This erosion of gray wolf recovery efforts harms more than the species itself. With this killing of Yellowstone wolves and state policies that allow for the killing of 85% of Montana’s wolves and 90% of Idaho’s wolves, fifty years of recovery efforts for the species are quickly being eroded. One-fifth of Yellowstone’s wolves have been killed this season. By February, six members of Yellowstone’s Junction Butte Pack - formed in 2012 - had also been killed. Yellowstone’s Phantom Lake pack - formed by wolves from the 8 Mile pack in the spring of 2019 and producing 13 pups that year - has been “eliminated” because so many of its members have been killed outside the park. Montana recently introduced wolf snaring, which a trapping method that maims and kills indiscriminately, and lengthened its trapping and snaring season.
In Idaho, the new wolf-trapping laws establish a permanent wolf-trapping season on private property across the state, eliminate limits on the number of wolves one person can kill, permit the continued use of bait that attracts non-target animals at high rates, and financially sponsor private-contractor killing of wolves. These states' new wolf-trapping and snaring laws aggressively expand how, when, and where wolves can be trapped, snared, and killed regardless of consequences to wolves and other species. This persecution is exacerbated by aggressive wolf-killing legislation passed last year in both Montana and Idaho. Wolves are being hunted and trapped throughout the Northern Rockies at rates reminiscent of a century ago. It is time to reinstate federal Endangered Species Act protections for the Northern Rockies’ gray wolves who have suffered too long under hostile state management. In Idaho, data show that over 300 wolves have been killed statewide this season. In Montana alone, more than 270 wolves have been killed statewide since the hunting and trapping seasons opened in the fall. Wolves in this region remain unprotected. While wolves in 44 states were recently relisted thanks to a lawsuit from Earthjustice and its partners, federal protections for wolves in the Northern Rockies (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, and north-central Utah) have been stripped over the past decade through a combination of administrative and legislative actions.
Just this season, 25 Yellowstone wolves were killed after they ventured outside of the national park boundary into Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.
Looming in the background of this celebration is the killing of a record number of Yellowstone wolves. The National Park Service is celebrating the 150th anniversary of Yellowstone this year.
0 kommentar(er)
