Breaking News: Feds Agree to Wyoming Wolf Slaughter

[dirty...@riseup.net]

Dear EF! Durango,

Confirming my worst fears, the Associated Press just reported that the
Interior Department plans to approve the mass killing of Wyoming wolves at
the end of this month.

We have only three weeks to prepare an emergency legal case to stop the
slaughter. Please help by making a generous donation to the Center for
Biological Diversity's Emergency Wolf Protection Fund today. The lives of
hundreds of wolves depend on it.

https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=8943&track=E1205A

Interior Secretary Salazar is rushing the approval to ensure Wyoming's
wolf kill plan will be carried out this fall even though the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service rejected a similar plan by Wyoming last year.

The plan will strip all protections from wolves in more than 80 percent of
the state. Wyoming's shoot-on-sight plan will promote the killing of at
least 170 wolves and likely many more before the shooting is over.

This is a nightmare for wolves in the northern Rockies, and our lawyers
and activists are scrambling to stop the massacre of the region's last
federally protected wolves. Please help by making a donation today to our
Emergency Wolf Protection Fund and passing this appeal along.

https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=8943&track=E1205A

We can't let these intelligent, majestic animals be slaughtered to satisfy
the whims of ranchers and politicians. Yet despite tens of thousands of
letters and phone calls to save the wolves, Secretary Salazar will strip
away their federal protection on August 31.

Wyoming's plan will allow wolves to be indiscriminately killed outside
Yellowstone National Park and a few other safe havens: 80 percent of the
state will become a wolf-killing zone.

That means close to 200 wolves -- highly social animals with intricate
family structures -- will be shot or trapped to death. Many of them just
had pups this spring. If the government has its way, it will be open
season on Wyoming's wolf families.

The Center can save Wyoming's wolves. With an unparalleled record of
stopping wolf killing in the northern Rockies, Oregon, the Southwest and
the Great Lakes, our lawyers and activists are the best in the business at
saving endangered species.

But the clock is ticking fast. We have just three weeks to get our legal
case together and seek an injunction to stop the killing. Please help by
making as generous a donation as you can today to our Emergency Wolf
Protection Fund.

https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=8943&track=E1205A

For the wild,

Kieran Suckling
Executive Director
Center for Biological Diversity

P.S. -- Here's an excerpt from the Associated Press story. Please pass
this email on to as many people as possible. These wolves need all the
help they can get at this eleventh hour. The Emergency Wolf Protection
Fund is our last, best chance to save them.

https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=8943&track=E1205A

Feds prepare to end wolf protections in Wyoming but environmental groups
say challenge likely

By BEN NEARY, AP, August 14, 2012

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- The federal government plans to announce an end to
protections for wolves in Wyoming later this month.

Rather than ending years of wrangling between state and federal officials,
however, the move promises to spark legal challenges from environmental
groups outraged that the state plans to classify wolves as predators that
can be shot on sight in most areas . . .

Ranchers and hunters started complaining that wolves were taking an
unacceptable toll on cattle and wildlife soon after the federal government
reintroduced the species to Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s . .
.

The federal government's final delisting plan calls for Wyoming to
maintain at least 10 breeding pairs of wolves and at least 100 individual
animals outside of Yellowstone and the Wind River Indian Reservation in
central Wyoming. . .

The state intends to classify wolves in the remaining 90 percent of
Wyoming as predators, subject to being killed anytime by anyone.

The state would take over wolf management responsibility 30 days after the
scheduled Aug. 31 publication of the federal government's final delisting
rule . . . The state is prepared to issue unlimited hunting licenses but
will call a halt after hunters kill 52 wolves . . .

Bob Wharff, executive director of Wyoming Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife,
a pro-hunting group, said he believes wolf hunting is long overdue in the
state . . .

The federal delisting of wolves in Idaho and Montana in recent years
included action by Congress specifying that the move wasn't subject to
legal challenges. Although Wyoming's congressional delegation has said it
wants similar immunity for delisting in Wyoming, it hasn't happened . . .

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