By Idaho standards, it was big news this week when Idaho Gov. Butch Otter approved the state's first-ever felony animal cruelty law for pets and livestock, leaving the Dakotas as the only states without similar laws.
But even animal rights activists in Idaho were hardly pulling out the champagne. At the same time Otter was signing the bill that many believe too weak to actually improve the treatment of domestic animals, Idaho state game officials were trying to explain why they failed to use existing laws on the humane treatment of trapped wild animals to charge a trapper who took time to pose, grinning, in the blood-stained snow next to a wounded, but still very much alive wolf.
The wolf had likely been ensnared in the trap for hours, if not days, but trapper Josh Bransford thought it was fine that he take time to crouch beside the bloody, frightened animal for a photo op. And apparently, so do state officials, who at best conducted a fly-by investigation of the incident before throwing up their hands.
This is only the latest proof that Idaho has absolutely no interest in managing a wolf population whose Endangered Species Act protections were prematurely stripped a year ago this week by a last-second rider attached to a budget bill in Congress.
Since then, wolf management in Idaho appears to have reverted to the days when wolves were viewed as little more than vermin and unwelcome on the landscape -- the same attitude that nearly drove them extinct.
Idaho's 2009 wolf management plan called for managing wolves above 500 individuals in 15 packs, but the state has not set a maximum number of wolves that can be killed and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will only reconsider federal protection when the number of wolves drops below a paltry 150 wolves.
To date, hunting and trapping have taken 376 of the roughly 1,000 wolves roaming the state, or more than a third of the population, in one season. And the hunt is still open in parts of the state. The Department of Fish and Game's handling of the Bransford incident, coupled with their excessively liberal hunting rules, makes it clear Idaho's goal is to manage wolves back to the brink of extinction and offers a lens on why wolves, and other top predators, will only survive with federal protection.
The evidence to date is pretty clear: The congressional rider delisting wolves in Idaho not only ignored the scientific and on-the-ground realities of effectively managing fragile wolf populations, it failed to take into account whether Idaho has the ability to manage the complex factors surrounding the re-introduction of wolves. All the facts suggest state officials have neither the ability nor the interest.
Wolves in Idaho deserve better. After being nearly wiped out of the West, it's taken a national effort to return these incredible predators to the landscape. Wolf recovery is a landmark achievement of the Endangered Species Act but it's too early to declare victory, especially with what we've seen in Idaho the last 12 months. If Idaho and other states aren't up to the task to responsibly managing these nationally important species -- and it's pretty clear at the moment they're not -- it's time to return their protections under the Endangered Species Act.
Regulations vary from state to state but very few actually monitor the process effectively. The Fish and Game Department has a careless attitude on this problem. They have a daylong workshop for people who wish to kill and trap wolves but this is woefully inadequate in policing the habits of those who trap in this way. Bottom line is that there is no ethical stance you can take on the acceptable use of steel jawed traps. The traps are inhumane, outdated, and subject to use by those who can and will abuse wildlife. It is extremely duplicitous to say that traps are ok to use, as long as photographs are not taken during the trapping process. Idaho needs to lead the way in this reform by banning such traps. Our handling of this issue will determine how animals are treated and what rights we are willing to deem appropriate for the wildlife in our state.
Trapping all too often removes the healthy animals from the population, leaving the sick and young that fall victim to the natural selection process. It actually works against natures selection process, putting our eco system at risk.
Those who claim that trapping is a lucrative business are misleading the public. According to studies done by the Department of Conservation, trappers report small incomes from trapping and basically reduce this endeavor to hobby status in most cases.
But for the lack of knowledge you would be wise.
IF Leghold traps are so devasting, so sure to cripple and maim , How is it they are used to catch and tag wolves for study and/or relocation ??
There are three types of traps that are legal to use here in America. They are restraining body-gripping or toggle traps, kill traps, and live traps. The most commonly used trap is the steel jawed leghold trap. Although declared inhumane by various groups, only eight US states have banned these types of traps. 88 countries have banned them outright and our continued use of these types of animal restraints sheds a very dark light on animal treatment here in America. These traps cause severe swelling, lacerations, joint dislocations, fractures, tooth and gum damage, self- mutilation, limb amputation and even death. They are also the indiscriminate cause of serious injury or death to raptors, bears, mountain lions, dogs, cats, and even humans. The so called leghold traps can reduce injury to some extent but still cause serious and debilitation injuries, including fractures, lacerations, and exposure.
Conibear traps are known as kill traps and are designed to kill animals instantly by snapping the spinal column at the base of the neck. The facts are that less than 15% of trapped animals are killed quickly and the majority suffer slow, agonizing deaths. They also attract non target animals.
to eliminate all hunting are merely engaging in the rhetoric that abounds on
this issue. The main concern here is the mistreatment of animals in the wild
and the much needed push to end trapping as a legal means of animal hunting.
The laws in place now do not cover potential abuse of animals while
trapping. Fish and Game is extremely lax
in their enforcement of the current laws and do not do enough to ensure that
animals are treated humanely in the wild. There is an ongoing investigation by
Noah Greenwald and other environmentalists who are demanding an accurate
account of what really happened to the wolf trapped by Bransford. I agree that
Fish and Game is not helping to clear this up, but are instead offering perfunctory
statements that show no real intention of getting to the truth in this
matter. The only good thing that has
come out of this is the spotlight that has been placed on this issue. Trapping needs to be banned period, and our animal cruelty
laws need to be restructured to include wildlife in this state. We have had worldwide condemnation as a result
and once again Idaho is being shown in a very negative light.
Trapping is SO much more humane than any natural selection method that a ban barely lends itself to discussion. For many predators and rodents it is the only truly effective method to maintain the population at acceptable levels. There is no perfect painless way to manage wildlife populations. Hunters strive to this attain this this goal by following up every shot. Trappers should check traps at least once a day. ( Some states don't require it but ethics demand it and it should be the law.) They come much closer to that goal and help lower populations far more humanely than than starvation, disease or even narural predatation.
Are there any opponents to trapping that actually have trapped or do they all just rail on about some photo they have seen ? Is the out cry based on some story they have heard or a bad experience caused by someone setting traps but did not follow the law or use ethical, legal trapping methods. Such people are not Trappers -they are criminals.
There is no valid reason to even consider bannig trapping as a legal, ehtical, effective method of harvesting furbearers and predators deemed legal to trap by State Wildlife Agenciies.
Ours is the model for successful conservation and management of wildlife world wide.
. The leg/foot is what secures the animal in the trap. Injury is undesirible as it weakens the very thing that is holding the animal. Traps should be set where the animal will not be disturbed by passersby and checked within 24 hrs .This allows for the ethical capture with little or no injury.
Another photo posted (same incident) of the wolfs paw after he had been killed -showed no leg damage . If this wolf had been trapped for relocation (and not shot by a passing criminal) he could have been collared and released unharmed.
Many things can be used to abuse animals, including collars, wirekennels, human hands and well meaning ignorance like not controlling the population to a number compatible with the available environment and food supply .Whether it is a house full of cats, a pasture full of cows or over the 200 packs of no longer endangered wolves now inhabiting the northern Rockies, failure to manage the population responsibily will eventually end in habitat destruction, starvation, disease and death.
Scientists admit that the wolf is having a minimal effect on the elk population – this was based on the 2010 study done by Fish and Game. They found that instead of reducing the elk population, the wolves had merely changed the migration pattern of elk. They now migrated to avoid known wolf populated areas. Still the hunting is going on and sooner or later the numbers will win out and the wolf species will eventually become extinct – like so many of our wildlife that initially populated this country.
The problem of habitat erosion continues as housing is continually being built in what had been mainly untouched areas for wildlife. There has to be controls set in place to stop the needless destruction of our native animal life here in this country. Information on what wolves actually do and how they live needs to be spread to our community so everyone understands the checks and balances that need to be left untouched for a healthy eco system to thrive.
Also the moral question of killing for sport vs. food needs to be addressed. Animal traps need to be outlawed verbatim and anyone with an ounce of compassion would agree that this cruel and painful method of taking animals must be stopped.
Adults from Montana weighed an average of 97 lbs with a maximum of 117 lbs, whereas adults from Idaho weighed an average of 101 lbs with a maximum of about 130 lbs. These weights are similar to the sizes of the wolves that occurred in these states in the 1800s and early 1900s.
Second, wolves are well known for their ability to disperse long distances from their birth sites. Radio-tracking data show that wolves from southeastern British Columbia and southwestern Alberta mix both with wolves from Idaho and Montana, and with wolves from farther north near the source locations of the animals used in the Idaho and Yellowstone reintroductions. When combined with recent research that reveals considerable genetic mixing among wolf populations in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, this information shows that wolves form a single population across the Rocky Mountains of the northern U.S. and southern Canada.
Third, recent genetic research involving hundreds of wolves sampled from Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming in the 1990s and 2000s found no evidence that the remnant native population of wolves that differed from the reintroduced wolves. Thus, the wolves present in these states before wolf recovery began were genetically similar to those used in the reintroductions."
Source: Washington Department of Conservation
This is a falsehood that keeps being perpetrated. The following was posted on another wolf article about Montana wolves, but for those who missed it, here it is again. Idigenous wolves in the West? They were eradicated for the most part in the lower 48:
"There is no genetic difference between introduced wolves and the ones that were eradicated years before.
"The belief that the wolves reintroduced in the mid-1990s to Idaho and Yellowstone National Park from west-central Alberta and east-central British Columbia differed (being larger and more aggressive) from the wolves that originally occurred in the northern Rocky Mountain states is erroneous for several reasons.
First, wolves from the Canadian and northern U.S. Rockies, interior British Columbia, Northwest Territories, and nearly all of Alaska are closely related and belong to a single subspecies known as Canis lupus occidentalis. This conclusion is based on the examination of historical and recent wolf specimens collected throughout North America. Those originating from the region described above have proven to be genetically and morphologically similar. Examples of this are seen in the wolves harvested during the 2009 hunting seasons in Montana and Idaho.
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