Talking Points for Advocates
- Wolves are being killed in Idaho with traps, snares, night raids, hunting hounds and even the killing of nursing pups and mothers in their dens. Entire packs are being destroyed. This is not hunting, it’s extermination.
- The State of Montana is allowing hunters to bait wolves from Yellowstone National Park and kill them after they step across the border. Already, 20 members of Yellowstone’s iconic wolf packs and hundreds more have been killed. Their goal is to kill 85% of the wolves in the state.
- Bounties of up to $2500 are being paid in Idaho and Montana to incentivize the killing of wolves. Lucrative bounties like this are not offered on any other species in either state.
- As of December 28, 2021, 496 wolves have been reported killed in Idaho. This is the fourth year that more than half of the surviving wolf population has been killed.
- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should do what they promised in the delisting rule for the Northern Rockies wolves: “if a State changed their regulatory framework to authorize the unlimited and unregulated taking of wolves, a condition we have previously determined threatened a wolf population, emergency listing would be immediately pursued.” In 2021, Idaho has changed their state law to allow unlimited and unregulated killing of wolves.
- Secretary Haaland has the authority under Section 4(b)(7) of the ESA to issue an emergency listing of wolves in the Northern Rockies: “any emergency posing a significant risk to the well-being of any species of fish or wildlife or plants… Such regulation shall, at the discretion of the Secretary, take effect immediately upon the publication of the regulation in the Federal Register.”
- It is time for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to emergency list wolves in the Northern Rockies now to stop the killing before the spring denning season, when wolves and their pups are most vulnerable.
- Scientists have sent a letter to Secretary Deb Haaland highlighting their concerns about the way Idaho is tracking wolf numbers in the state.
- Local business owners in the Yellowstone region make plea for protections for wolves that are the backbone of the local economy
- More than 800 Scientists, including Jane Goodall send letter to President Biden and Sec. Haaland encouraging protections for wolves in the Northern Rockies.
- A bipartisan group of 78 elected officials, urge the Department of the Interior to “immediately issue an emergency listing to temporarily restore federal protections through the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to the gray wolf.”
- Tribal leaders present Wolf Treaty to DOI (Department of the Interior) representatives, as a blueprint for wolf management.
- Directors of zoos and aquariums ask for emergency protection for wolves in the Northern Rockies.
- The former director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service Dan Ashe, speak out in this Washington Post op-ed in support of renewed protections for wolves in the Northern Rockies.
- Wolf forum where over 600 people joined to learn more about the plight of wolves. Guest speakers included Suzanne Asha Stone of the International Wildlife Coexistence Network, Adrian Treves of the Carnivore Coexistence Lab at the University of Wisconsin, and Rick Lamplugh, author of two award winning books on Yellowstone.
- The Wood River Wolf Project is an example of how we can better coexist with wolves.
Materials:
stop_the_slaughter_of_wolves_in_the_northern_rockies_final.pdf |