Idaho Wolf Hunt/”Custom & Culture” photo

This may be the beginning of a “Custom & Culture” series of photo-essays here on Ralph Maughan’s Wildlife News

Josephine's Pizza and RV between North Fork and Gibbonsville, Idaho, 9/1/09 © Western Watersheds Project 2009

Andrea Peacock: Bearly Making It

How Many Biologists Does It Take to Count a Dead Grizzly?

Grizzly cub near Pelican Valley © Ken Cole

Adrea Peacock adapts an essay from In the Presence of Grizzlies: The Ancient Bond Between Men and Bears by Doug and Andrea Peacock, The Lyons Press 2009 :

Bearly Making It – via CounterPunch

On December 17, 2004, Louisa Willcox of the Natural Resources Defense Council convened a collection of U.S. grizzly bear advocates in Bozeman, Montana, with a call to arms. Under threat of lawsuit from the governor of Wyoming, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service planned a fast-track removal of Yellowstone’s grizzly bears from the protections of the Endangered Species Act. Convinced that such a move—under the sorts of conditions proposed by the agency—could send the park’s grizzlies on a downward spiral toward extinction, Willcox figured the activists and lawyers gathered had about a year to either derail the process, or get ready to sue.

There is litigation contesting the US Fish & Wildlife’s delisting of grizzlies currently underway.

Salazar’s legacy: historical first state-sanctioned hunt of Northern Rockies gray wolves

Salazar is part of the West’s landed nobility-

Salazar’s legacy: historical first state-sanctioned hunt of Northern Rockies gray wolves. Seattle Environmental Policy Examiner. By Jean Williams

“The state’s [that is, Idaho] object is to reduce the current wolf population by half.  This is a species that was removed prematurely from ESA protection, under authority by Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar.  The Secretary is considered by many conservations, to have a personal bias, due to the fact that he is also a landowner, rancher, and member of the Cattlemen’s association.”

Government Leaves [Mexican] Wolf Pack in the Wild

Great news ! :
Government Leaves [Mexican] Wolf Pack in the Wild KUNM – FM radio

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will not remove a wolf pack from the wild in southwestern New Mexico. Regional Director Benjamin Tuggle ruled last week that the Middle Fork Pack is highly valuable genetically to the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program.