Colorado’s gray wolf reintroduction plan sparks political divide

From Fox News:

Wildlife officials plan to release gray wolves in Colorado in coming weeks, at the behest of urban voters and to the dismay of rural residents who don’t want the predators but have waning influence in the Democratic-led state.

The most ambitious wolf reintroduction effort in the U.S. in almost three decades marks a sharp departure from aggressive efforts by Republican-led states to cull wolf packs. More releases planned for Colorado over the next several years will start to fill in one of the last remaining major gaps in the western U.S. for a species that historically ranged from northern Canada to the desert southwest.

 

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Conflicts over wolves mostly ‘social, governance issues’

From The Journal:

The restoration of wolves to Colorado is an historic conservation effort to return and preserve the integrity of wild ecosystems in the Southern Rocky Mountains. This is why I feel compelled to respond to an article recently appearing in The Durango Herald, originating from The Colorado Sun, “How are wildlife officials preparing Coloradans for wolf reintroduction? With a brochure.”

That article fell woefully short of acknowledging the multidimensional effort conducted by Colorado Parks and Wildlife in both wolf restoration and conflict minimization, and served to further tiresome misinformation.

 

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Angry deer hunters rally against wolves, DNR, Democrats

From Duluth News Tribune:

CARLTON — Deer hunters across Minnesota must rally together and pressure politicians in St. Paul and Washington to remove wolves from federal endangered species protections and allow an open season to cull their numbers.

That was the message to a packed meeting Wednesday night organized by the new northern Minnesota-based group Hunters For Hunters in a steamy upstairs room of the Four Seasons Sports Complex.

 

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Angry deer hunters rally against wolves, DNR, Democrats

From the Bemidji Pioneer:

CARLTON — Deer hunters across Minnesota must rally together and pressure politicians in St. Paul and Washington to remove wolves from federal endangered species protections and allow an open season to cull their numbers.

That was the message to a packed meeting Wednesday night organized by the new northern Minnesota-based group Hunters For Hunters in a steamy upstairs room of the Four Seasons Sports Complex.

 

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Asha the Lobo captures the heart of New Mexico

From Source NM:

Lobos are culturally and environmentally significant to New Mexico and a Mexican gray wolf that wildlife experts say is resilient in face of peril and breaks assumptions, something many New Mexicans can relate too, is back after a long trip.

Asha the Mexican gray wolf #2754 has now returned to the northern part of the state for the second time in under a year, creating excitement for wildlife experts and hope among conservation groups.

 

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Wildlife conservation groups petition U.S. Forest Service to stop aerial wolf hunting in Idaho

From Idaho Capital Sun:

Wildlife conservation groups on Nov. 29 filed a legal petition asking the U.S. Forest Service to prohibit aerial gunning of wildlife in national forests in Idaho.

The petition was filed by International Wildlife Coexistence Network, the Center for Biological Diversity and Western Watersheds Project.

 

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Colorado Will Reintroduce Endangered Gray Wolves This Month

From Smithsonian Magazine:

Colorado is set to start reintroducing gray wolves within the coming weeks. Voters passed a ballot initiative in 2020 that requires the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission (CPW) to begin reintroduction efforts by the end of this year.

Over the course of this month, officials will capture, transport and release up to ten wolves from Oregon, according to USA Today’s Trevor Hughes, a process that can start as soon as December 8. CPW plans to eventually introduce 30 to 50 wolves in total.

 

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Prey driven away by wildfire, YKDFN Chief says wolves are turning to Yellowknife for food

From CBC News:

Wolf sightings have been “persistent” around Yellowknife, Ndilǫ and Dettah recently — and a chief with the Yellowknives Dene First Nation says it’s because they’ve lost habitat in this year’s wildfires.

Fred Sangris, the chief of Ndilǫ, said fires burned a lot of land in the region and drove away the wolves’ prey. “The only food the small mammals can depend on, including the fox, is right here at the city dump and people’s garbage,” he said.

According to N.W.T. Fire, more than 4.1 million hectares of land burned across the N.W.T. this year, topping the previous record set in 2014. About a quarter of the land that burned was in the North Slave region.

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Bills to Require Controversial Wolf Population Limit Advancing

From Wisconsin Ag Connection:

Two GOP bills that would require the state to set a specific numerical wolf population goal in future grey wolf management plans are pitting agriculture and pro-hunting interests against some conservation and animal welfare groups.

Agriculture and hunting and wildlife interests that support Assembly Bill 137 and Senate Bill 139 want the Department of Natural Resources to continue a 1999 plan that set a state wolf population goal of 350 animals.

 

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Reward offered for tips on gray wolf illegally killed in Southern Oregon

From

A $5,000 reward is being offered for information about a gray wolf that was illegally killed in Southern Oregon.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is offering the bounty for information leading to arrests related to the death of the federally protected wolf.

On Nov. 13 the collared male wolf, identified as OR 125, was found dead near Union Creek, east of Crater Lake. Gray wolves are listed as endangered in the western two-thirds of Oregon.

 

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