Recent Posts

Archives

Idaho Abandons Wolf Extermination Program!

Two wolf families, the Golden and Monumental packs,  deep within the central Idaho’s 2.4-million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness are now safe after Idaho Fish and Game (IDFG) announced it was halting its wolf extermination program!

Last month IDFG hired a professional hunter-trapper to pack into the largest protected wilderness area in the Lower 48 to eradicate the two wolf packs in the interest of inflating elk populations for outfitters and recreational hunters. In response to this unprecedented move, a coalition of conservationists, represented by the non-profit environmental law firm Earthjustice, asked a federal judge in Idaho to halt the agencies’ wolf eradication plan. Last week the U.S. District Judge for Idaho denied the plaintiffs’ case so the conservationists took their fight to the court of appeals, where they filed an emergency request for an injunction on January 23, and this afternoon Idaho announced plans to abandon their wolf eradication activities!

Please join the Wolf Conservation Center in sending BIG howls of gratitude to Earthjustice, Ralph Maughan, Western Watersheds Project, Defenders of Wildlife, Center for Biological Diversity and Wilderness Watch for saving the remaining wolves from those two packs.

And shame on Idaho for killing 9 wolves deep in a wilderness area meant to be governed by natural conditions, not special interest groups.

“This is bittersweet news,” said Ken Cole with the Western Watersheds Project. “I am happy that IDFG has relented but it is unfortunate that so many wolves have been taken in this senseless plan to manhandle wildlife in an area that Congress recognized as a wilderness ‘where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man'”