PETITION TARGETS: Wildlife Services, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack
Native and protected species are among the thousands of animals being viciously caught in steel-jaw leg snares, painfully poisoned to death with cyanide bombs, and inhumanely shot from the sky as part of the federally-sanctioned Wildlife Services program.
The department is a little-known branch of the USDA, with an original mission to “resolve wildlife conflicts to allow people and wildlife to coexist.” But in recent years, Wildlife Services has gained a reputation for mercilessly killing about 2 million animals a year — ranging from birds and beavers to bobcats — using poisoning, gassing, shooting, and snaring methods that cause animals unnecessary and unjustifiable pain and suffering.
The agency also is still using deadly M-44 cyanide bombs, whose scented fuses above the ground inspire unsuspecting animals to pull on them — releasing a spray of sodium cyanide into their mouths — despite a companion animal dying and a 14-year-old human being hospitalized with serious injuries by one.
In 2022, the massive death toll included the intentional killing of more than 26,000 beavers, 2,400 foxes, 600 cats, 500 bobcats, 200 gray wolves, seven endangered grizzly bears, and thousands of birds — including red-winged blackbirds, cardinals, sandhill cranes, ducks, Canada geese, red-tailed hawks, meadowlarks, Great Blue herons, swans, and double-breasted cormorants.
But numerous native species also were “unintentionally” massacred — including hundreds of river otters, raccoons, snapping turtles, and gray foxes. Three cats and eight dogs also were killed “unintentionally” by Wildlife Services in 2022, according to the agency’s records.
This cruel and indiscriminate killing must stop. If they knew about them, many taxpayers would not support the government’s use of these violent, painful killing methods — as Lady Freethinker and our supporters most assuredly do not.
Not only is viciously trapping animals in bone-crunching snares and gassing them to death inhumane, but it’s also not good science. Numerous studies have shown that indiscriminately removing predators from ecosystems just doesn’t work. Meanwhile, effective alternatives for minimizing unwanted interactions — including fencing options and light-and-sound activated devices — are available.
Sign our petition urging the USDA and Wildlife Services to prioritize non-lethal management strategies and also to conduct more public education campaigns about coexistence so people can take steps to prevent unwanted interactions.
Target: Greg Gianforte, Governor – State of Montana
Goal: End the killing of endangered wolves in Montana to protect the species from extinction.
Wolves are an essential part of Montana’s ecosystem, playing a critical role in maintaining balance and diversity. However, the wolf population in Montana is at risk due to the state’s policy of allowing the hunting and trapping of these magnificent animals. Endangered wolves are being killed at an alarming rate, and the population is declining rapidly, pushing the species closer to extinction.
The killing of wolves not only causes immense suffering to the animals, but also has negative impacts on entire ecosystems. Wolves help maintain healthy populations of prey species, such as elk and deer, and control the spread of disease among wildlife populations. The loss of wolves can have cascading effects on the ecosystem, disrupting food chains and causing imbalances that can harm other species.
To protect endangered wolves in Montana, it is vital to stop the hunting and trapping of these animals. It is critical to raise awareness about the importance of wolves in the ecosystem and the need to protect these animals from extinction. Additionally, we need to push for the adoption of policies that support coexistence with wolves, such as non-lethal methods of managing conflicts between wolves and livestock.
Sign the below petition to urge Governor Greg Gianforte to take action to protect endangered wolves in Montana.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Governor Gianforte,
I am writing to urge you to end the hunting and trapping of endangered wolves in Montana. The wolf population in the state is declining rapidly, and the killing of these animals is pushing the species closer to extinction. Wolves are essential to the state’s ecosystem, playing a critical role in maintaining balance and diversity.
The killing of wolves not only causes immense suffering to the animals but also has negative impacts on entire ecosystems. Wolves help maintain healthy populations of prey species, such as elk and deer, and control the spread of disease among wildlife populations. The loss of wolves can have cascading effects on the ecosystem, disrupting food chains and causing imbalances that can harm other species.
It is time for Montana to take action to protect endangered wolves and prevent their extinction. We urge you to end the hunting and trapping of these animals and adopt policies that support coexistence with wolves, such as non-lethal methods of managing conflicts between wolves and livestock.
Subject: Ban beaver hunting and trapping on federal lands
Your Letter:
The North American beaver was once considered a nuisance, nearly hunted to extinction for its fur. Beavers are still trapped and hunted today, with most states having no limits on beaver kills.
Beavers are our allies in restoring our environment — we should be protecting them, not hunting them. President Biden can issue an executive order to protect beavers from hunting and trapping on federal lands. Send your message to the White House today.
Trapping is a cruel and dangerous activity threatening native wildlife, biodiversity, humans, and companion animals.
Traps are also indiscriminate, which means nearly any animal whose feet touch the ground can trigger them—whether it’s an endangered species like the Mexican gray wolf, a bald eagle, or even a family dog.
WildEarth Guardians is campaigning against the vicious practice of trapping on public lands—both on our own and in coalition with partners. By ending trapping on public lands, we will make public lands safe and enjoyable for recreationists and wildlife, so please raise your voice today and sign our petition.
Montana’s newly elected Republican governor violated state hunting regulations when he trapped and shot a collared wolf near Yellowstone National Park in February, according to documents obtained by the Mountain West News Bureau.
Gov. Greg Gianforte killed the adult black wolf known as “1155” roughly ten miles north of the park’s boundary in Park County. He trapped it on a private ranch owned by Robert E. Smith, director of the conservative Sinclair Broadcasting Group, who contributed thousands of dollars to Gianforte’s 2017 congressional campaign.
While wolves are protected inside Yellowstone National Park, it’s legal to hunt and trap wolves in Montana – including wolves that wander beyond the park’s boundaries – in accordance with state regulations.
Gianforte violated Montana regulations by harvesting the wolf without first completing a state-mandated wolf trapping certification course. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks issued the governor a written warning, and he promised to take the three-hour online course March 24.
According to Montana’s wolf hunting regulations, “A person must attend and complete a wolf-trapping certification class before setting any trap for a wolf,” and the state-issued certificate “must be in possession of any person setting wolf traps and/or harvesting a wolf by trap.”
The course gives would-be wolf trappers “the background and rules to do so ethically, humanely, and lawfully,” the course’s student manual states.
John Sullivan, Montana chapter chair for the sportsmen’s group Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, said the governor should’ve known about the certification requirements.
“He has been hunting and trapping for a long time and I would be surprised to learn that he didn’t know better than to complete that education,” Sullivan said. “We hope that he apologizes to the citizens of the state for circumventing the process that we all have to go through.”
“It’s difficult to fathom accidentally not taking that class,” he added. “When you go to buy your wolf trapping license online it clearly states that trapper education is required.”
The governor’s spokesperson, Brooke Stroyke, said in an emailed statement that “after learning he had not completed the wolf-trapping certification, Governor Gianforte immediately rectified the mistake and enrolled in the wolf-trapping certification course.”
The governor did have all the necessary hunting licenses to harvest a wolf, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesperson Greg Lemon.
“Typically, we approach this sort of incident as an educational opportunity, particularly when the person in question is forthright in what happened and honest about the circumstances,” Lemon said in an email. “That was the case here with Gov. Gianforte.”
Lemon said the warning was a “typical operation procedure” and the governor was allowed to keep the skull and hide. As governor, Gianforte oversees Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and appointed its director earlier this year.
Word of Gianforte’s wolf-kill violation comes as the Republican-controlled Montana Legislature appears poised to send to his desk bills aimed at aggressively reducing the state’s wolf population through hunting and trapping. One would reimburse wolf trappers for the costs they incur, which critics call a “bounty.”
The incident highlights the polarized and overlapping debates in the West over how to manage growing wolf populations and trapping’s role – if it has one at all – in wildlife management. A decade after wolves were stripped of Endangered Species Act protections in the Northern Rockies, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming are asserting aggressive wolf management policies, while Colorado voters recently decided to reintroduce wolves to the Western Slope.
Meanwhile, the New Mexico Legislature last week approved a bill banning the use of wildlife traps, snares and poison on public lands across the state, likely joining the growing number of Western states that have outlawed the practice increasingly viewed as cruel.
“It’s clearly not an ethical chase,” said Mike Garrity, executive director for the nonprofit environmental group Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “Ethical hunters try to have a clean shot so they kill the animal instantly. Trapping obviously doesn’t do that. They suffer for a long time and who knows how long that wolf was trapped before the governor went out and killed it.”
Wolf 1155 was born in Yellowstone National Park and was issued a radio collar by wildlife biologists in 2018, according to park spokesperson Morgan Warthin. Collars allow scientists to track the movements – and deaths – of wolves. 1155 was initially a member of the Wapiti Lake pack but is now considered a “dispersed male,” which means it had wandered away from the pack to find a mate elsewhere.
Yellowstone wolves hold a special place in the nation’s heart, according to Jonathan Proctor, director of the Rockies and Plains program for the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife.
“People from all over the world come to Yellowstone specifically to see these wolves,” he said. “The fact that they can be killed so easily, right on the edge of the park in the state of Montana, for only a few dollars for a permit to trap a wolf – it makes no sense, either ecologically or economically.”
There are about 94 wolves living within the park, according to data from last year. Warthin said this was the first Yellowstone-collared wolf to be killed by a hunter or trapper this year.
Gianforte killed 1155 on Feb. 15. It’s unclear when Gianforte first laid the traps. State regulations require that trappers check their traps every 48 hours and report wolf kills to FWP within 24 hours. Trappers also have the option of releasing a collared wolf.
This is the second time Gianforte’s personal actions sparked controversy. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault after he body-slammed a reporter from the British newspaper The Guardian. He was sentenced to community service and anger management.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "...truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity--it is simply true and that is the end of it" - Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” - Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
Following in the spirit of Britain's Queen Boudica, Queen of the Iceni. A boudica.us site. I am an opinionator, do your own research, verification. Reposts, reblogs do not neccessarily reflect our views.
"OUR WORLD" 