Federal Court Reinstates Federal Wolf Protections
BOZEMAN, Mont.— In a victory for the gray wolves of the northern Rockies, a federal judge today granted conservationists' request to stop the slaughter of wolves and reinstate federal Endangered Species Act protections. The ruling prevents wolf hunting from going forward in Montana and Idaho. The court ruled the federal government illegally subdivided the northern Rockies wolf population, eliminating federal protections for the vast majority of the region's wolves even while acknowledging that they remain endangered by Wyoming law.
Today's ruling comes in response to a lawsuit brought by Earthjustice on behalf of 13 conservation groups. The groups argued that the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act by removing wolves in Idaho and Montana from the list of threatened and endangered species. As a result of today's ruling, federal protections have been restored. Wolves throughout the rest of the lower 48 United States remain on the list.
The conservation groups also argued that the government's determination that 300 wolves constitute a recovered wolf population in the northern Rockies ignored current science. Independent scientists have concluded that 2,000 to 5,000 wolves are necessary to secure the health of the species in the region. With continued recovery efforts, legitimate wolf recovery in the northern Rockies is readily attainable. However, wolf hunts and aggressive wolf killing by state and federal agencies jeopardize this result.
Both Idaho and Montana held wolf hunts in 2009. Hunters in those states killed 260 wolves.
Earthjustice filed suit on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, The Humane Society of the United States, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Western Watersheds Project, Wildlands Network, and Hells Canyon Preservation Council. Show 2 comments · Comment this article
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Switzerland: canton Valais wants to abolish wolf protection
The privy council of the Swiss canton Valais has decided to abolish the protection status of wolves as granted by the Bern Convention by urging the Federal Council to cancel the Convention. This decision is following a postulate filed in May 2006, which demanded the wolf to be taken off the list of protected species.
Rejoining the Bern Convention should then only be allowed by explicitly stating that the wolf will not be protected by the Convention in the future.
Currently, no established wolf packs are living in Switzerland, although single wolves are coming into the country mainly from Italy. Currently, wolves are protected year-round by the Bern Convention and may be shot if they kill 25 sheep within one month or 35 in a period of four months. Show 9 comments · Comment this article
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Two dead female wolves in Saxony, Germany - one illegally shot
Within one week, two dead wolves were found in the Lausitz region in Saxony and southern Brandenburg, respectively. The first wolf was found dead in the Neustadt Heath (Oberlausitz). The female yearling was discovered by a ranger in the morning hours on August 7 on the western part of the military training site where a pack of wolves resides since 2002/2003.
The carcass was sent to the Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) in Berlin for a necropsy. According to the results, it is believed that the wolf was killed by a wild sow.
One week later, on August 15, a lumberjack found another dead female wolf near Luckau in southern Brandenburg. The carcass was located in the thicket near highway B87. Her left leg was broken and she was sent in for a necropsy to the IZW again.
A gunshot wound and remains of a bullet were found, which makes this the first proven case of an illegally shot wolf in the Lausitz region since the beginning of the recolonization in 1995. The German Hunting Association (DJV) condemned the act and offered a 1,000 EUR reward for any information which leads to the arrest of the offender. Show 6 comments · Comment this article
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Fourth pack of wolves established in the Lausitz region (Germany)
Only shortly after the existence of a third wolf pack was discovered in the Lausitz region in Saxony, Germany, a fourth pack of wolves was confirmed to exist in the Niederlausitz region (Brandenburg). The pack resides on an abandoned military training site in the Zschorno Heath region and has already reproduced successfully this year. The exact number of pups born is yet unknown, however. Show 8 comments · Comment this article
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Germany: Third wolf pack sighted in the Lausitz region
According to officials, a third wolf pack seems to have established in the Lausitz region. Further information on the size of the pack and the location of its territory has not been released yet.
The Lausitz region (Saxony, eastern Germany, near the border to Poland) is home to wolves since they were first sighted around 1995 and formed the first reproducing pack in 2000. The second pack split off in 2002, when four siblings dispersed from the Muskau Heath pack to settle down in the Neustadt Heath area. However, in their first mating season, the only female amonst the four chose a German Shepherd dog over one of her brothers, giving birth to nine hybrids, four of which survived. Two were caught, the other two vanished. Later on, the Neustadt Heath female found a mate in a disperser from Poland in 2004 and gave birth to five pups the year after and to six more in 2006. Show 6 comments · Comment this article
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Germany: Federal Government Plans Radio-Collaring of Wolves
The federal government of Germany is making plans to capture six yearlings from the population in the Lausitz region (Saxony) and equip them with GPS collars. The trapping using fladry is scheduled for this winter. Throughout the last years, the Saxon State Ministry for the Environment and Agriculture (SMUL) had strictly opposed the idea of radio-collaring wolves or doing any other invasive research on the wolves in the region. Show 3 comments · Comment this article
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Germany: dead wolf pup found / another sheep killed
A five month old wolf pup from the Muskau Heath Pack was found dead on the military training area Oberlausitz approximately one week ago. An autopsy of the animal at the Institute for zoo and wildlife research in Berlin yielded no results in determining a specific cause of death. Further investigations are planned at the museum of natural history in Görlitz.
Also, one dead and two injured sheep were found at an enclosure in Nieder Seifersdorf (Oberlausitz, Saxony). Ilka Reinhardt from LUPUS wildlife consulting said that there is a 50% chance that the kill was made by a wolf. The reason for this uncertainty is that besides the typical bitemarks on the throat of the sheep, there are injuries inflicted by shaking, which is thought to be typical for dog attacks, according to Ilka Reinhardt. This was another case in which the loss could have been prevented, because one side of the 25 acre area was not completely fenced in. Show 4 comments · Comment this article
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In the morning hours of October 6, Dr. Erich Klinghammer, the founder and former director of Wolf Park has died at the age of 81 after he had been in ill health for about a month. His mortal remains are to be cremated and his ashes spead in the bison pasture at Wolf Park.
