ACTION ALERT: BC wolves need your voice

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Guest blogger Sadie Parr

Few places remain on this planet where wolves can live as nature intended. BC is still one of them….but it’s up to YOU to make sure that is stays this way! The BC government released a draft management plan for wolves on November 14th that is heavy on management but lacking conservation, ecology, and ethics.

The proposed plan supports:

• Elimination of wolves where they overlap with ranchers
• Machine gunning of wolves where caribou herds are in severe decline
• Continued sterilization of wolves when a decade of this has not increased caribou numbers
• Ongoing slaughter of wolves through lax hunting and trapping regulations (no bag limits, no specific tag required, year-round killing in some regions)

The draft plan needs to be changed! Your voice is NEEDED. Current wolf management in BC is extremely outdated. What’s missing from the plan? The incredible social nature and family bonds shared among this intelligent species. Many wolf biologists argue that allowing wolves to express their natural social behaviour benefits the wider ecosystem as well as wolves. The BC government wants to kill wolves for sport, to appease ranchers, and to help save endangered species. The number of wolves being killed across the province is at an all-time high since recording began.

Wolf biologist Dr. Linda Rutledge states:

“We have no idea the extent of the impact that repeatedly killing over 25% of a wolf population has on their evolutionary trajectory. But it’s dangerous to think that you can manipulate them so intensively and have negligible consequences.”

Top predators are among the most outstanding achievements of wilderness, evolving over hundreds of centuries. The social structure of wolf packs has evolved with this. It is the wolf pack that is the top predator, not the individual wolf. Wolves are more than mere numbers. Their social bonds and kin-based families define what it means to be a wolf. Management plans need to take this into account!

The BC governments’ draft proposal brings us back to a time of fear-mongering. Wolves are being killed through hunting, trapping, livestock concerns, failing caribou herds, and on transportation routes across the majority of the province. Extended family members of wolf packs are often butchered in a human-dominated landscape. We can do better this! Do not allow our ecosystems to become impoverished due to fear and mismanagement. Speak against this bloodshed.

Although wolves require an adequate prey base, the defining factor in wolf persistence is protection from humans. Aldo Leopold learned long ago that “Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf”. None is so hated; none so misunderstood.

Conservation groups across the province have a vision for a better BC for wolves, wildlife & people.

WHAT TO ASK FOR

1.Extend the deadline for public input to January 30.

2.NO helicopter killing or sterilization of wolves.

3.NO leghold traps, Conibear or snare traps and no baiting.

4.Return to former species licence, quotas, bag limits, restricted seasons, and mandatory reporting of kills for hunting wolves.

5.A decision and statement that lethal predator control is NOT an option for the recovery of mountain caribou and a stop to the Quesnell Highland wolf sterilization and removal project.

6.A provincial management plan for wolves that considers the social stability of packs as well as population size to ensure the long term conservation of the species in its most natural form.

7. A commitment to reduce wolf-livestock-human conflicts through prevention, and provision of educational initiatives and incentives for responsible husbandry practices.

8.Protect large tracts of habitat for wolves and their prey. Ensure that protected areas are large enough to support multiple wolf families with no hunting/trapping allowed.

Conservation of wolves and the wild habitat they thrive upon has even been linked to stopping climate change. Indeed, wolves maintain biodiversity in ecosystems, which are thus better able to handle, as well as buffer, the effects of changes in nature. The ecosystem services provided by a healthy environment, such as water and air purification, cannot be matched by a dollar value as we cannot replace these necessary services if we tried.A better BC for all includes a future with iconic predators that Canadians identify with; management of our natural resources in an ethical and sustainable way; clean water and air, and wild spaces that can be explored by foot only.

Many conservation groups are opposed to this plan, including Pacific Wild, Valhalla Wilderness Society, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, The Association of Protection of Furbearing Animals, Friends of Animals, Lifeforce Foundation, Northern Lights Wolf Centre, World Temperate Rainforest Network, Peter A Dettling Wilderness Education Centre, and likely many more to come as they learn about this horrendous proposal!

PLEASE ADD YOUR VOICE!

“History has shown us that if deliberate efforts are not made to conserve large carnivores they are doomed.” –Hummel and Pettigrew

Voice your concern. Public input deadline is December 5.

It’s easy to submit your comments at:
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/fw/public-consultation/grey-wolf/

Or contact:

Honourable Steve Thomson
PO BOX 9049 Stn. Prov. Govt.
Victoria, BC
V8W 9E2

Telephone: 250 387-6240
Fax: 250 387-1040

Steve.Thomson@gov.bc.ca or steve.thomson.mla@leg.bc.ca

“By remaining silent, we allow others to prevail” – Martin Luther King

Thank you for your howls!

Please cc. SadieParrwolfpact@gmail.com on letters sent if possible.

Most sincerely, Sadie Parr

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