Wolves Gone Wild

Inquest into wolf attack rekindles parents’ grief
‘I want the truth,’ says mother of student killed in northern Saskatchewan two years ago

Carola Vyhnak
TheStar.com Staff reporter

Beautiful eyes, amazing smile, Bob Dylan hair.

Dedicated student, gifted artist, animal lover.

There are so many ways to remember Kenton Carnegie, his parents hardly know where to start, or stop.

Kim and Lori Carnegie want their 22-year-old son known for who he was, not the horrible statistic he became two years ago – victim of the first documented fatal attack by wolves in North America in more than 100 years.

The Oshawa couple will relive the tragedy when an inquest begins in northern Saskatchewan today. But while they dread the pain it will reignite, they need to know how his “horrific death” happened.

“I want the truth,” Lori Carnegie states.

Kenton was a third-year geological engineering student at the University of Waterloo when he started a four-month work term at a remote mining supply camp at Points North Landing, about 750 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.

On Nov. 8, 2005, he was killed by wolves while out for a walk.

Kenton wasn’t a risk-taker and wouldn’t knowingly have put himself in danger, say his parents.

Their grief has taken them down different paths as they struggle to come to terms with the loss.

Kim Carnegie has questioned experts, analyzed the attack and studied everything he could find on wolves in his quest for answers.

His wife has found some comfort in accepting Kenton’s fate as destiny and focusing on good memories.

“He was a wonderful and unique person who was just beginning to enjoy his independence as a young adult,” she recalls in the family’s rec room filled with framed photos, notebooks of to-do lists in neat, tiny handwriting, and intricate drawings – products of a mind and hands that were always busy.

Helpful and caring, the outgoing young man was devoted to family and lifelong friends, she continues, recalling get-togethers he arranged during visits home from university.

The bright, hard-working student was frugal to a fault, rejecting material possessions and favouring beat-up “comfy” clothes, including his great-grandfather’s belt, his father recalls. But he’d always open his wallet for music, say his parents, displaying concert ticket stubs for classic rock artists.

“Don’t all lives end, look to a friend, it might just be the last time you see them again,” the young poet wrote before his death.

It took the family a year to find the courage to visit the site where Kenton died. They went on the first anniversary of his death to put up a memorial plaque.

“As difficult as it was, we were overwhelmed by the warmth of the people there. They were so willing to help us any way they could,” says Lori. “It was a positive step for us.”

Their healing has also been helped by the creation of a memorial fund for a scholarship in Kenton’s name (donations can be made at kentoncarnegie.com) and a rock his classmates dedicated to him at the university last June.

But they still wrestle with the hurt that came from reaction to the wolf attack and efforts to defend and protect the predators.

“A lot of energy went into reassuring the public that it wouldn’t happen again, that there was nothing to fear. That distresses me, because it did happen to my son,” says Lori.

Public safety has taken a back seat to the glorification of wolves, which are protected by provincial law in Saskatchewan, the Carnegies say.

But as the clinical details of the case unfold, Kenton will be close to his mother’s heart.

“I regret that I did not have a chance to say goodbye and let him know how much I love him.”
Orginal Story

I have just added One Still Free excellent blog to our blog roll.  Not only does the author understand what is really going on in the environmental extreme movement and write with style and flare.

The latest article “There’s nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win” is a wonderful read.  

These NTEs (New-Think Evironmentalists) have made environmentalism a faith-based movement that ignores science. Their guilt-based evangelism has gained them immense funding, and their tactics range from litigation to acts of terrorism. Notice that, like other fanatical faith-based movements, there doesn’t seem to be any practice of the faith itself: NTEs don’t actually practice any environmentalism, they just proselytize about it. And interestingly enough, they all seem to hold themselves apart from the rest of us low-life homo sapiens types - they get to remain here on the new, improved version of Earth while we get exterminated.  

The author goes further adds more fuel to fire being built under our extreme pandering presidential candidate (New Mexican Governor in case you did not know) Bill Richardson.  I just have a soft spot for bloggers that see though sponge Bill’s orchestrated veil of deceptive practices in New Mexico and with the mongrel Mexican wolf program.

Glad to have you joining the blogsphere Cred

Pair of endangered wolves to be removed from wild

SILVER CITY, N.M. — Two endangered Mexican gray wolves have been targeted for removal from the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico.
The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service authorized the trapping of the wolves, both part of the Aspen Pack, because the pack has killed a horse and five cows since the beginning of the year.
“One of the reasons we’re trying to bring them in is to disrupt the behavior of the pack,” Elizabeth Slown, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque, said Monday.
Slown noted the order approved late Friday is unlike ones issued for other wolves, which called for the animals to be shot if trapping efforts failed.
Some partners of the wolf reintroduction program did not agree with a lethal take order in the case of the Aspen alpha male and his yearling, she said.
Federal biologists began releasing wolves on the Arizona-New Mexico border in 1998 to re-establish the species in part of its historic range after it had been hunted to the brink of extinction in the early 1900s.
Ranchers have consistently complained about depredation of their livestock, while conservationists have criticized the program’s management — specifically a policy calling for the removal or killing of any wolf linked to three livestock killings within a year.
Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity took issue Monday with the latest removal order, saying the Aspen pair is genetically vital to the reintroduction program.
“The Aspen Pack may hold the golden genes to enable the Mexican gray wolf to survive in the face of long odds,” he said. “Trapping these animals will worsen inbreeding depression and may push birth rates downward in a population that is already under siege from government shooting and trapping.”
All of the wolves in the wild contain DNA from one of three lineages, and that a recent study showed that wolves stemming from at least two of those lineages display enhanced fitness, Robinson said.
He said the Aspen alpha male stems from two of the lineages and his yearling daughter is one of only seven mature wolves in the wild known to have genes from all three.
Slown argued there are other wolves in the wild that are more genetically valuable.
The recovery area had 59 wolves as of January 2007, and that number has fluctuated with wolf deaths and removals and the births of pups, Slown said.
Once captured, the Aspen pair will be taken to the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge’s Mexican wolf facility, Slown said.
That will leave the pack with an alpha female and a few pups.
Robinson said the loss of two members may hurt the pack’s chances for survival.

Orginal Story

Alaskan town under siege by wolves - We have been told constantly by the environmentalists that wolves will not attack in town and will run away from people.  Again another story of wolves not doing what environmentalists say they will do.
By The Associated Press

ANCHORAGE — A half-dozen sled dogs in the village of Marshall were killed by a pack of wolves roaming the Yukon River village, according to villagers and Alaska State Troopers.

The wolves were chased off but not before they killed three adult dogs, including a female with pups. Some of the pups were also killed. Several other dogs were injured.

“They were running through the whole town here,” said Dewayne Cooper, the housing improvement officer for the Native Village of Marshall. “They’re not just hanging out by the dog teams. I don’t know what they’re looking for, but they’re obviously not scared.”

Marshall, with a population of about 390, is a largely subsistence village about 400 miles west of Anchorage on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

A group of about 15 people killed at least one of the wolves and wounded several, said Maureen Larson, who works for the Marshall Traditional Council.

The wolves appeared in town Wednesday evening, when they were seen skulking near housing in the northeast portion of town, Larson said.

Some kids shot at them and scared them off, she said.

But around 8:30 p.m. they were back to begin their assault on three of the village’s five dog teams, said musher Clem Kameroff, whose dogs were attacked.

Kameroff said he keeps 11 dogs and seven pups and uses his team for fishing and hauling wood. Most of them were inside a fence, but two were in kennels outside the barrier because it was too crowded, he said.

“I heard the dogs barking real hard, but I thought it was just a dog that got loose,” Kameroff said.

He went outside and found the exposed dogs had been attacked. One was a 2-year-old male that was slightly injured. The other was a 10-year-old female.

“That was sort of my leader,” Kameroff said. “Now it’s all bloody and can’t move around. I might have to get rid of it. It’s too painful watching it barely move around.”

Troopers got the report of the invading wolves Thursday morning, said wildlife trooper Sgt. Matt Dobson.

“I said, ‘Go and get ‘em. It’s season,”” Dobson said. “We encourage people to hunt predators legally.”

Dobson said the area near Marshall is rife with wolves because the moose population is exploding. But wolves are still generally shy and reclusive, he said, and a pack wandering into a town is “extremely unusual.”

Licensed hunters are allowed to take five wolves in Game Unit 18 per year, he said, and the no-limit trapping season is about to start Nov. 10.

Killing the marauding wolves would be justified as being in defense of property, Dobson said.

On Thursday, children were walking to school with adults and in groups in case the wolves returned, Larson said, though by early evening, there were no reports of any being seen.

“We’ve had these problems for the past three or four years, but this is the worst we’ve ever had with them coming into the village,” she said. “It’s unbelievable. We’re freaking out.”

orginal story

During the short history of this program any changes in the rules usually makes things worse for the people here having to live with these habituated wolves.  Last rule bending was deciding that uncollared wolves get a free pass on all kills.  Before that was the wolves could kill as many animals as they wanted in a 24 hour period and that was considered 1 strike.

The wolf inn is full and there are lots of cage raised habituated Mexican Gray wolves ready to be released from throughout New Mexico and Arizona.  Soon even people in California, Texas, Utah, Nevada, and even Colorado will know how dysfunctional and miss managed this Mexican wolf program is.These wolf managers why trotting out the propaganda on how great this program is probably faill to mention about the impact these wolves have had on children and that they have yet to do anything to actively protect children. The following list of habituated Mexican Wolf behavior that has occurred in just the last year.

• Children have been stalked by wolves
• Children having to pack guns in their yards to protect themselves from wolves
• Wolves are in peoples back yards
• Wolves walking around towns
• Wolves are allowed to slaughter a little girl’s horse after stalking at an elementary school
• Wolf attacks and sightings go uninvestigated
• Wolves attacking a child’s dog in her front yard
• Wolf biting a human but still being released 6 miles from homes
• Wolves killing dogs and no tracking, no compensation, no strikes
• Wolves encircling children Wolves entering campgrounds
• Wolves denning near or on private land
• Children seeing their beloved pets ripped appart by wolves
• Wolves running around unvaccinated in rabies country
• Wolves giving birth to hybrid puppies - FWS admit the birth of spotted hybrid puppies in the past (how many did they miss?).
• Continued tax dollars spent on a failed program where residents are terrorized, campers put in danger and pets are free kills for the wolves
• Oh and the list could go on…

Meeting on Gray Wolves to be Held Here

One of 12 such sessions to be held by Fish & Wildlife in Ariz., N.M.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service will host 12 public meetings across Arizona and New Mexico beginning next month to discuss a wolf reintroduction project in the Gila National Forest.

Meetings are planned in the Arizona cities of Flagstaff, Phoenix and Tucson, and in the New Mexico cities of Las Cruces, Grants, Alamogordo and Albuquerque - communities that are hundreds of miles from the closest free-roaming wolf.

“Our desire was to encircle the area with a multitude of meetings to try and meet as many needs as possible,” Fish & Wildlife spokeswoman Elizabeth Slown said.

The meeting in Tucson will be Dec. 7. It begins with a public information session from 5 to 6 p.m.

It will continue from 6 to 6:30 p.m. with a presentation about potential modifications to its rule that established a recovery and reintroduction program for the Mexican gray wolf.

The location of the meeting will be announced later.

The Gila National Forest is in western New Mexico and borders the Blue Range Mountains in Greenlee County and the Apache National Forest in Arizona where a Mexican wolf reintroduction program has been underway since 1998.

 AND wolves have been in our yards ever since.

Orginal Story

This story claims that defenders of wildlife compensates 100%.  They do not.  Here is the southwest they compensated 2000 dollars for a registered horse worth 4 times more.  They also have not paid out as promissed to ranchers and homeowners that have lost livestock.  The press is being used to trot out this compensation to keep the donations rolling in.  Beware of the groups you donate to. 

‘It’s out of control’
By KIM BRIGGEMAN
Missoulian Thursday, October 11, 2007

HALL, Mont. — Their eyes have seen the glory of wolves.

Gayla Skaw tells of the day last winter when her husband Lee and a neighboring rancher were in the hills cutting wood.

Half a mile or more away, gray wolves from the Willow Creek pack were lying in snow in an open meadow. The men watched them through spotting scopes.

“Pretty soon they got up and kind of started running along,” Gayla said. “Lee said the sun was shining on them and the snow was blowing up and he said, ‘You know, they were beautiful. It’s hard to hate them.

” ‘But at the same time, you don’t want them out there in your cows.’ ”

Cultures, world views and even centuries are colliding in this ranching country now that the wolves have arrived.

They’re spinoffs of packs reintroduced in central Idaho a decade or more ago, and they’re in hot water.

Nine wolves from the burgeoning Sapphire pack west of Philipsburg and the Bearmouth pack southwest of Drummond were killed by federal agents in a two-week span in September.

The Bearmouth pack was eradicated, while the Sapphire pack was trimmed to 14, 11 of them adults, according to Liz Bradley, a wolf management specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

The Willow Creek pack is between the other two.

“They’ve denned on private property the last couple of years, and there have been a lot of concerns from those landowners,” Bradley said.

So far, there are no confirmed depredations, although one man feels certain the lone remnant of a fresh-killed yearling a leg he found in late summer was the work of the pack.

“We spend quite a bit of time out there trying to haze and harass those wolves away from the cattle and away from private property,” Bradley said.

Last year, those airplane hazings seemed to work. Neither of the closest cattle producers came up short when the cows came home in October.

“This year, they’re still bringing their cows in, so it remains to be seen,” said Bradley. “But we weren’t as successful at moving the wolves out of there. We moved them out temporarily, but they seem to keep coming back.”

“Liz has been good,” Gayla Skaw said. “She’s been trying to haze those wolves off our place and back and over the top, which we feel a little guilty about it because if she boots them over the top, then they’re down in someone else’s cows.”

The Skaws found out last summer the Willow Creek pack had established a den on their land.

Lee Skaw and daughter Jolene were bowhunting in the area just last week. They saw someone flying up and down the valley, attempting to shoo the wolves away.

“As soon as they flew off, the wolves started howling,” Skaw said.

He and Jolene scrambled down a mountain to get a look.

“We thought when we heard them there might have been three or four,” he said. “They started coming out of this little patch of timber across from us, and we’re counting them in the binoculars: There’s one, two, three. … We finally got up to eight.”

It was a spectacle for which many in western Montana and the rest of the world hunger. It was the prospect of just such sights that drove the federal government to reintroduce wolves in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in 1995 and 1996.

But it was disturbing to a man who depends on cattle.

“I told Jolene those last four were just like getting kicked in the gut every time one walked out,” Skaw said. “That’s just too many. They will get in trouble. I know they will.”

Ed Bangs has heard it all before, the for and against wolves.

“People are so worked up because of what they think wolves are, rather than what wolves really are,” said Bangs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Helena-based wolf recovery coordinator. “In reality, they’re just another large predator. They don’t have any special powers. They’re not good or evil. They’re just animals.”

He knows many livestock producers would like to see what he called “the scorched-earth policy of 100 years ago, where the only thing that mattered was the livestock’s and the people’s immediate needs.”

Bangs’ own agency launched an extermination program in central and eastern Montana that eradicated wolves from the state by the 1930s.

Last month there were 394 wolves in 71 packs in Montana, according to a tentative midyear count by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. That’s up from firmer figures of 316 and 60 at the end of 2006, though the ranchers who’ve experienced wolves insist the official numbers are low.

Today, Bangs said, “the big question is, what makes a person’s life valuable or worthwhile? Because we’re wealthy enough that it goes beyond just food and shelter.

“It’s also having wild lands out there. That’s why western Montana is booming and economically is just doing amazingly well, because of public lands, wildlife, open space.”

Rex and Brad Radtke don’t fit neatly into the mode of scorched-earthers, or what Brad called the “shoot ‘em out and get rid of ‘em” set.

“We’re in a different age for something like that to happen,” he said. “But there’s the other end of that spectrum, to just save them all at everybody else’s cost. I hope that we can somehow find a little middle ground.”

Fourth-generation ranchers in the Flint Creek Valley, the Radtke brothers pastured 500 yearlings this summer on leased U.S. Forest Service land in the John Long Mountains.

The allotment is not far from home as the crow flies, but it’s a rough and roundabout pickup drive, or a somewhat more direct horseback ride, to get there. The Radtkes typically make it at least once a week in the summer to check the herd.

On one such trip in August, Rex noticed slashes on the undersides of first one heifer, then another. When he’d taken full stock, five yearlings had similar injuries, none of a nature he’d seen before.

“I guess I was trying to think of anything else but wolf, because we hadn’t had any problems,” Radtke said.

An investigation by a USDA Wildlife Services agent proved otherwise. All five cattle survived, though two weren’t healed enough to ship to auction in September.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks takes an incremental approach to wolf control in the area, first attempting to haze wolves from potential problem areas.

After the maulings of the Radtke cattle, Wildlife Services, the federal enforcement arm of the wolf management program, was called in to eliminate a male wolf from the Bearmouth pack in late August.

A few weeks later, three calves from another rancher’s herd were killed by wolves.

“A classic case where we’ve seen the pack key into livestock as a primary food source,” said Bradley, adding that late summer is often a time of wolf depredations as adults scramble to feed their fast-growing pups.

Five wolves in the Bearmouth pack were shot by Wildlife Services, for what were classified as habitual depredations. Bradley said it eliminated the pack.

When wolves were reintroduced to the fringes of Montana in the mid-1990s by the federal government, they belonged to an “experimental nonessential population” under Section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act.

Wolf control in Montana was turned over to the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks in 2005, but the 10(j) rule remains in effect in the area of western Montana that extends between Yellowstone National Park and Missoula.

Wolves there are still protected as an endangered species, but there are some control mechanisms. Landowners can legally shoot wolves that are actively chasing and harassing livestock on private ground or on their federal grazing allotments.

Such kills tend to be shrouded in secrecy. They are investigated not by state game wardens but federal law enforcers, and the investigations can be jeopardized by publicity.

“We don’t talk about them until everything’s been cleared,” Bradley said.

That could explain why, while state-announced killings that eradicated the Bearmouth pack totaled six, stockmen involved said the pack had nine or more wolves.

Area ranchers fear that livestock deaths are only part of the problem wolves will trigger.

At least they can be compensated for those: Defenders of Wildlife reimburses 100 percent of the market value of verified livestock losses to wolves, and 50 percent for “probable” losses.

Ranchers cite weight loss and stress on their cattle and uneven management of pastureland among their other concerns.

“It costs us money in so many ways you can hardly keep track of it,” Lee Skaw said.

He came across a mangled stretch of fence on his land last week.

“They blew out 10 or 12 posts and strung wire out for a quarter of a mile. A big herd of elk went through in a hurry,” Skaw said. “I’ve never seen anything like it before this early in the fall. If that wasn’t wolf-related, I’ll really miss my guess.”

Dan Hauptman said the breadth of the wolf problem is yet to be seen.

“Where you see the fence wiped out, a big old stretch of it, you wonder: Have the cows been getting the crap run out of them? How’s the (pregnancy) testing going to turn out? Do we lose a few pounds (on sale day)? We don’t know yet.”

If state and federal wildlife officials get their way, wolves will be removed from the endangered species list in early 2008. There are roughly 1,500 wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, up from 1,300 last year.

“We’ve got more wolves in more places than we ever thought we’d have,” said Bangs. “Fish, Wildlife and Parks is doing an outstanding job of walking that thin line of having wolves around and minimizing problems.”

But, he added, “I’m a firm believer that (reintroduction) isn’t really a success until wolves are delisted.”

The Environmental Species Act “is a great tool to restore wolf populations,” Bangs said. “It’s what got us here. But the ESA sucks for routine wildlife management.”

Part of the state’s wolf program will almost certainly involve a hunting season.

“You try to be as proactive as you can: Get range riders, help with fencing, haze and harass. But it’s still a very reactive program,” said Carolyn Seim. “The next component is the incorporation of public hunting and public trapping.”

Seim, coordinator of Montana’s wolf management program for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said a wolf season could be implemented as early as next fall. That’s barring a court-ordered injunction in lawsuits expected to stem from delisting.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks will be charged with maintaining a minimum of 15 breeding pairs of wolves. Some question its ability to do that, Seim acknowledged. Bangs is not one of them.

“The best thing that could ever happen is we turn it over to Fish, Wildlife and Parks,” he said.

Whoever’s officially in control of them, wolves will continue to live in these mountains.

“I don’t hate wolves,” Rex Radtke said. “Wolves are just doing what a wolf does. It’s policy that’s more of a culprit than wolves are.”

“What we’re seeing right now, it looks to me like it’s out of control,” Lee Skaw said. “When you see eight wolves on your place it makes you feel that way, even if it isn’t.”

“We’ve already spent how many dollars once to get rid of them,” added his wife. “Now they’re spending how much more to reintroduce them, and how much to manage them, when it’s something that we don’t need in the first place?

“Let them exist in the backcountry. Let them exist in parks. That’s fine. I don’t have a problem with that. But don’t try to make them coexist with domestic livestock. It isn’t going to work.”

Orginal Story

The press is still not properly covering the damage these domestic released or “wild” wolves pose to our communities, pets and game.  McLeod has it right the deer will be wiped out just like is happening to our elk herd here in the Gila Forest in New Mexico with the Mexican Wolf (mongrels).

Just so the people in Vermont know your children being stalked and wolves in your front yard is considered acceptable by the Wildlife Managers.  It happens here every day in New Mexico.

There is also a danger with thse mongrel wolves to other animal populations since wolves will breed with coyotes and wolves.    It is crazy for our tax dollars to go to protect animals that are not pure breed and will not breed true.  The gene pool is not clean and this is a violation of the endangered species act.  Read def 16 on page 4.

(16) The term “species” includes any subspecies of fish or wildlife or plants, and
any distinct population segment of any species of vertebrate fish or wildlife which
interbreeds when mature.

—

October 10, 2007

By PETER HIRSCHFELD Times Argus Staff
 
WATERBURY — A 92-pound canine shot in Troy last October may be the first confirmed wolf to roam the Green Mountains in more than a century, Vermont officials said Tuesday.

A yearlong investigation into the genetic makeup of the large animal, initially mistaken for a coyote, found “a substantial amount of wolf ancestry,” according to John Austin of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department.

“We’re trying to be cautious in how we interpret these results,” Austin said Tuesday. “What the information tells us is that the genetic composition, the size of animal … suggests it’s largely of wolf ancestry.”

The animal, shot by a farmer in a Vermont town along the Canadian border Oct. 1, 2006, could well have been a wolf. But scientists say it likely wasn’t wild. Genetic tests conducted at four laboratories, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s forensics laboratory in Ashland, Ore., traced the ancestry of the animal to two separate and geographically distinct populations of wolves. The animal, according to lab conclusions, was almost certainly bred in captivity.

Peggy Struhsacker, a wolf specialist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, examined the animal after it was shot last October and said Tuesday that laboratory testing supported her initial hunches.

“I looked at all the traits and characteristics of it and believed it was possibly a full wolf or a high-percentage animal because it had all physical characteristics,” Struhsacker said. “That being said, it had too many other characteristics that made me feel it wasn’t a wild wolf.”

The animal’s shoddy coat, uniform nail wear and well-fed gut, she said, all indicated the canine was a domestic pet.

The animal’s origins have significant implications for the state. If the animal was indeed a wild wolf migrating from an existing pack in southern Quebec, it would signal the reappearance of an animal extirpated from the state in the 1800s.

“We’re really interested in trying to determine the origin of large canids when they turn up in New England,” said Kim Royar, a wildlife biologist with the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. “If it turns out, like the lab suggested, that this animal is of domestic origin, then basically we would assume it had been released into the wild by somebody who had bred it for sale. What we’re interested in is documenting whether there is movement of wolves from wild populations … in eastern Canada down to New England.”

Royar said the state has no evidence that such movement has occurred, though reports of wild wolves in Maine and New Hampshire suggest wolf populations may be crossing into the northeastern United States.

Michael Amaral, endangered species specialist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the discovery should signal a warning to hunters in the state. The wolf is protected by the federal Endangered Species Act and hunters who shoot them, mistakenly or intentionally, he said, face stiff fines.

“Gray wolves, even if they are of captive origin, are a protected species,” Amaral said. “I think the important message for Vermont’s hunters is it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that wolves can get to northern Vermont from existing wolf populations in Canada.”

Charlie Hammond, the man who shot the wolf in Troy, won’t be prosecuted, according to Amaral.

“Because it appears that this animal was of domestic origin … and other circumstances, we are not prosecuting in this case,” Amaral said.

Steve Mcleod is executive director of the Vermont Traditions Coalition, an organization that lobbies on behalf of hunters, farmers and other groups opposed to the reintroduction of the gray wolf to Vermont. He said a resurgence of the animal in the state would signal the decline of deer populations.

“There would be a deer slaughter that would result,” Mcleod said. “The white tail deer is the signature species of Vermont and it would really drastically change the balance of deer in the state over time.”

Austin said the department will have to pinpoint the origin and genetic makeup of the animal before it can fully understand the implications the discovery has for Vermont.

“What we haven’t done is ask an objective wildlife genetics expert … to help us understand what all this information now means to us,” Austin said. “What are the implications of that to wildlife conservation in Vermont? We’re going to work hard to get those answers.”
Orginal Story

No Wolf Locations, No Wolf Warnings, the message is Don’t Be Aware of Wolves (oh but we will keep spending your hard earned money making you less safe) 

Could it be that during wolf awareness week (declared by the Governor, Presidential Candidate Bill Richardson, and the wolf managers) that they do not want us to be safe around their habituated wolves?  I think that is the only conclusion that a logical person could draw.  Then again what has been happening with the mexican grey mongrel wolf program defies logic.  One wolf pack, Durango, is constantly in a families front yard.    No doubt they have been killing the familes livestock as they did earlier this summer when the Durango female met her fate.  

These habituated wolves will continue to do what habituated wolves do.  Hang around humans and eat our pets and livestock.  Even keeping us penned in our homes for fear of going out side and having to come face to face with one of these dangerious habituated wolves.

One recient case of more mexican wolf training is with the Aspen pack of mongrel Mexican Grey Wolves, where wolf managers been feeding the Aspen pack in a location almost next to where families were camping - risking this large family’s safety.  Did a wolf manager visit the campers and make them aware they were camping near a wolf feeding ground?  NO.  Did anyone alert them with a map to avoid this area close to a road that it was not the best area to camp?  Yes a local family did.  So much for wolf managers doing their job.

How would you like it if you went camping and found with in a few football fields length thier were dangerious horse killing and cattle slaughtering wolves being fed by your goverment paid for with your tax dollars.   Would you feel at risk?  Would you be bothered that there were no signs or notifications as wolves being fed in the area (after all these people are working for you right)?  Would you feel ok with your children going into the woods on a little hike or even to go to the bathroom?  What about the familes dogs that so offten join on a camping trip?

The constant human interaction by the wolf managers further habituats the wolves to humans.   These wolves commonly defecating on peoples front porches.  I guess part of awareness week is being aware of where you step on your own front porch.  I guess this is one reason no t-shirts or ribbons were sold for this awareness week.

Thus raising the risk that these cage raised, tax payer funded, mongrel wolves increases the risk of danger to our communites when these wolves come by this winter looking for handouts or just killing our pets and horses for fun.  Responsibility level fall right back on the wolf managers for their continued taming of these wolves.

But this week during the Governor’s declared Wolf Awareness Week, they do not even want us to know where the wolf locations that they have emailed and posted online for us for years.  Here is the explanation provided in an email to wolfcrossing.org. 

Two problems:  (1) there were problems with AZGFD web site recently, and
(2) we are currently unable to load the flight document to the web site.
We are working to resolve the issue and will have a more expedite process
for next week.  Short staffing is not an issue, as we are doing our do
diligence on this topic, but it is a “hopefully” one week problem.  You will
also notice that many of the linked documents do not open on the web site
(SOP’s, Annual Reports, etc.).  Sorry for the delay.

John
*************************************
John Oakleaf
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Mexican Wolf Field Coordinator
PO Box 856
Alpine, AZ 85920
928-339-4329

They do have the flight data but do not want to post.  They also have an extensive email list they could use to get the information out. The wolf planes did fly we do know that.  Hum maybe because the wolves are doing lots of things they should not be and they do not want to admit to it.  

These managers have gone wild in not working for the people who pay them.  Please give them a call requesting the flight data and wolf location information for this week.

Fire retardant to protect your home during wildfires might be in jeopardy if an environmental group has their way in playing the legal system.  Now do I want fishing dieing due to fire retardant no…but I also want the full ability to use fire retardant to protect homes, fire crews and communities at our disposal for use in protecting property and human life.

Group seeks contempt finding against Bush forestry official
Associated Press - October 11, 2007 4:14 PM ET
A watchdog group has asked a federal judge in Montana to send the Bush administration’s top forest official to jail for contempt of court.
The group says the U.S. Forest Service missed the deadline for a complete environmental analysis of dropping fire retardant on wildfires.
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey responded yesterday that the environmental assessment the Forest Service submitted was as complete as it could be.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy has yet to rule on whether the filing meets the terms of his order.
If he finds the deadline has not been met, a hearing is scheduled Monday in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Montana for Rey to show why he should not be found in contempt.
The lawsuit followed a fire retardant drop into Fall Creek in Central Oregon that killed about 20,000 fish.

Orginal Story

Presidential Candidate Bill Richardson decided to continue support the southwestern mongrel Mexican wolves and contines to the risk of families and children in his home state of New Mexico. Bill Richardson and the financially habituated and scientifically lobotomized wolf managers of US Fish and Wildlife Services and New Mexico Game and Fish are whipping up the propaganda machine in an attempt to cover up the damage that is being done by these cage raised mongrel Mexican Gray Wolves.  No doubt this awareness week is also an attempt by Richardson to remain in the headlines at an attempt to be an Al Gore look a like.

Santa Fe, NM - New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson recently issued a proclamation designating October 15-19, 2007 “Wolf Awareness Week” throughout the state. The proclamation is part of a nationwide effort to highlight the essential role of wolves in maintaining healthy ecosystems.

“As keystone predators, wolves play a critical role in maintaining balanced ecosystems,” said Governor Bill Richardson. “We must redouble our efforts to promote healthy wolf populations coexisting with our communities and land stewards - both in New Mexico and across the country.”

Wow now why would any one discussing wolves talk about communities in their carefully crafted statement? These wolves should be in the wilderness right? Well that was the lie we were told. These wolves are in our yards constantly. Bill Richardson’s statement here admits he know there is a problem with wolves constantly in our communities but still Bill Richardson supports wolves over children.

Young Boy Rode Up with His Dad only to See His Colt that was Slaughted by Mexican Wolves

Bill Richardson has even supported the Durango female wolf that was stalking constantly in a family’s yard with her mate. She was later lethally removed, a removal the Presidential candidate attempted to block.   Richardson would like removal of the 3 strikes rule for wolves, thus eliminating the removal of habituated wolves and increasing the population of troubled wolves.  How this is good for the wolf program continues to defy logic.

Now Governor and Presidental Canidate Bill Richardson launch of Wolf Awareness Week to promote wolves with no understanding the horrors New Mexican families have endured. No doubt spending your tax dollars in an attempt to look like the environmental candidate and using New Mexicans tax dollars to do it. 

What about tax payer awareness week? Or smart candidate finding a way to use state funds to prop up his image awareness week.  What about pandering to the press awareness week?

During wolf awareness week it is important to be aware that Mexican Gray Wolves continuing the following behaviors (and yes the supporters of these wolves are responsible for any future injury to a child). The following list of habituated Mexican Wolf behavior that has occurred in just the last year.

• Children have been stalked by wolves
• Children having to pack guns in their yards to protect themselves from wolves
• Wolves are in peoples back yards
• Wolves walking around towns
• Wolves are allowed to slaughter a little girl’s horse after stalking at an elementary school
• Wolf attacks and sightings go uninvestigated
• Wolves attacking a child’s dog in her front yard
• Wolf biting a human but still being released 6 miles from homes
• Wolves killing dogs and no tracking, no compensation, no strikes
• Wolves encircling children Wolves entering campgrounds
• Wolves denning near or on private land
• Children seeing their beloved pets ripped appart by wolves
• Wolves running around unvaccinated in rabies country
• Wolves giving birth to hybrid puppies - FWS admit the birth of spotted hybrid puppies in the past (how many did they miss?).
• Continued tax dollars spent on a failed program where residents are terrorized, campers put in danger and pets are free kills for the wolves
• Oh and the list could go on…

Bill Richardson is even aware that children in his state have been stalked wolves but he continues to support the wolves over children. I wish for each person that supports these habituated wolves should get a chance to have two of these wolves in their yard like is common here in our neighborhoods.

Currently the Durango male wolf is in a family’s yard every night with a new mate and is howling and marking their yard as his own. Wolf awareness week should include a primer on the dangers wolves have posed to communities through the ages.