Copper Creek wolf pups, mother will return to the wild this winter

From TheAspenTimes:

After being in captivity for more than three months, the Copper Creek wolf pack‘s adult female and four pups will be released back into the wild as early as January.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife expects the releases to happen on roughly the same timeline as the release of up to 15 wolves from British Columbia, according to an email Wednesday from Travis Duncan, the agency’s public information supervisor.

While these releases are expected to occur between January and March in Eagle, Pitkin, or Garfield counties, the exact details around when and where will not be determined until capture and release operations are underway, according to the agency.

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Wolf and deer depredation legislative priorities for Minnesota Cattlemen

From BrownfieldAgNews.com:

Wolf and deer depredation are legislative priorities for the Minnesota State Cattlemen’s Association in 2025. President Jake Thompson says they’ve been telling state lawmakers about damage from deer and elk for two years.

“We’re going to still work really hard towards that, try to get that problem corrected (and) get some help for our producers throughout the state.” He says deer and elk trample and eat forages while contaminating feed.

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Ranchers Skeptical Range Riders Will Save Colorado Livestock From Wolves

From CowboyStateDaily:

As Colorado prepares to reintroduce more wolves, the state is offering to send out range riders to protect livestock from the new predators.

Some ranchers think it’s a great idea, but others say it’ll be a waste of time. “I know for a fact that range riding does work, will work,” Krisztina Gayler told Cowboy State Daily. She did ranch work for 19 years in Colorado, including range riding.

Colorado rancher Howard Cooper told Cowboy State Daily he’s not convinced that state-sponsored range riders will make any difference.

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Concerns over the EU’s wolf downlisting proposal

From IUCN.org:

Several organisations, including The Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe (LCIE), have voiced serious concern regarding the European Union’s proposal to downlist the wolf under the Bern Convention and the EU Habitats Directive. This move could set a troubling precedent for wildlife conservation policies across Europe.

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Alaska Poised To Resume Aerial Shooting Of Wolves And Bears

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.

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Conservationists eager to see plan to save rare eastern wolf found in Quebec, Ontario

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.”

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Did Gov. Polis blame Colorado ranchers for high wolf-restoration costs?

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.”

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Federal Council brings new legal provisions on wolf shooting into force

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.

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Portugal: People south of Douro willing to live alongside wolves

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.

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As Wolf Populations Rebound, an Angry Backlash Intensifies

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.

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