WOLVES WIN!!! Huge victory for the gray wolf

 

Judge restores wolf protections, reviving federal recovery efforts.

Judge restores gray wolf protections This is a crucial step in the fight for wolves, here's what we need from you next Just hours ago, a federal court restored Endangered Species Act protections for the gray wolf after they were eliminated by the Trump administration in 2020. I want you to be one of the first people to hear about this great news for wolves. If you’d like more details—including a copy of the judge’s ruling—check out our press release. This victory belongs to you and all Guardians who have stood together in defense of wolves! Today’s decision not only provides a stay of execution for wolves in Wisconsin and other Great Lakes states, but it also means that pioneering wolves migrating to new habitats in Colorado, Nevada, California, and beyond can’t be shot or trapped by trophy hunters. While the decision immediately redesignates the gray wolf as a species threatened with extinction in the lower 48 states, it unfortunately doesn’t apply to the Northern Rockies wolf population, for which federal protections were removed by Congress in 2011. As our Wildlife Program Director Lindsay Larris told the press today, “While we are thankful for this ruling, we also call on Secretary Deb Haaland to issue emergency relisting protections for the Northern Rockies wolf population to halt the senseless slaughter taking place.” The fact is while today’s ruling is a great victory for many wolves, it does nothing to stop the war on wolves in the Northern Rockies, where over 20 percent of all Yellowstone National Park wolves have been killed in just a few months and Montana and Idaho are on pace to eliminate the majority of wolves within their borders this year. To put it bluntly, this is a slaughter of wolves the likes of which America hasn’t witnessed in 100 years. That’s why we need everyone in this fight. The job of wolf recovery will not be finished until the sound of a howling wolf can be heard in every landscape across this great nation. We must stay vigilant and we must remain relentless in our defense of wolves until they are not just surviving, but thriving. So with that in mind, I want you to celebrate this victory by transforming your joy into renewed determination to protect Yellowstone’s wolves and all wolves across Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Please write the Biden administration and demand that they immediately restore Endangered Species Act protections to wolves in the Northern Rockies. Then, if you are able, please make a special donation to our Wolf Defense Fund so that we have the resources needed to keep fighting—and winning—for wolves. When we follow our hearts, band together, and do what’s necessary and just—even against great odds—we can create safe spaces for wolves and keep our government accountable to its obligations to uphold the law. Howl with me to celebrate this critical victory for wolves, then join us to finish the job. For the Wild, John Horning, Executive Director Email John or Follow him on Twitter Show your support for gray wolves with a generous gift today! WildEarth Guardians protects and restores the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and health of the American West. © 2022 WildEarth Guardians | MAIN OFFICE: 301 N. Guadalupe, Suite 201,  Santa Fe, NM 87501 p) 505.988.9126 photo credit: Rain

Aerial gunning, cyanide bombs, and traps

 

Wilderness areas are being treated like war zones. New lawsuit launched against Wildlife Services in Nevada We’re not resting until we end this rogue program’s war on wildlife once and for all When you think of America’s congressionally designated wilderness areas, what comes to mind? Intact ecosystems teeming with native wildlife and wild places, where people can find solace and solitude in an increasingly fast-paced world? Or aerial gunning, poisoning, and trapping of native wildlife? The answer should be clear. But unfortunately, the federal wildlife-killing program known as Wildlife Services uses our tax dollars to deploy neck snares, foothold traps, “cyanide bombs,” and sharpshooters in helicopters to kill hundreds of thousands of native animals on public lands—even in protected wilderness areas. We have waged a relentless battle to end this war on wildlife. Over the last five years, litigation against the USDA Wildlife Services by WildEarth Guardians and our allies has resulted in legal victories in Idaho, Wyoming, California, Nevada, Oregon, Montana, and Washington—each of them curbing the program’s slaughter of native wildlife and increasing its accountability to the public. But we aren’t resting until we end this rogue program’s war on wildlife once and for all. Earlier this month, Guardians launched a lawsuit challenging Wildlife Services’ expansion of aerial gunning, poisoning, trapping, and shooting of bobcats, foxes, coyotes, mountain lions, beavers, and other wildlife on public lands across Nevada, including the potential for killing wildlife on over six million acres of wilderness and wilderness study areas. With your help and your support, we will have the financial resources we need in 2022 and beyond to defend vulnerable wildlife and ensure that public lands are a refuge for native animals. Can I count on your donation today? As an added bonus, your donation will be matched by another generous supporter. While society has evolved to understand the importance of native species as a key part of ecosystems and the need for coexistence with wildlife, Wildlife Services continues to rely on antiquated practices from a bygone era when many animals were pushed to the brink of extinction. We demand better from the federal government. Public lands across the American West are critical for preserving biodiversity and enabling native ecosystems to thrive—they are meant to be wildlife havens, not slaughtering grounds. We must not let the federal government use our tax dollars to slaughter the very creatures that epitomize the wildness of these landscapes. With your help, we will achieve even more in 2022 to stop Wildlife Services in its tracks! Help fuel our continued fight for coexistence in the new year by making a MATCHED gift of $50, $100, $250 or more to Guardians today. For the Wild, John Horning, Executive Director Email John or Follow him on Twitter

WildEarth Guardians protects and restores the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and health of the American West.

© 2021 WildEarth Guardians | MAIN OFFICE: 301 N. Guadalupe, Suite 201, Santa Fe, NM 87501
p) 505.988.9126

A grizzly bear family trapped in a coyote trap baited with dead fox

 

This sick cycle of death must end. A dark day in Montana as wildlife officials sink to new lows Together, we must return to the light WildEarth Guardians protects and restores the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and health of the American West. On the December 21 winter solstice —the darkest day of the year—Montana wildlife officials opened additional areas to wolf trapping across the state, including in wilderness areas and public lands bordering Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park. This decision is sickening, and yet it doesn’t even begin to describe the whole horrific situation that imperiled wolves and grizzly bears have faced all year in Montana. And the stakes are only getting more dangerous as a long, cold winter descends. This year’s start of the wolf trapping season was delayed in parts of western Montana to give grizzly bears more time to safely reach their dens. Despite this, threatened species like grizzlies were not spared from the brutality of indiscriminate trapping. Earlier this fall, a family of grizzly bears living near Glacier National Park stumbled upon two traps—baited with a dead fox—that a trapper set to kill coyotes. The traps snapped shut, gripping tightly around the feet of two bears. Wildlife managers were able to dart and release one bear, but it’s believed the other trap may remain on the second grizzly bear’s foot. Trapping is a disgusting practice—using a dead fox to bait a trap just makes it more atrocious. Grizzly bears and wolves need our help, otherwise more and more will suffer this same fate. By New Year’s Eve, wolf trapping will be opened statewide to satisfy the bloodlust of Montana’s Republican governor and state legislators, who are intent on brutally slaughtering up to 450 wolves—40 percent of the state's wolf population—in just six months. Forty percent! Thankfully, most grizzly bears should be denned up by then. Grizzly Bear 399—the world’s most famous mama bear, pictured above—recently made it safely into her Greater Yellowstone den with her four cubs. Sadly, a den is no refuge for some of Yellowstone’s most famous wolves packs. Fifteen Yellowstone wolves have already been slaughtered this year, including seven from the Junction Butte pack, the most-watched wolf pack in the park. Winter is a time for nesting, denning, and reflecting. The winter solstice marks the shortest day of the year, but it also marks a return of the light. At WildEarth Guardians, we want to end the year focusing on gratitude and all the successes we accomplished together for wildlife and wild places. But we can’t shy away from telling the dark stories that continue to happen. We are standing up against these injustices and for the beauty and wildness that still remain. Above all, nature is cyclical and we know that our fight to protect the natural world will contain both moments of despair and darkness and moments of exhilaration and exuberance. Just as the winter descends, spring will also rise. In a few months, Grizzly Bear 399 and her four cubs will emerge from their den. Let’s do everything in our power to ensure that the world they walk out into is one that values coexistence and reveres the cycle of life. In Solidarity, John Horning, Executive Director

WildEarth Guardians protects and restores the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and health of the American West.

© 2021 WildEarth Guardians | MAIN OFFICE: 301 N. Guadalupe, Suite 201, Santa Fe, NM 87501
p) 505.988.9126