From NationalParksTraveler.org:
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is again planning to shoot hundreds of bears and wolves, according to a release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Part of the plan would involve stationing shooters in helicopters to fire on the animals from the air. Other gunners would operate from snowmobiles.
The plan is open for public comments until December 27.
From NortheastNOW.com:
MONTREAL — Gisèle Benoit still gets goosebumps when she remembers the first time she saw a family of eastern wolves emerge from the forests of the Mauricie National Park, under the backdrop of a rising moon.
It was 1984 and Benoit, then in her early 20s, had been using a horn to try to call a bull moose when she instead heard a long howl, followed by an adult wolf stepping out to a rocky shore accompanied by a half-grown youth and four pups.
“I will never forget that,” she said of the magical moment. “It’s anchored in my heart forever.”
From the Colorado Sun:
At a Colorado Counties, Inc., conference in Westminster on Dec. 3, Gov. Jared Polis blamed ranchers for driving up the cost of reintroducing wolves to Colorado.Polis suggested ranchers, who have opposed wolf reintroduction because of the danger wolves pose to livestock, complicated the sourcing of wolves:
“This could have cost a lot less if ranchers wouldn’t have said, ‘oh, don’t get them from Wyoming, don’t get them from Idaho,’” Polis said. “We probably could have done it for a quarter of the cost.”
From BlueWin.com:
Parliament relaxed the Hunting Act in December 2022, in particular to reduce conflicts between alpine farming and wolves. To this end, it introduced preventive regulation of the wolf population.
To enable the cantons to act quickly, the Federal Council brought this provision into force by ordinance on December 1, 2023 for a limited period until the end of January 2025. From February, the amended Hunting Act will enter into force definitively together with the amended Hunting Ordinance, as the Federal Council announced on Friday.
From MacauBusiness.com:
The Rewilding Portugal association announced on Thursday that people south of the River Douro are willing to live with Iberian wolves as long as compensation is paid and damage prevention measures are implemented. This is part of a study to promote coexistence.
‘An in-depth campaign was carried out to promote understanding of the ecological role of the wolf and interviews were conducted with 117 people from local communities to assess their views on the wolf.
From YaleEnvironment360:
The reintroduction of endangered wolves to Yellowstone National Park 30 years ago was a major conservation victory. But as wolves have spread across the West, anger and resentment at the apex predator has escalated, with hunters in some states increasingly targeting them.
From The DeBrief.org:
New research at indigenous Alaskan archaeological sites dates the origins of human-canid friendship in the Americas to 12,000 years ago, 2,000 years earlier than previous evidence.
Food sharing is a universal custom of friendship, reflected in how modern humans share their homes and food with dogs like our ancestors did millennia ago. Large canids such as dogs, coyotes, and wolves commonly form bonds with human populations in cold, northern environments such as Alaska.
From WildEarth Guardians:
WASHINGTON– Today 15 national, regional and state environmental, tribal, and animal welfare groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to adopt a new approach to recovering grizzly bears in the U.S. Northern Rockies, pointing to a new science-based report by Dr. Christopher Servheen, the former USFWS Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator (1981-2016). The petition comes about a month ahead of the USFWS’ deadline to make a decision on delisting the bears.
From ColoradoPolitics:
Gov. Jared Polis is facing backlash for comments he made during the winter conference of Colorado counties, when he blamed ranchers for the cost of the wolf reintroduction program this year.
The topic of wolves at the Colorado Counties, Inc. conference arose in response to Polis’ comments about an ever-tightening state budget. The association represents 63 of the state’s 64 counties.
From the Coloradoan:
Colorado Parks and Wildlife will re-release the Copper Creek wolfpack, including the breeding female, a move ranchers say violates the state’s wolf recovery plan.
Travis Duncan, spokesman for the state wildlife agency, told the Coloradoan in an email Tuesday of its intention to release the breeding female and her four pups with the up to 15 wolves the agency expects to capture in British Columbia and release in Colorado between January and March of 2025.
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