humans realize that for all of us to remain we have to be connected in the great circle of LIFE it is truly all that remains.
By Devonna Preston on Sun, June 26, 2011 at 10:58 am
As I awoke this morning looking at he wonderful light coming into my room with reflection dancing on the walls I thought to myself no matter what.. it is a good day. My mother is passing soon and my pain is vass. The most remarkable thing about it all is she has lived her life…in her late 70's. She had the chance to live and experience life. I am releasing my pain and her I thought to myself.
I gathered myself started my morning and decided to have my coffee outside as to watch my dogs run and play. I looked up at the beautiful crystal blue sky..praising our creator for letting me
sit here watching my animals run and play with joy… thinking to myself we all deserve to experience life. Each and every living creature from the smallest insect to the four legged, winged ones everything deserves LIFE.
Whether one believes in anything at all there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness", It really consists of little acts, word of thanks, a nod of approval, a smile, a hug, one thought came to me the best portion of a good man's life/his little nameless, unremarkable acts/is kindness and love." How can I respond to this awful unkind thread and words of hate these people have said to each other? " KINDNESS"
My passion for the wonderful, beautiful animal our "wolves will always hold in my heart" they have brought romance…mystic…and great knowledge to the southwest and all of our world. They hold a true knowledge of survivel one which we as two legged should observe. Most of us have seen the Movie" Dances with Wolves" and the beautiful connection between man and beast…we also saw the awful thinking and creation of hate and confussion along with complete ingorance. It isn't the bold initiatives or the grand strategies which make a difference. It is the trifles taken seriously which are at the heart of morality. Our acts have reverberations which are felt way beyond our imagining. Has one ever heard the term larger than life….enlarge your life "Kindness" to the souls above for they are clearly in pain, anger, and hate. To hate a creature of which you do not understand and wish it death is an awful thought. There is a common thread of kinship with all living things a key to understanding is "awareness" Of all living things great or small ...of the planets that circle Divinity' feet as i silently sit here in my chair, I am aware….that all animals, people and living creation deserve Life. I know that I will Dance with the WOLVES in my next life will YOU.
By Devonna Preston on Sun, June 26, 2011 at 10:47 am
Oh Native One…you're certainly the phony one. Man is not indigenous to North America. I'm sorry…but there are no natives here…all are just transients…including you. So get over it. If you mean by native that you were "born in Montana", then good for you. I was born in Cairo, Illinois, at the juncture of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. And if being born somewhere means being "native", then I am a native American…just like you. And it means I have the right to choose where I live in the good ol' U.S. of A. - and I choose to live in Montana. Where, I am sure YOU DO NOT.
I am so fed up with phonies like you, and Not Impressed, and Curious Naturalist…you have opinions, as far from reality as they may be, when it comes to wolves, but you are the epitome of cowards…too chicken to actually post under your real names. And in my book, anyone who will not put their real name on anything they say or write means they truly do not believe 100% what they are commenting about…or do not know enough about the issue to be linked to it.
What I love is how all of you greenie environmentalists keep throwing out how the introduction of the non-native Canadian subspecies of the gray wolf (Canis lupus occidentalis) has been based on REAL SCIENCE. Would one of you, just one of you, please relay some of that REAL SCIENCE?
Is is how USFWS manipulated science to dump an entirely different "experimental and non-essential" wolf in the Northern Rockies? Please explain.
If anything, the Northern Rockies Wolf Recovery Project will forever stand as the classic example of launching a disastrous wildlife project WITHOUT ANY SCIENCE behind it…financed with stolen funds, headed by non-qualified "wolf" biologists, without the proper (and mandatory) federal paperwork to document how many wolves were covertly dropped into the U.S., where those wolves came from, exactly where ALL of those wolves went, the exact subspecies (could have been three…none of which were native to the Northern Rockies)...those who were actually involved…and just how much stolen money was spent.
USFWS was far from being on the up and up with this project…keeping as much of the lie as secret as possible. If you truly believe that the rewolving of the Northern Rockies has been based on solid and PROVEN SCIENCE, with the full support of "native" residents of the region…YOU ARE THE FOOL…YOU HAVE BEEN LIVING THE LIE.
Did any of you catch how one prominent NASA scientist has been accused of taking $1.2-million from environmental groups/organizations to say whatever they want, in support of their agendas?
Is that some of the SCIENCE you all believe in?
Well, the sportsmen of this country, who are no longer going to allow wolves to destroy big game population are now ready to employ some real science as well…called ballistics. You know, the velocity of a bullet, the weight of the bullet, and the ballistic coefficient of a bullet. This is the sceince which will allow them to determine whether or not a wolf is within range.
But…you guys are right…REAL SCIENCE RULES!
By Toby Bridges on Sun, June 26, 2011 at 7:55 am
bridges, guess we'll just never know what happened to make you so full of bile. your little games aren't going to work with me, and i won't be sucked into your morass. you 're really are a piece of work. lol how presumptuous to say that i'm not involved in actual conservation, just because i don't agree with you, detest everything you stand for, and i don't belong to one of your little "clubs" but it doesn't surprise me in the least that you only care about the money. don't you know that true value behind charity or service is anonymous and isn't supposed to be used as a boast? so go ahead say anything you like but i don't feel the need to defend myself . gibson's article exposes the real truth, a truth you just can't accept can you? you're only happy when you can bully something. maybe you should forgo firearms until you master thinking. wolves were here before ranchers and hunters, before cowards with guns, before stupid and selfish became career paths for the chromosomally challenged. glad to hear that i don't impress you, if I did , i'd be just like you and that's something i'd never be proud of. they say that those who holler the loudest have the most to hide. guess that's why you just can't seem to stop your ranting. so since you know everything, in your own words why don't you explain to all of us exactly how you define "conservation" and then tell us all how much money the nra and safari club rakes in at the expense of all wildlife?
By Not Impressed on Fri, June 24, 2011 at 1:09 pm
I experienced this same behavior when I wrote an article to one of the Northern Rocky newspapers… People are really mean toward the wolves. Its really difficult to believe that people will go to this extreme. Says something about the mental condition of people and its getting worse!
By Devonna Preston on Thu, June 23, 2011 at 10:10 pm
As expected, this article is now ridden with anti-wolf commenters and our dear Mr. Bridges. It is quite sad to see practically every anti-wolf comment filled with so much hatred and ignorance. For now, I'll be quiet, and will let the article itself answer for me. It is of no use to fight with those whose minds are infested with years of misinformation, lies and ignorance. Wolf-advocates have nothing but facts backing them up.
Yes, there is the extreme side that only moans "WOLFS R BUATIFULL, DONT KILLL THEM!!!!!!!!!:("
(believe, they aren't helping, so please ignore them).
Politics and myths should not trample with real science. Ever.
P.S. No, wolf advocates aren't communists, so please use that words when you actually KNOW what it means. Thank you.
By Curious Naturalist on Wed, June 22, 2011 at 5:56 pm
Mr. Bridges, as neither you or Mr. Fanning are natives of Montana I am not really sure why you think you are such hot sh@t here. So wolves "ruined" the state you love-why should I care? Go love your own state and quit thinking you are champions of mine. Yeah, so there are a lot of other natives who probably love what you have to say. Those 3rd and 4th generations probably eat it up with a spoon. Same ones whose ancestors insisted that the government kill off the Native Americans. They would brag about how they took care of a "hostile" camp (which was over 90% women and children). Am I surprised these people are afraid of wolves when they were scared of women and children? A loud fart would frighten these people. That is why they need to carry big guns and shoot everything they see. It might get them! So here you are bragging about being the spokesman for a bunch of cowards. You're mother must be so proud. Do you honestly think the next generation is going to support this kind of bull crap? Like they need worthless old men telling them how to think. They will be able to figure things out for themselves and when they see how much you people are a bunch of scared-sissified little girls they set fire to the nursing home you are in.
By NativeOne on Wed, June 22, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Not Impressed…it's easy to see why you use that handle…you never have enough "facts" to impress anyone.
Tell me ol' green conservation minded one…and tell everyone else…just how much money have you spent on real conservation in your life? Money that actually went to restore habitat…money that actually went to working with the conservation of a species…money that actually helped finance a REAL conservation project???
I can tell from your posts…NOT ONE COPPER CENT!
And poor little misdirected, misinformed greenie Ann…that small group (Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd) has done a hundred times more for saving that elk hered than ALL of the phonies making up Defenders of Wildlife or the even more lame Center for Biological Diversity have done for ALL species of wildlife combined. But then, what can one expect from bunch of money mongering lawyers.
By Toby Bridges on Mon, June 20, 2011 at 5:32 am
Mr. Bridges, that's quite a long list. I've seen it before. FOTNYEH is, like Ann said, a group of elk hunters. A group of elk hunting wolf killers. A list of special interest groups that have an agenda. And some of them are "outsiders" but how convenient for you to put them in too. Poll after poll…what polls? Where? Can you enlighten us please? A poll from RMEF? Big Game Forever? Cattleman's Ass.? Not very independent or reliable or credible, as usual. Keep throwing out the personal attacks and insults. Keep throwing your fits, it just reinforces the irrational, hysterical, nonsensical mentality of you and your blog, etc. SaveWesternWildlife, nice group…save it from the wolves (not to mention bears, mountain lions, coyotes but they don't count because it's only the wolf that is killing the wildlife) so the hunters can blast elk (ie, wildlife) from their trucks…shoot out their legs then approach them to mercifully deliver the killshot. Then cut the elk open, tear out its guts, mix in some glass shards (or not) and a healthy dose of xylitol or wolf lichen. That is real conservation at its finest right there!
By Kristi Lloyd on Sun, June 19, 2011 at 1:01 pm
bridges, the only truth you are willing to accept is that of your alternate reality where you know everything and can do not wrong. in reference to your stunning comment: "And wolves are nothing more than indiscriminate killers which are now devastating big game population…AND MUST BE CONTROLLED….AND WILL BE CONTROLLED." man is this killer you speak of and it is only yourself that you condemn. you are bent because you want what you want and you are willing to do anything to get it. that much is clearly evident. don't tell me about how much you support "conservation' that is a laugh and a half and three quarters. just listen how you refer to elk and deer as "game" populations. you only want the elk and deer for yourself. talk about selfish and egotistical.
By Not Impressed on Sun, June 19, 2011 at 9:13 am
"Friends of the Yellowstone Elk Herd" is just a group of elk hunters…with friends like that, who needs enemies?
By Ann Sydow on Sun, June 19, 2011 at 12:59 am
Thank you Mr. Fanning. For those of you who do not know Robert Fanning, he is the founder of Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd…and a contender for Governor for the State of Montana in 2012.
Real change is on the horizon.
By Toby Bridges on Mon, June 13, 2011 at 8:39 pm
American Big Game and Livestock Protection Act enjoys the enthusiastic support of countless national and state organizations. Some of them are listed below. Gibson enjoys the support of about 6 annonomous bloggers.
National groups:
1. American Farm Bureau
2. American Sheep Industry Association
3. Big Game Forever
4. Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation
5. Mule Deer Foundation
6. National Association of Conservation Districts
7. National Cattlemen's Beef Association
8. National Rifle Association
9. National Shooting Sports Foundation
10. National Trappers Association
11. Public Lands Council
12. Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
13. Safari Club International
14. Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife
15. U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance
16. Wild Sheep Foundation
State groups:
17. Arizona Cattle Feeders Association
18. Arizona Cattle Growers' Association
19. Arizona Wool Producers Association
20. California Cattlemen's Association
21. California Public Lands Council
22. California Wool Growers Association
23. Citizens for Balanced Use
24. Colorado Cattlemen's Association
25. Colorado Wool Growers Association
26. Florida Cattlemen's Association
27. Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd
28. Georgia Cattlemen's Association
29. Idaho Cattle Association
30. Idaho Wool Growers Association
31. Independent Cattlemen's Association of Texas
32. Kansas Livestock Association
33. Lobo Watch
34. Maryland Sheep Breeders Association
35. Michigan Cattlemen's Association
36. Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation
37. Minnesota Lamb and Wool Producers Association
38. Minnesota State Cattlemen's Association
39. Montana Association of Conservation Districts
40. Montana Association of State Grazing Districts
41. Montana Farm Bureau Federation
42. Montana Public Lands Council
43. Montana Stockgrowers Association
44. Montana Trail Vehicle Riders Association
45. Montana Woolgrowers Association
46. Montanans for Multiple Use
47. Nebraska Sheep & Goat Association
48. Nevada Cattlemen's Association
49. North Carolina Sheep Producers Association Inc.
50. Oregon Cattlemen's Association
51. Oregon Sheep Growers Association
52. Treasure State ATV Association
53. Utah Cattlemen's Association
54. Utah Wool Growers Association
55. Virginia Cattlemen's Association
56. Washington Cattlemen's Association
57. Wyoming Stock Growers Association
By Bob Fanning on Mon, June 13, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Get real, wolves are the primary carriers and spreader of Echinococcus granulosus tapeworm eggs, which results in cystic hydatid disease. And wolves carry and spread more than 30 other infectious diseases.
But, you are right, humans do have a role in the scheme of things…and one big part of that role is to control things the negatively impact human life…like wolves.
By Toby Bridges on Mon, June 13, 2011 at 10:58 am
Goodness. I loved the article. 1st- infestation of worms can derive from a great many things, not just from one source. Wolves, if you must know, are a MUST in our environment to keep parasites at bay to rid our land of diseased wildlife as most carnivores kill of the sick or dying animals first as they are easier to kill. We as hunters are not going to hunt sick animals, there for it is a cycle of life that is needed.
2nd-as for wolves killing each other? Survival of the fittest. There is higher archy in packs as there are in all animals, it can get heated and yes sometimes it ends in death, it is not just wolves.
All animals exist for a reason, including humans. Wolves deserve to be where they belong, in their natural environment, we are not supposed to look at them as competition, we are supposed to look at them as balance.
By Joeymichelle Noble on Mon, June 13, 2011 at 7:52 am
Jon, you are so typical of the pro-wolf crowd. You cannot come up with true facts, or even science for that matter, which supports having wolves…so you simply go on a personal attack against those who fight for common sense wolf control.
And as Jon suggests, yes, please do Goggle "Toby Bridges".
For all of my life, I have fought b.s. all the way…just as I am fighting the b.s. of allowing wolves to destroy the past 50 to 75 years of honest wildlife conservation.
One of my first major goals in life was to fight for special Muzzleloader big game season…when I started, only about 15 states had them…now only one state DOES NOT have a muzzleloader hunting season. Then, I fought to get the modern in-line muzzleloaders legalized. When I started that battle, 23 states did not allow them. Today, all states allow them - and 90+ percent of all muzzleloading hunter use them. I am still fighting for the right of all muzzleloading hunters to use a scope during the special muzzleloader seasons…once less than half allowed them…today only 11 still deny the opportunity for EVERYONE to use a scope on a muzzleloader…but due to my efforts all are now mandated by federal anti-discrimination laws to make provisions for those who must use an optical sight (such provision have only come about in the past year or two). And there have been many other non-serving regulations that I have fought and gotten changed.
You cannot fight for something without alienating some people. Fortuantely, for me those I have alienated with muzzleloading and muzzleloader regulation changes are a very distinct minority.
Now, my efforts and the efforts of many others very much like me, are turning the tide of sentiment from FOR wolves to AGAINST wolves. Poll after poll after poll now reveals that 70- to 80-percent of people have had their fill of the wolf idiocy.
Our best ally is the wolf itself. No matter how Jon and the other wolf lovers of this world try to paint a new picture of the wolf, to write a new script for the wolf…A WOLF CAN ONLY BE A WOLF. And wolves are nothing more than indiscriminate killers which are now devastating big game population…AND MUST BE CONTROLLED….AND WILL BE CONTROLLED.
Jon, why is it you and so many like you are way too cowardly to post your last name. Could it me that you don't want someone to Google your name and discover that you are an absolute nobody…who has never done or accomplished anything in your life???
Now, for the first time, I'd like to thank Bill Gibson for writing this glaring lie about wolves, it has provided a wonderful opportunity to spotlight just how little wolf supporters even know about wolves…and they know even less about the negative impact of wolves.
By Toby Bridges on Sun, June 12, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Just shows even more the extreme lengths these wolf hater will go to.Everyone just google Toby Bridges name,you will see he is a joke amongst the hunting community.
By Jon on Sat, June 11, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Not Impressed…
You, Kristi, Linda, Lynne, Captain, and other pro-wolfers on this comment board are like a bunch of old, washed up commedians when it comes to defending wolves…
Quite honestly, all of you keep using the same ol' crap…
"Wolves only kill the sick and the weak…"
"Wolves are the sanitarians of nature…"
"Wolves are needed to insure a balanced ecosystem…"
"Wolves will add millions of $$$ to the economy…"
"Wolves never kill more than they need to eat…"
Yada Yada Yada…
And the wolves just keep proving you wrong over and over again. You all need to stop reading the propaganda from the Defenders of Wildlife or the Center for Biological Diversity…and face the fact that when it came to wolves, Walt Disney and Farley Mowat didn't know their butts from a hole in the ground.
I've read all that erroneous crap. Let me ask, have any of you busted out of your enviro bubble long enough to read depredation reports by Dr. Charles Kay (Utah State University)...to comprehend the warnings issued by Dr. Val Geist (Univesity of Calgary)...or to absorb Will Graves' compilation of wolf facts and data from more than 150 years of wolf research in Russia? Most likely not…or the bunch of you would not be as ignorant as you've proven here.
By Toby Bridges on Sat, June 11, 2011 at 9:27 am
bridges, and we're all tickled that you feel the need to keep telling us how tickled you are. you're really quite entertaining, an interesting look into the psychotic mind and its behavior. all you did was report, thank you for that eulogy of humanitarian service to nature. go ahead tell us all your tricks.
trophy hunters "kill just for the sake of killing, as often as not to eat nothing." "fortunately america is beginning to wake up" yes very true, every time you open your mouth they see you for what you are. but who are you trying to convince more, your audience or yourself?
lose lips sink ships, happy sailing bridges.
By Not Impressed on Fri, June 10, 2011 at 11:59 pm
Toby, more false, incorrect and WRONG info again, you really should quote your sources. Keep on proving the point of the ignorant, stubborn, bitter, misled and misinformed. You are performing brilliantly!
By Kristi Lloyd on Fri, June 10, 2011 at 11:51 am
Ronald…You suffer from a severe case of Walt Disneyopia or Farely Mowatism…the erroneous belief that wolves only kill the sick, weak and injurred.
What about the 90-percent of the elk calf crop they destroy every spring in western Montana and northern Idaho?
Wolves kill just for the sake of killing, as often as not to eat nothing. That's the reality of wolves that the very uninformed and totally ignorant try to ignore. Fortunately, America is beginning to wake up…and the days of all the pro-wolf lies are now beginning to wane. It seems the wolves fail to follow the script that all of you have tried to write for them.
By Toby Bridges on Fri, June 10, 2011 at 9:39 am
This just in from New Mexico: Yesterday (6-9-11) the New Mexico Game Commission and Governor Martinez unanimously agreed to pull the state out of the Mexican Wolf Reintroduction program.
Their reasoning was that the reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf, even at the low numbers already established, has creafted an overly negative impact on the health, safety and welfare of rural New Mexico residents, has severely impacted wildlife populations, and has caused harm to the ranching community.
The state will no longer waste its resources or efforts to re-establish the Mexican Gray wolf…and will be demaning that USFWS remove all Mexican gray wolves from within the state.
Greedy, pushy, over demanding radical pro-wolfers…this is exactly what sportsmen and rural residents have been trying to get across to you. You have become the wolf's worst enemy, and the American public will now take care of the problem.
By Toby Bridges on Fri, June 10, 2011 at 6:05 am
It is obvious that the anti-wolf crowd ignores the reality that, far from competing with hunters,wolves enhance the populations of big game by culling out the sick and lame. A report s few years back reported that the wolves in Yellowstone were responsible for the increase in the bison population.
But, alas, bigotry and ignorance, both real and deliberate, is still thriving. In this instance, it is the wolves and open minded people who are the targets of this meaningless carnage.
Sadly, barbarism thrives and common sense is again trampled under the feet of the demagogic disciples of hate.
Yet, we must never give up, never be defeated. If they win the battle of the wolves, they will move on to heighten battles against targeted human "Wolves" and they will define who the "Wolves' are.
Tyranny always starts with the false cry of "Freedom from" a hapless minority. We are combating petty tyrants.
By Ronald Cross on Thu, June 09, 2011 at 7:13 pm
The National Geographic magazine some time ago wrote that the government used Sodium Fluoroacetate to kill off wolves, but problem was that the eagles swooped down to eat their carcasses and OILA! They died from the poison, and so this method was eliminated.
By Anita Knight on Thu, June 09, 2011 at 6:01 pm
My suggestion is that you no longer engage in communication with Cretins. There will be no changing of their minds or hearts. They don't matter. When you respond to them, they get a boost of their already over-inflated ego. Obviously they lack socialization skills - they don't even pretend to be decent and they brag about being uncivilized. DOW still DO compensate when a rancher signs up for the program. This Toby character is obviously psychopathic. 'nuff said!
By Nicholas Vittorio on Thu, June 09, 2011 at 3:37 pm
Not Impressed…
That makes two of us. Like I said before, I'm just so tickled that I can be such a major thorn in the sides of you sick minded pro-wolfers, who feel that the healthy elk herds…moose & deer populaitons…and bounty of other wildlife are nothing more than wolf fodder.
I'll tell you who needs to be "locked up"...how about Ed Bangs, for all of the illegal activity he pulled in conjunction with the dumping a totally non-indigenous wolf into the Northern Rockies…how he purposely failed to file the mandatory paperwork to bring in Canadian wolves (eliminating any documentation to how many wolves were imported…where they came from…identifying the subspecies..or what that stage of this project cost…or for that matter where the money came from.) Then, there's Jamie Rappaport Clark…the biggest thief that ever worked with USFWS…embezzling $45-million plus from Pittman-Robertson wildlife habitat and fisheries funds to give herself and her friends within USFWS some pretty major bonuses…to establish a frivolous travel slush fund…to fund the construction of a new office in California…and to fund a project for which Congress had denied funding, the Northern Rockies Wolf Recovery Project. And the list would also include a number of others who were part of the fraudulent team that put together the Northern Rockies Wold Recovery Project, and lying biologists like Doug Smith. Once DOJ offered some of these folks lighter sentences for coming clean…who knows who they would rat out.
As for Wolf Lichen, it has been used for centuries to control wolf numbers, and like it or not, it will most likely see much more use in the coming years. If you have a problem with what I reported, then I suggest you report Wikipedia to the "authorities". All I did was share a link. When wolves begin to die, the most radical pro-wolfers among you need to realize that they are the ones who pushed it to this level. Sportsmen were okay with the proposed levels outlined as the recovery goal, and even a bit more. But they are not going to sit back and watch a bunch of do-nothing greenie environmentalists advocate the destruction of the past 75 to 80 years of sound wildlife conservation. And when a force of 100,000…200,000…300,000 finally say enough of this idiocy is enough…wolves will pay the prioce for your greed.
By Toby Bridges on Thu, June 09, 2011 at 3:08 pm
organic or not, is this not advocating or hinting to the poisoning of wolves? his latest rant on that page:
"Block Michelle…I am on LOBO WATCH. Here's an organic cure to our wolf problem…known as "Wolf Lichen", since it is so deadly on them. And it is native to the Northwest. Just last weekend, I found lots of the stuff in northwest Montana. There's no reasoning with fanatics like Michelle…so it's time to start taking care of the problem."
he then continues with a link to the lichen on another web site. this "man" is the "problem" a menace to society and should be put away. it is just insane that anyone can continue to get away with this kind of behavior.
By Not Impressed on Wed, June 08, 2011 at 10:54 am
Kristi…get used to it. America has had it fill of the wolf idiocy. Congressional bills to have wolves removed from ESA protection are far from being dead. It is going to be one very interesting summer…you might want to stock up on Kleenex.
By Toby Bridges on Wed, June 08, 2011 at 10:08 am
thank you earth island journal for exposing the truth. it appears that bridges doesn't seem to be content with his own site and needs to make this blog a one man show too. which does nothing more than prove everything you have reported about his campaign of intimidation and fear to be true. as for "driving the final nails into this coffin" i think he has pretty much accomplished that for his own. and mowatt,you're not fooling anyone bridges if you think we don't know that's you or one of your minions. but that's your modus operandi, to be in control . to set the stage where you can either prove someone wrong, or be the hero with all the answers that saved the day. either way, you're a zero not a hero. enjoy yourself checking out every wolf den you want, you'd do it anyway. it's your twisted need to even mention it at all that says everything . don't think that your "service" to america entitles you to carte blanche as a menace to society. what good is that "service" when you have no credibility or honor to represent you. so , how does it feel to be famous?
By Not Impressed on Wed, June 08, 2011 at 8:10 am
I see Toby's call for help was answered by a couple of his LoboWatch members. Now he is busy bashing away on Anti-Wolf Northwest's page. His words and actions further prove the misguided, misinformed, and hateful mentality of a very vocal minority of the Northwest Rockies. The title of this article could have been more appropriate. Thank you, EIJ, for this exposure. I hope some people who have read your article felt moved enough to do some more "homework" on this subject. 81 senators including Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, John Kerry, Charles Schumer, Harry Reid were some of the higher profile Democratic senators who approved of the budget bill with the wolf rider in it. Reid voted for it even though he had said before the vote that he would preclude ANY riders in the budget. But this was only lipservice, this was a done, back door deal to keep a Democratic majority in the Senate. Thank you also for that exposure, EIJ. Keep up the great work!
By Kristi Lloyd on Tue, June 07, 2011 at 8:57 pm
Libby Linda…DOW dropped their reimbursement program last year. Surely someone who pretends to know all things about wolves would know that. How much of the rest are you faking as well?
By Toby Bridges on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Libby Linda…When we all go to that utopia you halucinate about (before or after you smoke a doobie?)...will there be wolves there? After all, they are the most wasteful wanton killers on this planet…killing twice as much as needed for sustenance.
Hey, where did Lynn run off to? Probably to pick up some new wolf material from Defenders of Wildlife.
By Toby Bridges on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 5:49 pm
@ Kathy - thank you Kathy for posting, but to use the example of wolves roaming through a cattle herd and picking out the best of the best, is like you and I roaming around the salad bar at Wendy's picking out the best tomatoes! Domestic cattle herds who stand there like sitting ducks; wolves have no conception of "ownership" by humans. Plus ranchers do get reimbursed for the LESS THAN 1% of wolf on cattle/sheep kills per year; reimbursed by Defenders of Wildlife, not just the government. Ranchers should go back to good sheep dogs and electric fences, if reimbursement isn't of the less than 1% isn't enough.
What we are talking about when we say wolves keep herds healthier, are the natural herds like elk, moose, caribou and deer, as the wolves will run these animals until the more frail, sickened with disease, and old fall behind, while the healthier, stronger survive. It has been that way since time began and nature or God, however you want to say it is the natural designer of that. Each and every region is assigned an apex predator, and when that predator is removed, the balance of nature goes haywire.
In the state of Pennsylvania, where I live, there has not been a free wolf in over 225 years, and as a result of that, DESPITE extreme hunting by two-legged hunters, we have a huge amount of deer/car accidents that kill people every year.
In truth, wolves are killed to artifically boost the numbers of prey animals for two-legged hunters, who don't like to compete with nature's iconic apex predator.
By Linda Camac on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Robert…I was indeed proud to have played a part in getting this dangerous product out of production. For those who want the true story of the Savage Model 10ML II…go to this link…and on this page you will also find a link to still more about why these rifles were exploding on shooters.
But, I thought this comment section was supposed to be about wolves. Don't you know anything about wolves Robert? Apparently not.
By Toby Bridges on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 5:43 pm
Toby, you must be real proud of this. How many other people have you extorted?
By Robert on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 2:48 pm
Thank you for writing a wonderful, truthful article about the plight of wolves in the midst of pressure from those who are ignorant and afraid. I'm not going to allow the likes of Toby Bridges to put my braids in the ink well any more to antagonize me, like he does the wolves…." duh…just heard about a wolf den I have to go investigate..duh.." I can hear his knuckles dragging on the floor!
I do know one thing, that one day Toby Bridges will die, and we all, one day will die, and as we are dying and the animals are dying with us, we will have an awakening of spirit, and for people like Toby, a sad and painful awareness that all life is a bond, and he will want to commune with even the animals he now condemns.
By Libby Linda on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 2:35 pm
"Sportsman"???? The true meaning of sportsmanship is, at the very least, when both parties know they are 'in the game' and it is a fair playing field. So please don't insult anyone's intelligence, or flatter yourself by calling hunting 'sporting'!
I find it also ironic that you 'sportsman' accuse wolves of 'killing just to watch an animal suffer; killing for fun'.......certainly that is a mirror of your own intentions, playing God over unarmed animals.
First attempts to kill by young wolves that are learning, are not always successful, but to kill for 'fun' - no animal does that but 'man'. Any learned biologist or behavioral scientists of wild canine will tell you that their species is successful only by their intelligence and that would dictate never to waste 'energy' to maim for 'fun' when only 1 out of 5 attempts at a kill are successful. Killing for 'fun' would obliterate a wolf pack in no time flat.
But the wolf-haters don't want to hear and simply won't hear any reason, logic, or science. They want to kill wolves for whatever psychological pathology they have. It is NOT NORMAL to be anything but lifeward, particularly when it comes to predators who are not for eating purposes. Trophies, legend, fairytales, fun of killing a majestic animal - never an excuse.
The wildlife movement is solid and only 15% of the population hunts - hunters will be going extinct in the next 20 years - safe prediction.
By Nino Vittorio, M.D, pHD on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Wolves, endangered? I think not. Wolves WILL be managed by states and a hunting season WILL happen this year. You pro-wolfers will have your wolves, but the sportsmen will also have your wolves. Thing is the states will make money from all the tags sold, and there will be a lot sold as Idaho has sold a grip of them already. Wolves be ready to learn to fear humans once again, your unmanaged calamity will soon be controlled.
By JR on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Oh yes…Robert…Thanks for bringing up the Savage Model 10ML II fiasco. To bring you up to speed…Savage dropped production of that bomb last year…after at least 9 or 10 of the rifles exploded and severely injurred shooters. Savage and Randy Wakeman are the criminals that continued to push that dangerous muzzleloader design…and are responsible for those injurries.
By Toby Bridges on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 12:27 pm
First…the U.S. needs to drop put of the U.N. and stop wasting taxpayer dollars trying to buy and influence friends who end up hating us anyway. Screw the U.N. - it is their Agenda 21 that's the cause of the world's problems anyway. But, that someone like Linda Camac actually believes in their hogwash pretty much says all we need to know about ol' Libby Linda. As usual, it was worth a real laugh. And Captain Ol' Captain…someone really got you on "Never Cry Wolf"...the real Farley Mowat spells his name with only one "t". Seems you know about as much about that as you do anything else you've commented on here. Got to go…got a lead on a wolf den I need to go check out.
By Toby Bridges on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Toby, you can claim that wolf reintroduction was illegal all you want, but you know there is no proof. Jim Beers can claim this or that, but in the end, he will just be known as a bitter and angry ex-employee that was angry that he got fired from the agency he worked with. Hey, whatever happened with bill 414? You want to talk about illegal. About the fact that you violated the lacy act? about the fact that you extort people? about the fact that you advocate poaching? about the fact that you advocate the illegal poisoning of wildlife? Yeah, you're a real piece of work Toby. The wolf is not going anywhere and you know this. It may be very hard for you to accept, but it is the way it is.
By Robert on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 9:53 am
Haha, "Mowatt." If you think that I consider "your" book the gospel truth and source my arguments from it, you are dead wrong. And even Toby's hero Val Geist admits that it doesn't matter that the reintroduced wolves came from Canada. The adult wolves killed in the 2009-2010 MT hunting season weighed, on average, less than 100 lbs. No monster wolves here. And regardless of the reintroduction efforts, some of those "Canadian" wolves were already migrating down into the Northern Rockies on their own—are you going to say that's illegal or unnatural? Nature doesn't recognize political boundaries.
Anyway. I've got better things to do than argue with people who wouldn't know good sense if it bit them in the face, and I think I've said enough for the benefit of any reasonable outsider who stumbles on this thread. So ta-ta, all. We'll probably meet again.
By CaptainSakonna on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 9:37 am
Cap'n…you are so sure that USFWS dewromed all those wolves, eh? Then, show me the paperwork, lead me to where I can read the definitive report of where those wolves actually all came from…how many there really were…where they all went…and the cost. You cannot…because your beloved Ed Bangs did not file the mandatory paperwork documenting all of that. Hey Cap…keep on living the lie, because you apparently cannot handle the truth. Hang on to all of your "thoughts" on Echnococcus granulosus…I'm privvy to a few new reports that will soon be out that will blow your socks off…and which will refute much of what the pro-wolfers you like to quote have been saying about hydatid disease.
By Toby Bridges on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 9:14 am
Toby, Your "stop me before I kill again" shtick is getting really old. Wolves and elk, predator and prey, evolved together over thousands of years. They belong together. Get over it. And I suggest you move to someplace that doesn't have wolves since it seems to upset you so much. How about Alabama? You'd feel right at home.
By Carole Beverly on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 9:11 am
Two days ago I attended a symposium on Wolves and their impact on the people, land, and animals. I listened to up to the minute accounts from people who are dealing with the impact of wolves being planted in the areas where they work, live and raise families. They are dealing with a serious situation which will not be realized by most until the pain is felt. Unfortunately.
I saw video footage that was 72 hrs old of wolves in the midst of cattle. Walking calmly amongst the cows and calves. They were picking out the healthiest young calf for their dinner. They are very smart. When the range rider came into the herd to run the wolves off, the wolves only ran out of the herd,and not out of view, they were not that afraid of humans. They know that they cannot be shot at. They have no predator.. They are the predator.
I saw documented proof of wolves that have traveled up to 3000 miles in a 2 month period. Do you know many other predators capable of traveling that much? In Finland there is documentation of them traveling even further. I learned so much by listening to first hand accounts, wildlife biologists, and hopefully lobbyist that will help the people of the land.
Please get the facts, forget the fantasy. It's imperative.
Thank you for reading.
By Cathy Kaech on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 8:50 am
Another quote by Toby Bridges:
"Find a wolf, put him in your crosshairs, and if you don't want him to die right away, skew it a little to the left or right."
Mr. Bridges is truly the Lex Luther of Wildlife - he has shown himself to be CRUEL AND INHUMANE no matter how he tries to sugar-coat it!!
He must have been very frightened as a 'child' of the fairytale Little Red Riding Hood? True to form, all cruel people are cowards at heart; we all know 'real men' (and women) are kind to animals.
Maybe he is ticked off, because he was named after a dog?
By Linda Camac-Vittorio on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 8:24 am
From Toby Bridges to LoboWatch 6/5
Now, if you really want to see the lame, sick minded pro-wolfers we are up against…go to this link. They could care less about the destruction wolves are dealing other wildlife populations…just as long as they can have more and more of thier beloved wolves. I have been fighting this group alone for most of the week. Please jump in now and let's drive the final nails into this coffin.
Cry, Wolf | Earth Island Journal | Earth Island Institute
"Nabeki" didn't expect everyone to love her when, in September 2009, she founded the website "Howling for Justice" to celebrate the return of gray wolves to the Northern Rocky Mountains and to protest the then-pending wolf hunts in Montana and Idaho. She didn't expect to fear for her life, either. B
By Kristi Lloyd on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 8:24 am
Rabid wolf killers - consider yourself 'put on notice':
THE UNITED NATIONS WORLD CHARTER FOR NATURE and cites, declares that all member countries (the U.S.A. IS A MEMBER), must protect all of the endangered animals within their borders; IF THE GOVERNMENT FAILS TO PROTECT ENDANGERED ANIMALS, IT FALLS TO, AND BECOMES THE 'RIGHT' OF THE CITIZENS OF SAID COUNTRY TO PROTECT THE ENDANGERED ANIMALS OF THEIR COUNTRY.
This is the same premise and international law that Captain Paul Watson utilizes to protect whales. Under the large umbrella of a 'citizen's arrest."
We have known for long about corrupt politics, special interest groups, and political agendas - sickening and disgusting. We can NOT ALLOW RABID WOLF HATERS to dictate what happens to our wolves. We are organizing and getting better at it every day that passes - THERE IS NO TURNING BACK FOR THE WILDLIFE MOVEMENT - Mr. Bridges under estimates the passion and compassion we have for justice and the wildlife that he likes to exploit for FUN! Ever notice his big complaint about wolves is they hunt for 'fun' (NOT!), and Mr. Bridges finds that unacceptable?? I think what he perceives as wrong in the wolf - is a mirror reflection for what is 'wrong' with him! YOU CAN'T LOVE NATURE WITH A GUN, MR. BRIDGES! P.S. I am a sharp shooter - would never harm or aim at a living being - just good at it, since 1973 - living beings are NOT TARGETS or WALL DECORATIONS!
By Linda Camac-Vittorio on Mon, June 06, 2011 at 8:13 am
It was all a lie. I fabricated a story to intoxicate foolish urbanites, and big foot's sister into believing wolves were just like humans. When you took it too far, I felt it was my duty to stop all you wolf cult members from going off the deep end.I am a liar, and responsible for polluting the minds of idiots all over the world, and I am not sorry.
By Mowatt on Sun, June 05, 2011 at 9:17 pm
Thanks for the laugh Cap'n. Like I've pointed out here several times on this comment board…to eliminate the negative impact wolves are having on big game populations, it will take the elimination of at least 70-percent of the wolves here in the Northern Rockies right now. Your attitude is clear evidence that something drastic has to be done. You are so closed minded about managing wolves at a low enough level to allow elk and other big game herds to rebound, that you and those like you will bear the burden of the second eradication of wolves. And, it will happen if radical pro-wolfers such as yourself continue to sign the death warrant for ALL wolves. And poor innocent, unknowing Robert…how about the fact that USFWS literally embezzled upwards of $60-million to help finance this wildlife disaster…that USFWS literally violated the Lacey Act by not filing the mandatory paperwork (Form 3-177) to bring those Canadian wolves into the U.S. ...that the very principle of the EAS was violated by bringing a totally non-native (and non endangered) wolf into the Northern Rockies to replace the native wolf…that the experts compiling the "Northern Rockies Wolf Recovery Plan" committed fraud in their filing of the claims made in that official document…and so did USFWS in the 1994 Environmental Impact Statement…and numerous other illegal acts - do you honestly feel that there was no criminal activity involved? If you think otherwise, then welcome to the world of wolf ignorance. Son…you are seriously a part of everything that makes the wolf fiasco totally wrong…totally illegal. But thanks for helping make it possible to hang out more of the dirty laundry that makes this issue all wrong.
By Toby Bridges on Sun, June 05, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Oh, so you admit the tapeworms were already here, but you say the wolves have a different strain. It's the same species of worm and everything, but a different strain. A more dangerous strain? A more virulent strain? No? Just a *different* strain? I'm sooooo scared. People up in Canada must be dropping like flies from this different strain!
Okay, so I did a little research on this different strain. What I found shows me that the tapeworm strain that infects wild ungulates is *less* dangerous to a human who catches it, than the strain that commonly infects domestic sheep and dogs. Two different reports that I found call infection by the northern or sylvan strain "relatively benign," while the domestic strain is described as being more dangerous and more likely to spawn cysts outside the lungs (e.g. in the brain). The reintroduced wolves were all de-wormed before they were released in Idaho, and showed no evidence of infection with E. granulosus until 2006. So although it's indisputable that Idaho's wolves and ungulates presently have the tapeworm, the origin of the infestation is uncertain. Finally, one of the reports lists several human cases of hydatid infection in Idaho, all of which were discovered *before* wolf reintroduction. (From the report "Echinococcus granulosus in wolves in Idaho," by Mark L. Drew, DVM) Krysten Schuler, a wildlife ecologist from the USGS National Wildlife Health Center, says that "Our opinion is that mortality and health risks are low for all groups based on
available literature." By "all groups" she means humans, ungulates, and wolves alike. She also says, "It is unlikely this parasite has a substantial impact on wildlife populations." So much for this "looming threat."
By CaptainSakonna on Sun, June 05, 2011 at 7:34 pm
Hello CaptainSakonna, do you know if the information you gave about 2010 comments and others posted on his site have been brought to the court's attention…and do you have physical copies of them?
Just wanted to share with everyone a quote that comes to mind from a website that offers help for computer trouble: "Never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level, and then beat you with experience"
The wolf is not the core of the problem, but he is the sacrificial lamb.
By Wolf's Lament on Sun, June 05, 2011 at 5:34 pm
Toby, there's nothing criminal about wolves killing elk and there never will be. Only in your psychotic and delusional mind I suppose. A sane person would understand and accept the fact that wolves eat elk. I think you just can't get over the fact that wolves were successfully reintroduced and their reintroduction will be remembered as one of the greatest wildlife reintroductions ever. Cry cry some more Toby. Cry that the wolves are back and are here to stay. You can't even admit how much of an extremist you truly are. That right there should tell you your behavior isn't normal. Seek some professional help.
By Robert on Sun, June 05, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Here are a couple of quotes from comments that Toby left over on NewWest.net:
"So…is this the mythical balance you wolf lovers seek? If it is, then I say forget hunting wolves…and start eradicating wolves - using any method possible."
"Forgot to throw in…on the evening news tonight (Missoula, MT)...two more wolves found dead here.
Whoever did it…good shootin'...reload and get back out there. Lots of targets of opportunities."
These comments were made in November 2010, when wolves in MT were under the protection of the ESA—so the latter comment demonstrates that Toby advocates illegal poaching. I don't think comments on New West are removable, so he cannot hide the evidence this time; at any rate, the comments were still there when I checked this afternoon. Read them for yourself at http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/hunting_and_predators_does_it_work/C564/L564/
By CaptainSakonna on Sun, June 05, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Mostly, I am just tickled that I can be that burr under the saddle of you hard-core wolf loving greenie environmentalists. Your kind has done more to destroy wildlife in this country than any other factor that has negatively impacted wildlife populations. I would bet that not one of you who openly share your opinions and erroneous facts here on this page have EVER supported a true wilflife conservation project. Try as you may, donating to the likes of Defenders of Wildlife or the Sierra Club does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for wildlife…it just keeps the fat cats at the top of these organizations, well, FAT. As for being bad mouthed on ol' Rauph Maughan's site…I take that as a compliment. Ol' Ralphie is as lame as they come…all opinion and no action. Also one of you (Robert I believe) made refrerence to the fact that the Echinococcus tapeworm has been here for years…and he's right…but a different strain than that carried and spread by wolves. There's a 5-year old girl who lives down the street from me that knows more about wolves than the vast majority of you posting here. Let's please keep this going, it is a great source of pro-wolf misinformation that I can quote, plus I like to come here once or twice a day and get a good chuckle. Wolf's Lament, if there were any laws in regard to "encourage malicious behavior, or indoctrinate others into the premeditated murder of our wildlife", most of you pro-wolfers would already be behind bars, along with Ed Bangs, Jamie Rappaport Clark, and Doug Smith. There's something very, very criminal about allowing wolves to kill upwards of 500,000 elk, moose, deer and other big game animals EACH AND EVERY YEAR.
By Toby Bridges on Sun, June 05, 2011 at 11:10 am
Toby, the hydatid tapeworm has been in Utah, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc for years and years. Very few people have been infected with it and actually died from it. Look up William Foreyt and Robert Rausch. You will not wipe wolves out in Montana like you so badly want. Wolves are back and are here to stay and elk are on there menu. There is no need to hyde your extreme views. Everyone on here already knows about you and your extreme views, so there's really no need to hide your true feelings about wolves.
By Robert on Sun, June 05, 2011 at 9:40 am
Further discrediting Toby Bridges——http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2010/12/14/toby-bridges-again-busy-talking-about-wolf-poisoning-lord-knows-what-other-animals/
By Kristi Lloyd on Sat, June 04, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Seems some hunters are not fans of Toby's either, but for a different reason. And, as usual, it was only a matter of time before he used Will Graves Wolves in Russia…Val Geist coming up next, if not already. His two favorite sources, out of maybe five. There are 1000's of published researched and documented and proven studies of the Yellowstone Ecosystem yet he and his ilk reject them. He has done a very good job of proving the point of this article though. Oh and he also told me not so long ago that it was too bad there was no xylitol in my Kool-Aid. Which really doesn't make sense since xylitol is toxic to canines. Nice lashing out, Toby.
By Kristi Lloyd on Sat, June 04, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Rob, Lynne, Marc, anyone…the information that was provided about "wolf bingo" and any others of relevance, has it been brought to the attention of the courts? To either encourage malicious behavior, or indoctrinate others into the premeditated murder of our wildlife could be considered a crime…no? Does anyone know the law on this topic?
Environmentalists have been accused of tying up court resources with petty meanderings, which I will not even get into for the purpose of this comment. Yet, there is nothing petty about the seriousness of this unethical issue, and that is exactly what the our democratic process is about ensuring that justice is enacted and common decency is upheld.
The Amish have a custom of publicly chastising members of their order by shunning them. I'm not Amish, see the wisdom in this concept , and fully embrace it. I do not fear Mr. Bridges, yet I refuse to be entangled in any parasitic relationship or banter. I will no longer be recognizing his comments, rabble rousing or hapless talent to spread hysteria. This voracious need to feed off of our contention is what spurs him onward.
If it is within legal parameters to do so, it is time to shut down his site, press criminal charges and see that he is legally prosecuted to the highest extent of the law. This is where I will devote my energies—as well as tackling any other venues of unethical hunting practices—not listening to Mr. Bridges rhetorical diatribe, or honoring his guff with a response.
The voices of wolf advocates have been stifled, ignored and denied. Yet this article has reinvigorated our hope and empowered us. We no longer need to react, grovel or cower, and are not the ones who must hide behind lies while wielding bellicose threats. Just as anyone who will read Cry Wolf, we know the truth and don't need to continuously defend it. This is a ploy, the ghost in the machine, an insidious polynomial to keep us distracted. I am finished with all mind games, no more marching to the cadence of unconscionable alien beings. May the farce be with them.
It's now dawn and the sun is rising…it's a new day, and there is much to do. As Nabeki says…for the wolves, for the wild ones.
Thank you again for your conscience and valor, Bill Gibson, Marc Cooke and anyone else who helped to bring the wolf's story to life. I applaud your efforts. You are truly a credit to your professions. Blessings.
By Wolf's Lament on Sat, June 04, 2011 at 4:34 pm
Have any of you ever been out to Marc Cooke's "spread" in the Bitterroot Valley? At a MT Environmental Quality Committee meeting at the State Capitol early last year, Marc was one of 3 or 4 who testified in favor of having wolves (about 25 testified against having wolves), and I remember his comment clearly…"I like woves and want more on my ranch!" Well, it turns out, Marc's ranch is a pretty darn barren 19 acres. So, Marc, what's the wolf count up to now on "your ranch". As minor as the lie was, calling his property a "ranch", is still pretty indicative of the continuous lies, deceit and outright theft associated with the Northern Rockies Wolf Recovery Project. Actually Marc, if you remember that day outside the courthouse, you were the one to step amongst the sportsmen protesting there that day…snapping thier photos. I just wanted everyone to know who you were…and that you wanted more wolves on your "ranch". And, for the record, here in western Montana, the 2009 elk harvest was down 45% from the previous 5-year average…and last year (2010) it was down about 8 or 9% from 2010. Hunters suspect that it was down even more and that MT FWP simply did some fudging with the numbers. Also, for the record, I have never told anyone to use Xylitol…I just quoted some facts about the stuff from several journals of veterinary medicene. Now it seems that a native lichen has been identified that is just as deadly, and is probably what the native Americans used to keep wolf populations at controllable low levels centuries before there were any whites here at all. Took me about 15 minutes to find some last week.
By Toby Bridges on Sat, June 04, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Also, Toby, TPE1 was the one saying that there was a practical way to keep pets tapeworm-free—us wolf advocates haven't been saying it, at least, not in this thread. It's interesting that you're now contradicting each other. My point was that people's pets probably had the tapeworms and were spreading them before the wolves ever came around, and no one was shaking in his boots about it.
By CaptainSakonna on Sat, June 04, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Whatever, Toby. I live right here in Montana's Gallatin Valley. And for those that DON'T live here, I think that not having a personal stake in the situation might help make them more objective—don't you think? When two groups have a conflict over some resource and they want a moderator to help them solve it, they try to bring in someone from outside, who doesn't stand to gain from the situation one way or another. We need such moderators to stand between the hunters/ranchers and the wolves—especially since the wolves have no way to speak in their own defense.
By CaptainSakonna on Sat, June 04, 2011 at 11:45 am
Seems the moderators of this site are having a hard time keeping up with what's being posted. Perhaps they are a bit more inundated with the truth than those who have pre-conceived ideas of how wolves fit into the real natural world. First thing tomorrow morning, all of you need to run out and burn your copy of Farley Mowat's "Never Cry Wolf". It's all a lie. That is now a fact.
By Toby Bridges on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 10:11 pm
Toby, I love you too….truly I do. You do remember what love is, don't you? It's that sense of caring about others more than yourself. As for personal attacks, I am not of your ilk and would never stoop so low as to threaten anyone, and you have proven many times over,that is your job. I think Mr. Gibson's article says it all,and says it very well, and these facts speak for themselves. Of course I am for the wolf,I am for many things. Especially standing up to the stranglehold of persecution and injustice that has been so cleverly orchestrated, but you are only for spreading lies and innuendos.
If my words cause you agitation, there may still be a wisp of conscience lingering somewhere inside your troubled mind, and perhaps there is hope for you yet. To continue anything that would even remotely resemble an argument with you, would certainly be playing right into your hand…and I simply refuse to give you that power over me, or nurture any illusion of satisfaction. I can only wonder what kind of insatiable void you are trying to fill. I don't hate you, if fact, I feel so very sorry for you.
As for showing weakness: "The demons of the Devil don't use your weak weaknesses against you, they use your strong ones. If you're rational and logical, they argue their case rationally and logically. If you're loyal and faithful, they turn those against you. If you're passionate and emotional, they make you passionate and emotional about your worst fears. Your weak weaknesses are no use to them…. They find the strongest weaknesses you didn't know were yours and use those against you." — Aidan Chambers
Maybe you should trade in your violin for a guitar. Blessings my friend…you are in dire need.
By Wolf's Lament on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Everyone that is engaged with the wolf issue here in the Rockies knows of Toby Bridges. His attempt to appear a reasonable….middle of the road hunting advocate is quite different from the last time I saw him & Scott Rockholm. I was attempting to enter the federal court house in Missoula, Montana for a wolf hearing in front of Judge Donald Molloy. Toby, Scott and his like minded gang became very loud and belligerent towards me. This is a time tested, successful strategy to intimidate any wolf advocate that wishes to express an opposite opinion. More then once I have read material by Bridges that he has served his country in the military. However, he thinks nothing of trying to silence your right as an American with his "Pushy ways."
One of the few accurate statements he has ever published here or on Lobowatch was how to use artificial sweetener to kill wolves, coyotes and the family pet should your dog have the misfortune of coming across a tainted gut pile while you are out walking the family pet. The truth is there are more elk in Montana (150.000) now then when wolves were reintroduced in the 1995. The truth is because of hunting group pressure applied on Montana Fish Wild & Parks to increase success hunt quota's some areas were over hunted. The truth is that habitat for ungulate and other wildlife is being stressed and fragmented. The truth is because of the wolves we are seeing a recovery to riparian and other areas from over grazing. The truth is antelope young survival rates are increasing. The truth is beaver are recovering which help control the release of precious snowpack run off which is critical in the Rockies and elsewhere. The truth is song birds and other wildlife are on the increase. The truth is success rates for hunting elk have stayed steady at 22 percent in Montana. The truth is hunters will now have to change their hunting strategy to compensate for the ungulate behavior change to survive in the presences of wolves. The truth is approximately 100 cattle were killed by wolves in Montana last year. The truth is there are between 2.5 and 3 million cattle in Montana. Last but not least. The truth is for a healthy, viable, best available science based decision we will need more then 150 wolves in Montana.
Marc Cooke Co Pres.West
National Wolfwatcher Coalition (NWC)
Facebook: Wolfwatcher
Web: Wolfwatcher.org
By Marc Cooke on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 8:59 pm
William said…"Officially, no one in Idaho has gotten gotten the tapeworm granulosis." THINK AGAIN…several cases have now been reported.
By Toby Bridges on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 6:07 pm
I would like to personally thank all of you pro wolfers commenting here…your remarks truly show how out of touch you are with the issue. My guess is, all of you live somewhere where there are no wolves…especially you ol' salty Captain. And then there's sweet little Sandyd…who now lives in Ohio…and probably has since well before the illegal introduction of a non-native (and certainly non-endangered) subspecies of Canadian wolf into the Northern Rockies. You are all out of touch with reality…out of touch with the threat wolves pose all living things in this region of the country. And yes, Echinococcus granulosus is a looming threat…that grows with ever growing wolf numbers. All of you need to read Will Graves' book "Wolves in Russia - Anxiety Through the Ages", then if you have at least two working brain cells you'll know exactly what lies ahead unless we control wolf numbers now. The world has had to deal with wolves for ages, and that is exactly why they were nearly eliminated here during the late 1800s-early 1900s.
For those who say people have not been attacked by wolves in North America, all I can say is you are simply too lazy to do your own homework. For those who claim that pets can be innoculated against E. granulosus tapeworms, all I can say is that you have not spoken to a Doctor of Veterenarian Medicene (I have, with several), and they cannot. Simply put, those here who acclaim the wolf a beneficial sanitarian of nature, capable of balancing wildlife populations are totally ignorant about wolves. Through the ages, wolves have established just what they are, and try as hard as you may, you cannot write a new script for them. P.S. - Wolves cannot read…they will continue to be wolves.
By Toby Bridges on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 6:02 pm
Ok ill leave a comment..I was born and raised in Western Montana, I now live in Ohio and i have always supported the wolves and always will, Everyone needs to count states wide Idaho Montana Wyoming along the sides of roads year around how many Elk and Deer have been killed vehicles, Get a head count on that, Then everyone needs to look at the forests that are being dramatically destroyed, which shelter the deer elk and other animals. That also will take a toll on the animals on top of disease, it is NOT the wolves doing it all Think long and hard on this and look at all other aspects before pointing ALL the BLAME on OUR wolves!
By Sandyd Robinson on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 3:54 pm
TEP1: Hydatid worms mature in about six weeks, so if you're only treating your dogs and cats once every eight weeks, that may not be enough.
My parents kept a garden for years when I was growing up, and it produced a sizable proportion of the vegetables we ate. The only things they killed to keep it from getting raided were slugs. We definitely had mice around, but never had big issues with them in the garden. Sometimes the birds would come and pluck up seedlings, but we solved that non-lethally, by covering the plants with netting or branches until they were bigger. We also had chickens when I was growing up, and in all the years we had them, only lost one to a predator (and we're not even sure of that—we were letting them wander loose in the woods at the time, and that particular hen just didn't come home one day). We had raccoons, coyotes, and hawks in the area, but inside their covered run, or having supervised "grazing" time in the back yard, the chickens were quite safe.
What were all those Bible verses about, and what do they have to do with the Constitution or anything else in this thread? I agree, Americans are very divided and polarized in our politics, and this has weakened the country; but unless you have some magical recipe for making everyone agree on major issues, I don't see what can be done about it. If you're implying that America ought to be turned into a theocracy, good luck with that. I do not use the NIV Bible, and I am not going to get into version wars with you. This thread is about wolves, not the finer points of Christian practice.
By CaptainSakonna on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 2:10 pm
"You people have no idea the damage you have supported which puts other people into harms way.
Wolves belong in wilderness, not my pasture, driveway, barnyard, corral, chicken coop, or front yard.
There is no need to exaggerate Greg. You know very well you don't have wolves in your driveway. I supported wolf reintroduction as did thousands of others and I don't feel guilty about it. The "damage" you are talking about is reduced elk numbers I take it. Not one person has been attacked or killed by wolves in Idaho since wolf reintroduction begin 15-16 years ago and not one person has been infected with the hydatid tapeworm because of wolves. Hydatid tapeworm has always been in Idaho whether you refuse to admit this or not. What you don't want to accept is that disease is a natural part of nature and has always been. There are always risks in nature. Nature is not this thing where you have friendly animals that are diseased free. I supported wolf reintroduction and always will.
By Robert on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 2:05 pm
Diseases are apart of nature and have always been. leave it to people like truth to blame this on wolves. There is no way you can blame wolves for anyone getting the hydatid tapeworm. If people don't have any common sense, they have no one but themselves to blame. Officially, no one in Idaho has gotten gotten the tapeworm granulosis.
By William on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 1:58 pm
The Dreaded Confirmation of Hydatid Disease in a Human in Northern Rocky Mountains Region
Second Known Case of Hytadid Disease in Humans in Northern Rocky Mountain Region
More cases are being documented at this time, once the irrefutable documentation has been verified those will be posted as well.
By Truth-public enemy #1 on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 1:32 pm
What you have said about cats and dogs having the Hydatid worm is false, of course they could carry it, unless of course the pet owners properly maintain the health of their pets, which the majority in my area do. I take care of my dogs and cats every two months, as well as my horses.
People should pay attention to the extra precautions recommended by scientists concerning all out doors activities in this new age of over populated predators.
You people have no idea the damage you have supported which puts other people into harms way.
Wolves belong in wilderness, not my pasture, driveway, barnyard, corral, chicken coop, or front yard.
By Truth-public enemy #1 on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 1:26 pm
" I do not kill insects or other "pests" that enter my house, and I do not impose my own favoritism on wildlife by, for instance, setting traps for other creatures in order to protect birds."
Neither do I, I set the traps because the greens are for me, not the mice and voles who would leave me nothing. My bird feeders and lush habitat are sufficient for the birds. No sense trapping a bird by mistake, and of course my owl buddy loves the frozen mice treats.
" Once I live in a place where I can have a garden and some chickens, I hope to grow as much of my own food as possible "
You'd better learn to kill then, or you won't eat any of it.
As far as your justifying Constitutional unlawfulness, whatever.
Deuteronomy 4:2 Ye shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the Commandments of the Lord your God which I COMMAND you.
11:1 Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep His charge, and His Statutes, and His Judgments, and His Commandments, always.
12:8 Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes.
12:32 What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.
. Allowing the forming of political parties and demon-crazy (democracy) to divide, weaken, conquer and ruin the people (Deuteronomy 5:32, 17:20; Matthew 12:25).
Deuteronomy 5:32 Ye shall observe to do therefore as the Lord your God hath commanded you: ye shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
17:20 That his (the Sovereign's) heart be NOT lifted up ABOVE his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the Commandment, [to] the right hand, or [to] the left…
Matthew 12:25 And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:
Do happen to know how many scriptures are not in the NIV ?
Just wondering.
By Truth-public enemy #1 on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 12:55 pm
They are trying to frighten people. Look up what Dr. William Foreyt, Dr. Robert Rausch, etc have to say about the hydatid tapeworm. A little fact for you Toby, not one person has been infected with the hydatid tapeworm since wolves were reintroduced 16 years ago. The people most vulnerable to this tapeworm are the wolf biologists themselves and not one wolf biologist to date has ever gotten the hydatid tapeworm. Even if someone did get it, there is no way you could prove it was because of wolves since the hydatid tapeworm has always been in idaho and Montana even though there were few wolves before wolf reintroduction. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc all have the hydatid tapeworm and not one person has been infected or killed by it and all of these 3 states have huge wolf populations. Yes Toby, wolves kill plenty of elk and deer. This is what they are supposed to do. This is how nature works.
By Rob on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 12:39 pm
@Toby: The study I cited was a meta-study, compiled by Christopher Collins and Roland Kays of the New York State Museum in Albany. Not DoW, not HSUS. And many of the component studies they used to assemble this data weren't even setting out to determine what killed the most animals; rather, they were studies of the behavior, movement, etc. of the species in question, and just happened to include the cause of death of the collared/tagged animals in their observations. So stop trying to dismiss science just because you find it inconvenient. And where is the proof for YOUR numbers? From which published, peer-reviewed study did you take those? Don't pretend to me that self-serving hunter orgs, which seek to "conserve" (read: artificially inflate, if necessary) game populations so that there will be more to hunt, are any better at putting out unbiased data than orgs like DoW.
By CaptainSakonna on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 12:24 pm
@Toby: Did you know that domestic dogs and cats carry the dreaded hydatid tapeworm as well? If someone in the NRM comes down with hydatid disease, I would look no further than the closest backyard dog or cat that hasn't been properly de-wormed. Dogs can acquire the worm by eating rodent carcasses or leftover organs from livestock and game carcasses. They can then spread the tapeworm eggs into the grass and water, just as wild canids can. Dogs and coyotes can carry both E. granulosis and E. multilocularis, while cats and foxes can carry E. multilocularis. So don't try to tell me that the landscape of MT, ID, and WY wasn't already contaminated with these eggs long before the wolves got here.
@TPE1: If you think the ESA is unconstitutional, campaign to have it repealed or bring a challenge against it in the courts. Those are appropriate responses to unconstitutional legislation. Undermining the Constitution even further, by passing bills which, rather than actually changing the law, interfere with court decisions and declare themselves free from judicial review, is NOT an appropriate response. This rider strikes at the very foundation of our government by violating the separation of powers between different branches.
By CaptainSakonna on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 11:50 am
Not to worry Cap…you pro-wolfers are like peas in a pod. Argue with one, you go nose to nose with you all. Cap'n, me thinksts you like to make up numbers. That data you spewed forth is pure hogwash…and probably a figment of your imagination. With your math and calculations, we would have run out of wildlife decades ago. My guess is you're relying on some of the malarkey put out by psuedo "conservation" groups, like the lame Defenders of Wildlife…or worse yet, the Humane Society of the United States. Perhaps you need to check with some real "conservation" organizations…people who actually spend time working in the field to insure an abundance of wildlife (instead of only in a courtroom to insure a fat bank account). The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation would be a good source…Whitetails Unlimited would be another…and the Mule Deer Foundation still another. These are the groups and their sportsman based members are the people who have financed real wildlife conservation in the U.S. - not a bunch of tree hugging greenie enviromental types who have not spent one cent on wildlife conservation. Hey Cappin ol' man, here are some numbers for you to crunch…there are in reality about 10,000 wolves in the Upper Midwest, Northern Rockies, and a few other places in the U.S. Typically, each wolf will kill 20 to 30 big game animals annually for food…and about the same just for the pure hell of it, for sport…eating nothing. Now, you do the math. That means on the average each wolf accounts for the killing of 50 animals EACH AND EVERY YEAR. That means we are losing, combined, right at 500,000 elk, deer, moose, bighorn sheep, and other big game animals in the Lower 48 to wolves ANNUALLY.
By Toby Bridges on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 11:27 am
I would like to say that WOLVES have known never hurt nor kill human….in U.S.A. ever…. now this wolves are fear of human more than you of them! Wolves have known how to take care of lands and wildlife for yrs long before we came and they were in great care of all wildlife in the "BALANCE" that help the lands and wildlife in better healthier than anyone putting together! Toby, you have not even learned nothing the whole story of wolves' way nor ever study thru college neither do with scenics… I think you need travel with wolves and get better understand them and while with them you see they will not kill you at all unless if you are near their kills you will then know if they can kill you or just growl at you but simple still fear of you… cuz they are very shy!!! No way that they could have kill horses!!! Prove me wrong if you have any proof if they did it or could be lion??? I DO NOT DBOUT IT! I do not believe you at all…
Toby, get your mind out of wolves and leave them alone! You are so full of obsessed and hateful!!! YOU are pure evil than anyone I know of! I am not happy for the way your behave like that!! I am one of them and I am wolf lover and always have! I am animal lovers!!!! YOU are more full of hateful of ALL WILDLIFE! Yes that is what you are and who you are! I hope one day you will be in the hell!
Sheesh I cannot stand that names when typing like that! Brrr
By member of Unknown-Facebook on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 10:47 am
Sorry, TPE1 said that about drivers killing more than hunters. I'm getting you people mixed up now. Blargh.
By CaptainSakonna on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 10:31 am
"Driving kills more wild life than hunting does." Could we get some stats on that, Toby? According to a recent study from the journal Animal Conservation:
"Hunters killed 35% of all the large and medium sized animals that died in the sample, with 30% dying after being legally killed by hunters and another 5% shot or trapped illegally by poachers.
Vehicle collisions accounted for another 9% with other human causes accounting for a further 7% . . ."
Data for this study was taken from "69 populations of large and medium sized North American mammal across 27 species." So there you have it; going by this data, legal hunting kills more large and medium sized mammals than all other human causes combined. And another thing: when an animal dies in a vehicular collision, that's an ACCIDENT. Hunting is deliberate, premeditated killing. Pedestrians die in car accidents sometimes, but that doesn't mean that we might as well make shooting people legal. If I saw someone purposely flatten a wolf with his/her car, I would condemn that behavior as loudly as I condemn wolf hunting.
As for your other comments: I do not drink alcohol, use drugs, or smoke. For that matter, I consume very few luxuries; I don't buy candy, chocolate, or cosmetics. I do not kill insects or other "pests" that enter my house, and I do not impose my own favoritism on wildlife by, for instance, setting traps for other creatures in order to protect birds. Once I live in a place where I can have a garden and some chickens, I hope to grow as much of my own food as possible, so that I can stop supporting the agricultural death machine entirely. I am aware of the hideous "pest control" practiced by agriculture, but that doesn't mean I approve. For that matter, getting rid of Wildlife Services, a government agency which many wolf and coyote advocates abhor, would also save a whole lot of starlings (for example) from government-funded extermination.
By CaptainSakonna on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 10:29 am
Not only is Toby Bridges a psychopath with mental problems, he's also a liar that back peddles because he doesn't want others to see him as an extremist. Here is just more proof that psychopath Toby wants to wipe out wolves.
Toby Bridges Bingo…in light of Molloy denying real conservation groups from intervening in the case contesting Congress delisting wolves…perhaps it is time to begin organizing a "Wolf Out Day"...and see how many thousand hunters we can head out to get rid of wolves.
13 hours ago · 4 people
By Rob on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 10:26 am
Wolf's Lament…one thing is for certain, you are true to the Pro-Wolfer core. And, as always, when your side cannot support anything with fact, or science for that matter, you revert to personal attacks. I guess the threats come later. But, they will come from you or others like you, they always do. And I cherish them, they show your weakness…and the fact that you do not have the ammo to back anything you claim. The entire Northern Rockies Wolf Recovery Project has been nothig mroe than one great big pro-wolf lie…perpetuated by biased (and erroneous) articles by the likes of Bill Gibson.
By Toby Bridges on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 10:06 am
Toby, what I am most concerned about is the dis-ease that you carry, and the pus you spread.
And since you went to so much trouble to lay this egg… It's you that "can't handle the truth."
Oh please, you are NO Jack Nicholson, and Hollywood would chew you up and spit you out like the garbage you spew. Don't think that we all don't notice how you feel the need to keep mentioning your site, what are you trying to prove, that you deleted any information that would incriminate you.
The only reason you are here is to continue your "rantra" stoking the fires of your ego, and the "wolf hysteria" that you thrive on. But unlike your unwitting victims, you have a voice and the opportunity to use it.
Like Nickolson's character Col. Nathan R. Jessep, you are delusional, arrogant, and will do anything to justify your cause. Linda is correct, you will eradicate anything that is inconvenient, be it a wolf, anyone who disagrees with you, or information on your site that shows you for the true beast that you really are.
But also remember, my poor misguided friend, justice prevailed in "A Few Good Men," Lt. Kaffee brought Jessup down, and we have the facts that will ensure your fate mirrors his.
So go ahead, keep playing that same old worn out song, but your violin is still out of tune.
By Wolf's Lament on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 7:54 am
How much wild life dies annually due to agricultural, people farm, so you can have those packages of food you buy, people provide a choice for you at the produce section. How much wild life is killed off during the produce growing season so you anti hunters can eat???
I grow my own produce, and I gather my own meat. In my garden last year, I killed over 2 hundred voles, and 100 mice. I set my traps after dark and before light to protect birds, I'm fond of birds, and have several home made bird houses around here. Wild life dies so you can eat, all of you.
Just look how much wild life dies so people can smoke cigarettes- http://ipm.ncsu.edu/wildlife/tobacco_wildlife.html I wonder how much wild life dies so people can smoke dope or snort coke.
How much wild life dies so you can have a beer or harder alcoholic beverage ?
How much wild life dies due to the process of plants to medicine so you can have your pharmaceuticals?? How much wild life dies so you can have your wars, 51% of your tax supports war.
How much wild life do drivers kill, are you people drivers ?? Driving kills more wild life than hunting does. Have a nice drive folks.
I'm going hunting !
Cheers !
By Truth-public enemy #1 on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 7:01 am
Like I said earlier Kristi…to bring wolf numbers down to the level where other wildlife can prosper…will take elimination of at least 70-percent of existing wolves. You tree huggers are actually the worst enemy wolves have ever had. By pushing for extreme wolf population levels, you and others like you have literally killed major elk herds in western Motnana and northern Idaho. That means you have killed the wolf's primary food supply. Herds in this region are getting to the point where they cannot support the burgeoning packs…and many wolves will now starve…thanks to you and those like you. Likewise, these wolves will now turn on each other, and kill their own kind to eliminate competition. Perhaps that is what the future holds for you tree huggers as well.
By Toby Bridges on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 6:41 am
AZ…So, you think the elk herds are healthier thanks to the wolf? Here's something you did not touch on, and neither did Bill Gibson. Before the nonindigenous Canadian wolves were dumped into the Greater Yellowstone Area, the average age of elk there was an extremely healthy 4 to 5 years of age. Now, tahnks to the yearly loss of 90+ percent of the calf crop to wolves, elk there are no averaging 9 to 10 years of age. Do you think that is healthy? If you do, you don't know enough about elk to comment on them. Truth is, this herd is becoming so geriatric that it is now at an age where reproduction become impossible. and the same thin has been happening with the Lolo herds…the West-Fork Bitterroot herds…the Gallatin herds…and most other herds in western Montana and in Idaho. There is also now a high percentage of elk existing with large puss-filled hydatid cysts on their lungs, reducing the air capacity of the lungs and their ability to process air. Do you have any idea how they contracted that condition? Well, it's from the eggs of the Echnococcus granulosus tapeworm - which more tha 60-percent of all of those non-native wolves in the Northern Rockies are infested with. and they spread the eggs of those tapeworms far and wide every time they leave a pile of scat…and those eggs are ingested by the elk when they graze, or they are sucked in when an elk breathes. Likewise, humans can contract hydatid disease from these eggs - and the landscape of MT, ID and WY is now contaminated by billions of E. granulosus eggs…which can survive for months in the harshest weather conditions. Elk, moose, deer, bighorn sheep are all being infected by disease carrying wolves. But, I wouldn't expect Lynne Stone, Kristi Lloyd, Linda Camac or Nabeki, and especially Bill Gibson to know anything about that. Or, at least taint their whopper of a wolf story by sharing any negativity about wolves.
By Toby Bridges on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 6:31 am
'nuff said via Facebook regarding tree huggers and wolves
last Friday
13 people like this.
Toby Bridges And use a non-expanding Full Metal Jacket bullet…who knows they might be hugging a wolf…and you'd get two worthless s.o.b.'s with one shot.
May 27 at 9:37pm · 3 people
By Kristi Lloyd on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 6:03 am
"Some wolf advocates in the Wood River Valley have been stalked and had the locations of their homes, work place, childrens' names and schools put onto anti-wolf sites which encourage violence. The law has been informed. "—-Lynne Stone - June 02, 2011
Anybody that wanted to gather information on these people can do so because it is all public information.
Search Idaho statewide databases and Idaho Public Records, county records, criminal records, business records, court records, marriage records, inmates, jail records, births, deaths, divorce records, property, sex offenders, and other online government databases - all organized for you by location or type of record. It's easy, it's legal, it's done everyday. All information of contractual citizen subjects is public information. Stalking not necessary.
Do it yourself, hire a private investigator, or attorney. Happens everyday.
Cheers ! Oh and lest we forget ;
On June 1, 2011 at 10:20 am Gretchen Smith said
" I am new to this website (howling for justice) and have a question. There is a list of wolf-killers by name on one of the pages. Have these people been contacted and emailed about what they are doing? I found some horribly upsetting photos on another site showing some of the people listed posing with their dead wolves in "boasting" pictures. No creature, let alone wolves, should be treated with such disrespect as these photos show. I have located some of the people in the photos and have been emailing them, all within the law and an attorney's approval, of course. These people should know they are being seen doing these cruel, cruel acts, don't you think?
On June 1, 2011 at 12:03 pm Nabeki said:
Gretchen….I posted the names after the Montana hunts were over. As much as you'd like to write to anyone on that list, I don't recommend it. It's there for purely informational purposes, because it is public record.
Yeah, they posted this public information on line, and many of these people have been harassed because of it. They have children also.
By Truth-public enemy #1 on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 5:53 am
Gee, glad you finally noticed unconstitutional when you see it.
"This legislation which means doom for wolves, has destroyed The ESA, and violates The Constitution is the last straw for me."
I know for a fact the Congress has not debated the Measures to become bills and then law for several decades, every bill or measure brought before the House must first be debated as to its constitutionality, the oath taken by senators and members of the House expressly implies that they will so debate each and every measure. This is the law !
Article VI, Section 2; " This Constitution and the laws of the United States shall be made in pursuance thereof." In "pursuance thereof " means that the proposed bill must be expressed or expressly implied in the Constitution.
Nowhere in the Constitution is found any provision, nor is it expressly implied, for an "Endangered Species Act." There is no such provision in the Constitution, and another thing, the Bill was not debated, nor offered for amendment. Instead it was rammed through the House and Senate while the American public was distracted by other issues.
The ESA was not properly debated, along with many other bills in our unconstitutional American history, and the Congressional Globes, Annals and Records of Congress proves it hands down. Several scholars have collected the data for over a century, because this bad practice of passing unconstitutional laws takes us back to Civil War times.
Article VI. Section 3 says that all senators and officers of the United States take and oath to uphold and support the Constitution of the United States. Part of this oath in Article 2 is that all senators and congressman will debate all proposed bills or legislation as to their constitutionality; that is, they must make sure that all proposed measures are "in pursuance thereof ", Of the Constitution. It is therefore crystal clear that the ESA prior to being announced law, and the history of the Act itself involving treaties with foreign nations is in violation of Constitutional Authority, is definitely not in pursuance thereof. And certainly is null and void and must be thrown to the ground.
We need to either take the ESA down forever, or correct it constitutionally, because right now it places animals above men and their property, we need to remove forced UN-Constitutional federal healthcare insurance, the UN-constitutional unPatriotic Act which punishs Americans rather than protects us.
Pelitiah Webster's work, "The Political Union of the United States of America says that all powers in the U.S. Constitution are expressed or expressly implied. There is no such thing as making laws (ESA) without strictly enforcing this requirement. For the Legislators to bring up a bill or a measure, they would first have to search the Constitution for a grant in power for the proposed measure. The power sought would have to be an expressed power or be expressly implied. If no such power is found then the bill (ESA) cannot be empowered and falls to the ground. That also includes any foreign treaty, which must be in pursuance thereof the constitution of the United States in order to be lawful. The ESA is not lawful. The ESA is just one of thousands of bills enacted by Congress that are not lawful.
The constitution cannot be fragmented, but has to be considered as whole. Part of the Oath (Art. 2) taken by every member of the House and Senate expressly implies that they will fully debate all bills placed before them as to their constitutionality. We know for a fact our Congress rarely has time to read these measures-bills much less uphold their sworn oaths to debate them as to their constitutionality.
The ESA, the Patriot Act, the Health Care Act, Hate Crime Legislation, Gun Control Act of 1968, gun control period, Civil Rights, Funding U.N.- Constitutional legislation like our so-called dues to the United Nations, called membership dues, etc, etc.. is all very serious violation of the constitution. There are literally thousands of such unconstitutional " laws" on the books.
Are you cherry picking the Constitution Justin, for any part of it that might suit you ?
By Truth-public enemy #1 on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 5:51 am
Mr. Bridges is in denial about his comments regarding wolf torture, and he DOES erase them when confronted by the opposition - BUT they are already copied! Don't try to appear that you are NOT obsessed and hateful of wolves, Mr. Bridges….then that would make YOU the new proverbial sheep in wolf's clothing!
By Linda Camac on Fri, June 03, 2011 at 4:28 am
Greg - yes you could ask local law enforcement.
By Lynne Stone on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 10:57 pm
Once a man can see a tree, a wolf, or his fellow and value the other for what it , he, or she is, then his world will be very different. Kinship with nature is the key to this awareness. No man can look inward, however, when he is looking at the world through the sights on his gun, which is a world view as narrow and destructive as his egocentric perception and values. ~~ Michael W. Fox, The Soul of The Wolf
What do you see Mr. Bridges…if you see anything at all?
By Wolf's Lament on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 9:15 pm
100-150 wolves per state is a pittance. Think about how big Idaho and Montana are, and ask yourself how a mere 300 wolves can adequately play their ecological role in that much territory. And, as has been tirelessly repeated, this was agreed upon as the *minimum* number of wolves—not the *maximum.* Besides, I was just a kid back then, so if some sort of agreement was made, I wasn't a party to it, and I think it stinks. I'm of the opinion that it's rather arrogant to insist that there are "too many" or "too few" of anything in an un-managed ecosystem that has all of its component parts. You can try to hide behind conservationist ideals all you want, but if you start arbitrarily defining optimal numbers, you indicate that what you really care about is shaping the system in a way that supports your own consumption. A conservationist who values natural systems for their own sake, has no real basis for defining the right number of any animal, except for the number that falls out when the system is allowed to operate without ham-fisted management schemes. So there are only 4400 elk in North Yellowstone now—who's to say that isn't enough? Suppose there are 4000 wolves in the state—how do you decide that's too many? If your primary goal is to manage the ecosystem in a way that promotes elk hunting, admit it—don't try to pass off your complaints about elk number reductions as being conservation-minded.
Toby is cherry-picking his data and focusing on the worst areas, instead of looking at the big picture. But let's pretend that he's right, and uncontrolled wolves will eventually cause some reduction in the elk population statewide. Perhaps even a dramatic reduction. My response: DEAL with it. The ecosystem doesn't need all those elk, and neither do you, but the wolves do need them.
By CaptainSakonna on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 8:55 pm
Excellent article. Gibson clearly shows that the virulent attack on wolves is evidence of a culture war and has nothing to do with the facts about wolves or predator-prey ecology. Recent newspaper articles have reported that wolves kill a tiny fraction of livestock in Montana, while natural causes (harsh winters, etc.) kill many times more. Pro-wolf advocates, of which I'm one, have always been willing to develop reasonable management plans, which means allowing elk and wolf to co-exist without interference from humans and getting livestock off of public lands. We can't talk about numbers of wolves until these demands are met.
By Carole Beverly on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 8:50 pm
I don't know about everyone else but I am sick of these sociopath hunters who make up only 5% of the public, dictating wildlife policies over the rest of us and forcing their ideologies down our throats.
This legislation which means doom for wolves, has destroyed The ESA, and violates The Constitution is the last straw for me.
To anyone who is sick of hunters dictating wildlife policies over the rest of us, forcing their ideologies down our throats, and killing animals and turning them into macabre trophies like seriel killers and taking pictures and posing with the dead animal corpses before and after mutilating them while thumbing their noses at us, maybe you should consider supporting this organization along with the organizations that are fighting for the wolves http://www.all-creatures.org/cash/index.html
By Justin Forte on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 5:27 pm
This story starts out telling about threats to a wolf supporter. However I've seen more vile threats directed towards a wolf hunter (and his children) then has ever been leveled against a wolf supporter.
Then the author attempts to lump any wolf management supporters into the anti-wolf crowd, leaving out the folks in the middle. And I mean those who live in the middle of the wolf experiment. The wolves living around our rural communities have lost their fear of humans, that is why folks are afraid for their pets and children. It would be nice if the author would have interviewed people who have had their pets killed right in front of them, people who have been "prey tested" by wolves - on private property. Many of us were for wolf introduction when the goal was 150 wolves in the wilderness.
Maybe some of the 'anti' resentment stems from the moving of the goal posts and constant law suits on recovery. Having wolves in the wilderness is one thing - but wolves running around rural communities killing pets and wildlife on private property is too much for many to stomach.
We have seen an increase of secondary predators that benefit from wolf kills - foxes and ravens - and the loss of many small birds and animals. The foxes have wiped out the quail. Grouse and squirrels are seldom seen. The ravens prey on juvenile song birds.
A few wolves benefit the ecosystem - too many do not.
By TLM on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 4:33 pm
I support common sense. This article is a great foundation and encouragement for human beings to get some. It appears that a lot of common sense and virtue is fleeting from people. What sites like lobowatch, rockymountainelk, etc. never post is what an actual healthy elk population for the area of the rockies should be. Pre-1995 the elk population bloomed! Wait no, it exploded! Elk were in gardens, elk were hit in the roads, elk were ruining personal properties, during rut elk were aggressive to people. How come there are no posts about the people bull elk attacked and hurt?? Did everyone just forget about this? Maybe the men in black erased some memories with their flash sticks? How about we compare elk attacks vs wolf attacks on people? These "kill the wolves" sites never post this information…they never talk about elk aggression towards people and property yet, wolves will be eating babies this year!
Elk in the rockies were similar to the population booms in China. China has population issues. No different than what the rockies had with elk. So yes, when population decreased once the wolves were reintroduced, it suddenly seemed like this irreversible plague that was going to wipe out elk. WRONG!! The cut into population was decreasing the elk population to a healthier and more natural level. Reports done by scientific journals and scientists, not random "local bloggers", inside of the Yellowstone area and outside have shown and currently show and support that nature is balancing out regarding the elk and wolf ratio. Wolves declined in Yellowstone when the elk population decreased. Now elk are about at a stable population, no longer plummeting but rather evening out and staying constant. Wolves just hit what appears to be their constant population limit. Scientifical reports will over the next few years support this trend. Hopefully wolves will be around long enough to complete and prove this cycle.
How about we ask Toby about the stamina of the elk herds? How does health fare in the elk population now? A lot healthier these days i hear from locals and outfitters. A lot healthier i see for myself! And thank god…no thank the wolves… I for one can say that I do not want to feed my sons sick elk meat. If Toby would like to feed his wife and dependents that, then go for it buddy!
And what is that you say? Wolves target large healthy bull elk? Not from what i normally see with my own two eyes. Again this goes back with the common sense and what one learns in school about natural selection and survival of the fittest.
Either way again, great article and I support you. Im just so sorry that you actually get threats and sh*t emails/messages like that. It really shows you what kind of class is out in the world. If people are so readily to threaten your life because you simply support wolves imagine what they are capable of if you really upset them….I hope these same people are not your neighbors…If any of this is happening to you, the readers, i suggest you turn them in. A good place to start is by visiting the FBI website. You can find links there. Remember these sociopaths are the ones that end up in the news for fondling children, being arsonists, and killing people. They are psychologically ill and it may be your family and children next.If they can sickly sit there and type messages about how they descriptively killed animals or a pup,take pictures of such acts and send them, and describe how "invigorating" it was to them, then they are F'ed up in the head, plain and simple.
By AZ on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Toby Bridges does not care about wildlife. All he cares about is KILLING it. He advocates the poisoning of wildlife. He also threatens others who don't have the same anti-wildlife views as him and he also extorts people. This man is a psychopath. The fact is if nutjobs like him were running the show, you'd see little to no natural predators on the landscape. All people like Toby care about is having deer and elk to shoot. This nutjob is no friend of wildlife. This man is not a conservationist in any shape or form of the word.
By Rob on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Mr. Bridges needs to go back to Hades and sit on his pitchfork. Nabeki beat me to it when she said said, the truth hurts, and Toby you have no one to blame but yourself. Maybe it would be good to be certain that ALl sponsors know of his avocation to poison wildlife. This is the exact kind of behavior that gives "sportsman" a bad name. I know several hunters who would show him the error of his ways in a heart beat, and there are many others who would agree. Enough IS enough!
By Wolf's Lament on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 1:28 pm
SFW is pro-killing wildlife. Toby Bridges, you sicked and disgust me. Don't try to backpeddle because you know how extreme you are. You are for eradication of all wolves and many people know you advocate the poisoning of wolves. You are an extremely sick and demented person. Toby has threatened numerous pro-wildlifr advocates and people have gone to the police and reported his lunatic. Anyone can go to his website and see that he advocates poisoning of wildlife.
By Rob on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 1:24 pm
" Some wolf advocates in the Wood River Valley have been stalked and had the locations of their homes, work place, childrens' names and schools put onto anti-wolf sites which encourage violence. The law has been informed."
Prove it, what site ? And obviously I can go to the law offices and verify this correct ?
" Two local wolf opponents have been so brazen and stupid to leave multiple threatening messages on answering machines. The police finally put a stop to it."
Again, prove it, who were they, And obviously I can go to the law offices and verify this correct ?
" One well known local wolf opponent who blogs constantly all over the internet, I'm sure you know who I mean, stormed into the office of the local newspaper and threatened one of its reporters. "
This person would have been arrested and charged with battery and making the threat might be another charge, were they arrested ? Is there a report that can be read ? As far as me knowing who, hardly, I've never heard of this until now. And once again if you are implying I did this action, you're a liar, I've never gone after anyone, unless it was legal as in a lawsuit.
"Truth-public enemy #1 AKA Greg Farber, DO NOT LIE. You are not pro-wolf. You are anti-wolf and you have said numerous times you are for wolf eradication. You're also good buddies with Ron Gillette and Idaho for wildlife. "
You're lying, I've met Ron twice, in ten years. I am friends with the Rockholmes. I have never called for the eradication of any wild predators.
I'm pro wolf management.
By Truth-public enemy #1 on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 1:21 pm
As Jack Nicholson proclaimed in the movie, "A Few Good Men"...if you ar a pro wolfer, "You Can't Handle The Truth!" Lynne Stone…go to the article about Xylitol, and cut and past where I said anyone should pour Xylitol on anything to kill wolves. You cannot…because I did not sy that. Linda Camac…you do the same. What I advocate is wolf control. And that means getting wolf numbers down to the point where other wildlife can flourish. Lynne…you failed to answer my inquiry about checking that dead wolf in during the 2009 season. What ever came of that? Nabeki, you are right, this is a culture war. On one side we have the sportsmen of this country who have footed every cent of wildlife conservation in this country…and on the other side we have tofu chomping radical environmentalists who have never spent a dollar on insuring there will be abundant wildlife for future generations to enjoy who now want to control our wildlife resources. Well guys and gals, it's NOT going to happen.
By Toby Bridges on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 1:11 pm
This thread is about as good of an example of what is happening here in the Northern Rockies as one can get without actually living here.
Toby, you know what you've advocated on your website, stop spinning. I guess the truth hurts when someone finally tells it and exposes the vitriol and persecution directed at wolves.
I've lived here long enough to know that before wolves were an issue the target was conservationists. Anyone remember John Stokes radio show? Enough said.
This is NOT just about wolves, wolves are a convenient scapegoat, who are voiceless. It's a culture war.
By Nabeki on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 12:21 pm
To Toby Bridges - Do Sportsmen for Fish & some Wildlife support your obsession with removing predators by pouring xylitol on carcasses so that any animal or bird that feeds on it will die a terrible, lingering death by poisoning? Wonder if the main sponsors of SFW (Cabela's, Sportsmen's Warehouse) know this.
By Lynne Stone on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 12:20 pm
Toby Bridges is the POSTER BOY FOR THE REASONS NOT TO GIVE STATES 'MANAGEMENT OVER WOLVES"!! Mr Bridges, on his blogs and group pages, speaks with distain, and cruel plans for not only killing the wolves, but making them suffer first! He is not credible! He has psychopathic obsession with hatred for wolves; the Lex Luther of wolves, if you will. Blah! I need a shower, just typing his name!
By Linda Camac on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 11:52 am
Whenever the apex predator from any region is eliminated - it spells 'imbalance'. Nature has provided predators in all regions to keep the balance. Here is Pennsylvania, the last free wolf howled over 200 years ago. Since that time, despite extreme hunting by two-legged predators, we have a huge deer population which annually takes many lives from deer/car accidents.
The wolf should always have his iconic place as a free animal - if managed, the wolf should remain under FEDERAL protection ALWAYS; states cannot be entrusted with wolf 'management'. They have proven this in the past, and will again take the wolves to the brink, or over of extinction. That is what happened in Pennsylvania and many other states.
By Linda Camac on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 11:49 am
No Lynne, SFW is pro-wildlife…which means that high numbers of predators must be controlled. Hey, how did that illegal checking in of a dead wolf during the 2009 season work out for you?
By Toby Bridges on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 11:49 am
Rob - did you mean Sportsmen for Fish & [some] Wildlife? Just curious. SFW is a powerful anti-predator group.
By Lynne Stone on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 11:31 am
There you go hallucinating again Kristi. It is very apparent that you have not been to either my LOBO WATCH website…or my blogs…or for that matter, to any of my Facebook pages. No where do I call for wiping out the wolves. Your comments are about as factual as Bill Gibson's article, or for that matter Farley Mowat's work of fiction, "Never Cry Wolf". And you do not let telling the truth get in the way of telling a whopper wolf story. What I do fight for is to cull wolf numbers back closer to what the residents of the Northern Rockies agreed to - and that would mean eliminating at least 70- to 80-percent of the wolves that are here now. Likewise, the remaining wolves would have to be "managed" at that low level to insure that drastically dropping elk, moose and deer populations can rebound. And that is clearly what you and other pro-wolfers are against.
By Toby Bridges on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 11:05 am
Toby Bridges is now trying to clean up the "anti's" image…in your blog and website LoboWatch you DO call for the annihilation of wolves, not an acceptable number. You proposed that thousands of hunters go shoot wolves and since there would be so many of you, what could IDFG or MTWFP do about it? You advocate the use of poison (Xylitol), you agree with your group in posting photos of dead wolves in your blog and on Facebook. You insult and threaten those who disagree with you. You are a liar and an unethical hunter and have been exposed in this article. Bill Gibson did a great job in explaining the wolf situation in the west and should do more of them.
By Kristi Lloyd on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 9:24 am
Dear Mr. Bridges, suffice to speak, it is also glaringly apparent the political allegiance to hunting and cattle lobbies. So much for "spin" I will keep you in my prayers, your lack of humanity sickens me.
By Wolf's Lament on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 9:08 am
William Gibson's article is a bit more than slanted in favor of those who consider themselves "pro wolf". He totally failed to mention that I, and I know others he interviewed, did share that we are not totally "anti-wolf". Instaed, the majority of us are somewhat in the middle of the road on this one as well. Like many (probably most) here in the Northern Rockies, I like the idea of having a few wolves in the wild. "Our side", as he likes to depict, is for the most part not calling for total annihilation of the wolf here. What we are fighting for is a controlled number of wolves, at a level which will allow big game herds to once again prosper. The "pro wolf" movement has pushed that number way beyond that level. The residents here accepted the proposed recovery goal of 100 wolves, with 10 breeding pairs, in each of the three states (MT, ID & WY). And most would feel comfortable with with 150 in each state. What has been forced on us is "at least" 1,700 wolves in the Northern Rockies - far more than prescribed in the Northern Rockies Wolf Recovery Plan and the 1994 Environmental Impact Statement (300 total and 30 breeding pairs). I shared with him the wolf reproduction math that Dr. L. Dabvid Mech (arguably the leading wolf scientist of North America) presented in his declaration for the 2008 delsiting hearing, which would indicate a true wolf population NOW of around 3,000 to 4,000 in the Northern Rockies. But, that did not fit his agenda, so he fails to share that with his readers - on purpose. Gibson's article is far from being objective. His ties with the "pro wolf" movement are very evident, although he tries to hide that with not so subtle attempts to "objectively" present the hunters side of the story. He throws a lot of numbers and figures out, many of which are wrong - like the elk count for Yellowstone Naitonal Park. In reality, it was just the northern Yellowestone elk herd that numbered nearly 19,000 before the wolves (and yes, non-native wolves) were dumped into that wildlife rich ecosystem in 1995. This winter-spring count was around 4,400. And the primary cause has been wolf depredation, primarily of the spring calf crop. Before wolves, the survival rate of those calves was around 40 to 50 per 100 cows. Today, it is 5 to 7 percent at best. And many cow elk are now aborting fetuses due to the stress of constant wolf attacks. Bill Gibson should gather all the facts, and be ready to present them, before ever writing about wolves again. He missed the true picture of this wildlife disaster one heck of a lot more than he hit this nail on the head.
By Toby Bridges on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 7:51 am
Middle of the Road - the dead wolf in the photo is Morgan Creek Pack B160, illegally shot. His killer was never found.
"Truth" aka Greg Farber - you ask who has been hurt by speaking out for wolves? I was assaulted by Ron Gillett, who was arrested, handcuffed and hauled off to jail. He got off with a 6-person hung jury in Challis ID, Custer County - one of the most redneck, wolf hating places in the West.
Some wolf advocates in the Wood River Valley have been stalked and had the locations of their homes, work place, childrens' names and schools put onto anti-wolf sites which encourage violence. The law has been informed.
Two local wolf opponents have been so brazen and stupid to leave multiple threatening messages on answering machines. The police finally put a stop to it.
One well known local wolf opponent who blogs constantly all over the internet, I'm sure you know who I mean, stormed into the office of the local newspaper and threatened one of its reporters.
By Lynne Stone on Thu, June 02, 2011 at 5:47 am
Thank you so much, Bill Gibson and Earth Island Journal for doing such a fine job on this article. It dispells many myths of the wolf and shows the origin and far reaching roots of the (irrational) hate for them. I am glad to see the ignorance and hate exposed on a nationwide platform. I was not surprised at Toby Bridges's comments, many in the Rockies area echo his attitude—-though not all hunters do. Thank you again, great job!
By Kristi Lloyd on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 9:52 pm
@TPE1: Bla, bla, bla. Your ability to jump to conclusions amuses me. I never stated that I 1)thought that animals were equal to humans or had the same kind of souls as humans, or 2)believed in evolution. Yes, man is made in the image of God and animals are not. You went to a lot of effort to prove something to me that I already believe. However, the fact that animals are in some sense lower than us does not give us an excuse to treat them however we like. As C.S. Lewis said: "We may find it difficult to formulate a human right of tormenting beasts in terms which would not equally imply an angelic right of tormenting men. And we may feel . . . that we ought to prove ourselves better than the beasts precisely by the fact of acknowledging duties to them which they do not acknowledge to us." And when I say "prehistoric" I am simply referring to times and places that have no recorded history, e.g. the Americas in pre-Columbian times, where wolves lived in abundance.
The fact that Isle Royale has no ranches and no inhabitants has little relevancy, to my thinking. There is plenty of room in Montana between the ranches and inhabitants to maintain natural balance; despite the fact that we have people and people's constructions taking up some of the room, we have far more habitat for wolves and their prey here than there is on Isle Royale. If wolves do not drive their prey extinct there, there is no reason to believe they will do so here. And just as cougars and bears and so on manage to get a share of the prey even when there are lots of wolves around, we will be able to get a share as well. Of course, if you define an imbalanced system as one that doesn't provide hunters with as many elk as they want all the time, then I suppose wolves might "imbalance" things a bit—but that isn't the true definition of a healthy ecosystem.
Yes, wolves kill each other sometimes, but they don't know better. You, however, have these things called "morals." If you try to justify your own behavior based on what animals do, you are putting humanity on the level of beasts. And as I recall, that's exactly what you didn't want me to do. Also, unlike a wolf, you are in no danger of starving if you don't get your elk.
By CaptainSakonna on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 8:37 pm
Truth-public enemy #1 AKA Greg Farber, DO NOT LIE. You are not pro-wolf. You are anti-wolf and you have said numerous times you are for wolf eradication. You're also good buddies with Ron Gillette and Idaho for wildlife.
By Rob on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Middle of the Road,
My friend, I agree with you on several points, such as a lunatic fringe on both sides, albeit, those at Howling For Justice do not believe they are actually wolves. Just as any "team" rallies around its members, so to do we. We identify with the wolf,yes,even "howl". Yet the qualities the wolf inspires; a dedication to its pack(family),loyalty, strength, perseverance, and a reliance upon an innate instinct…a voice humans have long forgotten…are qualities mankind would also be wise to emulate, to survive as a species itself.
There is a vast chasm between the concepts of reasonable and responsible wolf "management" and the out right malicious intent that is not only pervasive throughout certain states, but especially highlighted in the severe methodology of pending wolf hunts in Idaho. Including advice on how to poison our wildlife, as encouraged on sites like Mr. Bridges'. We are justifiably outraged in the manner in which delisting was accomplished. Not with sound science,open and honest debate, or even a single piece of legislation…but as governance by rider in a must pass bill. If government must dictate anything, their inability to provide a fair and reasoned platform to discuss the issue as you say, "like adults" since it was not only controversial and unprecedented, ultimately setting a trend… is not only biased, but unconstitutional.
As I said,it is not my intention to convince anyone of anything, although naturally, I am compelled to defend a site that does nothing more than attempt to ensure wolves are protected, treated ethically, not just to be used as game animals, or creatures worthy only of target practice and casual malice. I wish you all the best and stand with you towards that greater cause. Journey well.
By Wolf's Lament on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Thank you, Mr. Gibson, for your cogent and comprehensive analysis of the wolf wars in the West. It is clearly evident that the issues at hand have much more to do with a serious cultural divide in the West and political pandering to the highest bidder, and much less to do with wolves and federally mandated science-based decision-making. As an American citizen, it truly offends me that these circumstances happen in a nation that is supposedly the "land of the free." Surely, this article has shed true sunlight on this region, especially on the states of Montana and Idaho. As someone who loves to frequent the West to enjoy America's last glimpse of wilderness in the lower 48 states, I believe the anticipated negative reaction among other wildlife enthusiasts in response to these facts will, no doubt, negatively impact the economies of Montana and Idaho for quite some time to come.
I wholeheartedly congratulate all the wolf advocates who, despite risk to personal safety, spoke honestly. Please know that millions of Americans across the nation support the Endangered Species Act, and thus, we support science-based decision-making as required by this federal law. Please feel assured that we understand that this is not just a "wolf war" in the West! This is a political and cultural struggle that should serve as a wake-up call for Americans who value our way of life and our freedoms. As citizens and taxpayers make no mistake, our collective voice will be heard in support of your efforts and our votes will count to restore independent, science-based decision making at all levels of government with regard to wolves and other issues that affect America's public wild lands and wildlife.
I would also like to express special thanks to Mr. Marc Cooke, Co-President of the National Wolfwatcher Coalition [ http://wolfwatcher.org/ ] – a new nonprofit organization which was inspired by this struggle and is now growing in membership across the nation to support wolf conservation efforts. Mr. Cooke's willingness to provide Mr. Gibson with access to so many of the players in this struggle and his steadfast commitment to justice for wolves is admired, valued and appreciated.
Diane Bentivegna, Ed.M.
By Diane Bentivegna on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Dear CaptainSakonna
" The {THEORY} was amply tested in prehistoric times, when western civilization wasn't around to systematically "manage" wolves and other wildlife. Wolves were able to coexist with their prey back then, without extensive human oversight"
Isle Royal is not a true complete study based on the fact there is no hunting there, no rural or even indigenous peoples there, no farming, no ranching.
Notice that the prehistoric times Faustian christian evolutionists believe that mans history is at least 200,000 years old.
This is strictly a pseudo religious belief of the prehistoric times Faustian christian evolutionists for there is no such fact recorded either in the Bible or in verifiable, secular history.
This false religious belief is not founded upon objective science but a predisposed faith premised on nothing.
I'll not answer your biased assessment of people that wish to hunt deer or elk in order to sustain themselves nutritionally. Nor get into your attempts at relegating mans souls to the level of the animals souls, which they do have but is and entirely different Biblical definition;
The Bible is right. The hebrew word "né·fesch" [נפׁש] is mistranslated in the KJBV as "creature". The problem is that the mans mix the concepts of "spirit" with the concept of "soul". "Né·fesch" litterally means "respirator". The "spirit" (Heb. rú·aj; gr. pneu·ma) should not be confused with the "soul" (Heb. né·fesch; gr. psy·kje), as they refer to different things. In Hebrews 4:12 (KJBV) we read: "For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." The soul (né·fesch; psy·kje) is the creature itself, while the spirit (rú·aj; pnéu·ma) generally refers to the life force of the living creature or soul, although the terms of original language may also have other meanings.
But the Scripture does not say God created man in the image of a wild beast or a pet or a fish. The man was made "image of God", was a "son of God".
Genesis 1:26 (KJBV)
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Please pass the elk steaks !
As far as killing wolves goes, they kill each other over food and territory, well I need food and I need territory. And unlike the wild wolves, I have intellectual powers which allows me to keep a few of them around to SHARE with.
Me thinks you read an Alexandrian Perversion CaptainSakonna.
By Truth-public enemy #1 on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Nice article, a bit one sided, but alright. I am in the middle of this one, wolves should be on the landscape yet they do need to be managed. Nice picture of the dead wolf, but a caption should read, "Eliminated by wildlife services". This wolf also looks like the same one Lynne Stone tried to turn in and got in a little hot water over it. As far as gun toting rednecks at public hearing meetings, that is a bunch of hogwash, you cannot take a weapon of any sort into any public meetings, so maybe rewrite the story. If you people on the pro-wolf side would grow some kahuna's and stand up for yourself instead of sniveling about being intimidated your voices may be heard a little more, maybe tote your own guns if you own any to level the playing field. Standing on the sidelines and looking at the players on the field has given me appreciation for both sides of the arguement, both sides have radical's, that is for sure. I went to the howling for justice site to check it out, it was quite disturbing to me that a bunch of grown people actually believe that they are wolves. I maybe tried to believe and play i was something different when i was a child but not anymore, i am an adult, they should try acting as adults also, as far as the redneck side of this, good luck getting through to any of them, not gonna happen. In fair judgement I believe that the activist groups are their own worst enemy, the more people i come in contact with about this issue it seems that they are disliking these groups more and more and they are hanging themselves, why just today the great president scrapped that wilderness plan, a bill is up in congress to severely cut the act to equal justice because of these groups, I do however admire some of the causes that they are after and believe they do some good work, if i would have any advice to them it would be to maybe just cool down a little bit, it maybe would work for the greater cause.
By middle of the road on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 3:20 pm
Like gravity, truth will not be denied, and I am here to celebrate that truth, not convince obstenence to listen to reason. Oppression and intimidation have had their reign, resulting in the delisting of the gray wolf with such casual disregard, business as usual. Those who loathe the wolf, for whatever reason, view this injustice as a victory, when in truth their bias is actually contributing to the collapse of an entire eco system, all for the sake of instant gratification. I have read comments on blogs commending delisting as a "bold move leadership" boasts of taking notes, writing a book , even "a Harvard case study on how to do something most said couldn't be done."....such arrogance can not be rivaled. Yet the one comment lingering in the back of my mind since a wolf delisting rider was first initiated said it all, and it was this verbatim: "Environmentalist wanted a range war, now they have it." There it was , in a nutshell, like dialogue from an old western movie, but eerily different, it was war, real life with malicious intent, and I knew it was not going to turn out well for the wolf. May Cry Wolf be the impetus for a new era of enlightenment that will overshadow fear mongers and intimidation wranglers who have for too long shackled the wolf in both body and spirit. As for Mr. Bridges and his ilk, when have they ever done anything but "fight dirty"? I am not only ashamed of my human connections to this segment of society, but also of our government who had been complacent in this issue. Either abusing their power or coddling powerful lobbies, instead of upholding a much needed integrity Their refusal to do the right thing, for all the right reasons has only emboldened a pervasive stranglehold that already has far too much control. Regardless of whatever Congress has mandated, the Wolf will continue to be endangered as long a there is a persistent reckless concern for his survival.
During a time when our own American media has failed us miserably, and continues to do so,
my sincere heartfelt gratitude to Bill Gibson and Earth Island Journal for speaking out with indomitable spirit and impeccable truth…and Nabeki, you are truly Wolf. Blessings to you all.
By Wolf's Lament on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 1:46 pm
@truth-public enemy number 1: The command for man to "fill the earth and subdue it" was given before there was any death in the world; so, what part of that command gives us license to kill wolves? I'm pretty sure that tending and keeping the Garden did not involve trapping or shooting its other inhabitants. Even today, when sin has wrecked the world, we are totally capable of being masters of the earth and providing for our own needs without killing wolves. Like everything else in the world, the animals belong to God, and He cares for them. Appropriate stewardship and obedience to the law of love dictates that we care for them as well. Killing should be a last resort and should be based on genuine need—not a desire to have more elk and deer so that we can amuse ourselves by hunting them (we have other food sources we could draw on, so amusement is what it usually comes down to), and not a desire for greater monetary gain on the part of ranchers, etc. It is also important to realize that the laws of nature as they now exist, were set up by God. I caution you not to be too quick to assume that systems of human management are better able to maintain balance than God's design. Are you wiser than He? We limited human beings still have a lot to learn about how ecosystems actually work, before we start trying to change things.
By CaptainSakonna on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Wolves will be managed in the Northern Rocky states, state or federally. Idaho & Montana will no longer stand for unmanaged wolves in their states. This is a highly slandered essay and atrocious that there are so many people out there who do not grasp the realities of game management. The environmental groups have spoken their rhetoric and stalled the future of far too many species and humans in Idaho & Montana with the money raised from ignorant citizens all over the United States, only a small dismal percentage within these states. The people within these states are not going to let everyone else who doesn't live here to decide the fate of the wolves and all the species they effect. You must be informed that the wolves WILL be harvested in regional quotas, NOT exterminated. If you are a person who believes sportsmen's "only agenda is to wipe ALL of the wildlife from the face of this Earth", then you need get a clue about this world, or just wake up from your misinformed dreams. Wolf management WILL happen.
By JR on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 10:24 am
@Lauren: Don't use the extremism of some as an excuse to tar all Christians with the same brush. I'm a Christian wolf advocate myself, and I know of others. A proper interpretation of the Bible reveals God's concern for all life on this earth.
@Truth-public enemy number 1: "The natural balance theory is unproven, every test of this theory has failed, and this failure results in massive wild life losses." Not so. The theory was amply tested in prehistoric times, when western civilization wasn't around to systematically "manage" wolves and other wildlife. Wolves were able to coexist with their prey back then, without extensive human oversight. They have also coexisted with moose on Isle Royale for decades, again without any human management. Though there have been some problems on the Isle in recent years, in is important to remember that this is a very small and nearly closed habitat, and it is impressive that the balance which you claim is a myth has been maintained for so long. Furthermore, I have *never* seen a wolf hunting quota that advertised being designed to remove just enough wolves to prevent starvation, etc. Wolf policies in the Northern Rockies aren't designed to be in the wolves' best interest; they are more geared toward substantial reductions of the wolf population, to appease hunters who don't want to share the prey herds and fearful ranchers. Compare the Northern Rockies to the Great Lakes region (which has a lot more wolves AND a greater human population density), and, even accounting for differences in geography, you will see that the NR region has more than enough prey base to support the wolf populations we currently have. Furthermore, this isn't really about hands on vs. hands off management; this is about lethal vs. non-lethal management. In my experience, those who favor "management" (i.e. killing) dismiss alternatives like sterilization, non-lethal livestock protection, etc. I will leave you with a final question: humans are starving in some areas, and one could argue that they are overpopulated. Going in and shooting a bunch of them to reduce the population isn't a good solution, now is it?
@Nancy: You do realize that your/your neighbors' dogs are potential dangerous killers, don't you? "I just wish you would take a good hard reality check at what those animals are capable of." As the article stated, domestic dogs hurt and kill more children than wolves do. Do you want to ban dog ownership and slaughter dogs to protect your kids? If not, then I would suggest a little more clemency toward the wolves. Everything in life and every animal carries some risk, and we can't insulate ourselves or our children from all forms of risk. I don't think it's a good idea to preserve our children's physical lives by creating a barren world for them to live in, in which the only place where they can see and hear all the "dangerous" wild animals is a zoo.
By CaptainSakonna on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 10:04 am
I would like to thank Bill Gibson and Earth Island Journal for this excellent article on wolves and for pointing out again the myths and downright lies that contribute to the hysteria and blind hatred that so many people have towards these animals, which is totally unfounded. I hope more and more people will be educated by this incredibly well researched article and speak out on behalf of wolves, who have done nothing to deserve this.
I am sure I am not the only one who finds it ironic, and tragically said that by President Obama allowing Jon Tester and Mike Simpson's Section 1713 to remain in the budget bill he has only further perpetuated the right wing hysteria that his administration is supposedly fighting. "How this all happened is yet another example of a dysfunctional political system in which fear – both irrational fear and fear harnessed for political gain – determines policy." And President Obama was going to bring science based policies back to the White House. Instead; we are faced with the heartbreaking situation now prevailing in the Northern Rockies.
By Rhonda Lanier on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 9:54 am
You mean facts based in evolutionary theoretical science ? Natural balance, natural selection ? We're going to be waiting a long time for those "facts" kiddo. In fact your "facts" sound dogmatic.
Christianity has its teachings about the environment, but they are not those of Environmentalism. Christian teaching is that God gave a mandate to man to 'fill the earth and subdue it'. Granted, that doesn't mean to trash it. Christian teaching holds that man was placed in paradise to tend and keep it. Environmentalism is a romantic dogma that teaches that man is a disturber upon earth, and that the untamed wilderness and undeveloped world is the ideal. It holds that, if there is any place for man, it is to be 'at one' with nature, not exercising dominion over it and radically transforming it. This is pre-Christian primeval nature mysticism, pseudo-scientific ecology, irrationalist anti-humanism, and a mythology of salvation through a return to the land. This is a pagan and pantheistic concept, which is inimical to genuine Christianity.
Of course we should understand the difference between real Christianity, and Faustian Christianity, which also includes this Evolved theory in their dogmatic belief system, in order to a have correct factual opinion of those definitions, and that includes knowing the real Factual Bible, and the many perverted Bible versions involved, in the attempt to discredit the real ONE.
By Truth-public enemy #1 on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 9:32 am
Nabeki….you're a courageous woman to take on this battle to save the wolves.
Through your blog, "Howling for Justice" and your facebook page, "Wolf Warriors", you've awakened journalists like Bill Gibson that are willing to write the real story about how wolves are being persecuted and how special interest groups with political connections such as the livestock industry and various hunting groups are controlling wildlife management in this country.
Also exposed is the politics behind organizations such as Defenders of Wildlife that sold out the wolves and continue to collaborate with the livestock industry resulting in the death of more wolves.
Thankyou Nabeki and thankyou Bill Gibson…...hopefully, we'll see more articles like this in the future.
By Jerry Black on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 8:27 am
Nancy, you make Christians look bad. If you can look past facts with the aid of your Bible, I shall look past your Bible with the aid of facts.
By Lauren on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 8:20 am
"It's unfortunate that it has become dangerous for wolf supporters to speak out because of the likes of Toby Bridges."—-Lynne Stone-May 31, 2011
Who has been hurt?
Does this hurt anyone;
"These redneck extremists are attempting to turn
this region into a repressive dystopian state!
They're only agenda is to wipe ALL of the
wildlife from the face of this Earth"
Of course the above quote is a bald faced lie. Actually most of Billy's rant is a lie.
I am pro wolf, live in Idaho, but I am pro wolf management, not to iradicate wolves, nor any of the other predators I have grown up around, but to carefully protect their populations by insuring they do not deplete their available natural prey base.
The natural balance theory is unproven, every test of this theory has failed, and this failure results in massive wild life losses. When wild predators deplete their natural prey base, they then seek another source of prey to eat, horses, sheep, cattle, pets, and Occasionally a human. Wild predators also die of starvation and some cannibalize their own species during the collapse of their own prey base.
We have a responsibility to correctly manage all wild life to maintain an abundance that supports the wild predators that escape our management process during controlled seasonal hunts, we also can partake of that abundance ourselves.
We've done this for about a century now, our management methods justified adding wolves to the scenario because the prey base could handle them, we hunters paid for this, you have wolves because we managed it. Their is no pleasure in removing excess predators, it must be done to maintain a sustainable resource for all predators.
Many hunting zones in Idaho have had ungulate populations drop by 50% or more, how far down must they fall before we realize the effects this has on wild predators?
This wolf war is not about wolves, it is about how to manage wild life, hands off versus hands on.
As far as the hatred goes, I have a file with hundreds of death threats against my person, I've been called every name in the book, including child molester, pervert, racist, bigot, scumbag. All from the pro wolf community.
My truck has been vandalized after being identified by miss Stone on a public forum, including blabbing the license plate number.
She's right, this wolf debate has become dangerous, I respect wolves, people like Lynne and Billy "angst", scare the hell outta me.
"my spirit shall haunt
all the wolf-haters to the ends of the Earth!!!!
I am also a wolf and I shall do everything
and whatever it takes to protect my
sisters and brothers from attacks by barbaric
humans!!! "
Anything Billy ? Maybe kill me because I don't follow your emotional insane driven beliefs ?
Lets see now, this is where somebody exploits my name now isn't it ?
By Truth-public enemy #1 on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 8:12 am
It seems that every living thing that impedes the desires of man must be either killed or locked away in a small space. Our four-footed brothers have a right to live and run free in this country. These words do come from a hunter.
By Don Clark on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 5:53 am
I really want to thank Nabeki for her website and I'm really upset by people who took part in this unneeded war. Wolves are afraid of humans, but without natural preys, they try to survive. This is not about wolf managment. This is the whole environemental managment that have to be written once again. I can understand that farmers and people are afraid, but there are better ways to get rid of a pack without shooting it ! Take a closer look to them. They also are families. This war should not be, because it's all based on hate.
By P. Gal on Wed, June 01, 2011 at 12:25 am
Thank you Earth Island Journal and writer Bill Gibson, for doing their part to expose the radical climate we deal with every day here in Idaho, Montana,and the rest of the Northern Rockies!
By Ann Sydow on Tue, May 31, 2011 at 11:22 pm
Thank You for a well written article. I am a wolf advocate in Colorado where the elk are abundant and the wolves long ago killed off, as a result our trees are dying from overbrowsing. I am also a mother of young children. I have no fear of them being attacked by wolves, coyotes or any other apex predator. What I am afraid of is that my children will grow up in a concrete & polluted world devoid of biodiversity & the beauty of God's creation. WOLVES BELONG!
By Alicia on Tue, May 31, 2011 at 11:16 pm
Thank you Bill and Earth Island Journal for telling the wolves story. It was a long time coming. We've had to endure endless articles containing myths and down right lies about the magnificent gray wolf. I hope people reading your excellent piece will be moved to stand up for wolves in the Northern Rockies.
For the wolves, For the wild ones!!
By Nabeki on Tue, May 31, 2011 at 10:29 pm
I am a local small poultry rancher, pet owner, with small children. I do NOT want wolves around my home. I believe there was a very good reason for wolves to have been hunted into extinction to begin with. I am opposed to reintroducing them into my area. I will shoot one if I see it near my home. I love my children very much, and am not willing to have wolves, a potential dangerous killer, loose on my land any more than I would like any other dangerous killer loose in the area. I do not hate people that are ignorant enough to believe that wolves are harmless. I just wish you would take a good hard reailty check at what those animals are capable of. This is a time and a place where the animals still kill each other. To desire peace and harmony is a good and right thing to do. the Bible says that in the KINGDOM of HEAVEN, the lion shall lay down by the lamb… and the wolves will be tame… and the beasts of the wild shall be led by a child. SO I too desire this to come to pass. I can't wait for the day that we are all going to get along. Until then, I am not willing to risk the lives of my daughters or any of my livestock, to reintroduce some animal that clearly needed to be thined out, for a good reason, in the past. . Thank you.
By Nancy on Tue, May 31, 2011 at 10:21 pm
Thank god for Nabeki and other wolf advocates! A great article…. thank you for writing this Bill Gibson - legend!
By Kim Sellers on Tue, May 31, 2011 at 9:45 pm
These redneck extremists are attempting to turn
this region into a repressive dystopian state!
They're only agenda is to wipe ALL of the
wildlife from the face of this Earth,
and turn the once-lush green fields
into a barren wasteland from overgrazing,
and they would do anything and say anything
just to get their own way, by distorting
information, lying, and fabricating evidence
to sway politicians to give in to their evil ways.
Wolves are not evil..
It's the right-wing extremists that are evil.
They've blasphemed the name of the Almighty…
They're extremely bigoted towards Native Americans
and other minorities, and those who come from
somewhere else and/or do not conform to their
extreme ideology.
They have hatred towards vegetarians and
like-minded people whom are doing
what it takes to keep our wildlife..
(including our precious wolves)
from being hunted to extinction.
Wolves have been on this Earth for eons
and they are here for a purpose in keeping
our ecosystem healthy.
Redneck ranchers make up lies about
wolves eating up all their cattle,
when in fact, wolves consume only old and
diseased game animals.
Plus they are an important part to
Native American heritage and their spirituality.
In reality, if these dumb ranchers had any brains,
they'd stop dwelling in the primitive 19th Century
and install better modern-day fencing to keep predators out!
But they're too self-centered and self-absorbed with their barbaric, hateful "Old West" egos!
And every wolf that was brutally taken from this
world, are revered as martyrs by many like-minds
from across the globe.
Personally I shall NEVER support any hunting and
killing of our noble wolves!
I don't care if a stupid redneck shot me
down in cold blood and made me into a revered
martyr for my like-minded brothers and sisters!
My position still remains the same..
And if I'm assassinated, my spirit shall haunt
all the wolf-haters to the ends of the Earth!!!!
I am also a wolf and I shall do everything
and whatever it takes to protect my
sisters and brothers from attacks by barbaric
By Billy Angus on Tue, May 31, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Thanks for researching and writing this story about wolves in the Northern Rockies. There are many people in ID or MT that like, or are at least willing to live with wolves. It's unfortunate that it has become dangerous for wolf supporters to speak out because of the likes of Toby Bridges. Note, a correction in the story in that I am from Oregon, not the state of Washington. I grew up on a wheat ranch, raised farm animals, and moved to Idaho 30 years ago. I love wolves. I respect them but I am not the least afraid of them. Receiving the photo of the dead wolf pup from a couple in Challis, Idaho, on Christmas eve is typical of what the anti-wolfers like to do to threaten or intimidate those of us speaking up for wolves. I wish you would have published that sad photo and the name of Dan Wooley who sent it to me.
By lynne stone on Tue, May 31, 2011 at 8:23 pm
I would like to thank Bill Gibson for bringing attention to the wolf issue in Montana and the Rockies. It was a pleasure to work with Bill and make sure he made it to Idaho and back to Montana safely. If anyone would like to see photos of this trip please visit National Wolfwatcher Coalition Facebook presence at Wolfwatcher. It you are interested in helping wolves or following the wolves issue in the Rockies and elsewhere please visit Wolfwatcher.org.
By Marc Cooke on Tue, May 31, 2011 at 6:47 pm