Wolves = Awesome for our public lands, yet Salazar says it's OK to kill them [View All]

[G_j]

Wolves = Awesome for our public lands

This is a great article that covers in-depth the importance of top predators, like wolves, to biodiversity in ecosystems. Where wolves are found you will also find an ecosystem that is healthy and strong and teaming with biodiversity - and make no mistake about it, in the greater Yellowstone area the wolves are the reason for this re-emergence of this native species biodiversity. It's all connected. Ecosystems need balance and when they don't have top predators, as the article points out, the whole ecosystem and balance shifts. It has been documented over and over again from the sea otters in California and their relationship to sea urchins and the underwater kelp forests to the deer of the east coast that have eaten the native plants and biodiversity out of the Appalachians, if you are missing a key piece of these puzzles you will change and weaken the entire ecosystem

http://www.missoulian.com/lifestyles/territory/article_3ec9fc54-c01f-11de-bf16-001cc4c002e0.html

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She adds in historic and archival data dating back a century, stirs in radio-collar data from both predator and prey.
Her findings: Wolves increase biodiversity; wolves affect elk behavior more than elk populations; and aspen growth in elk winter range is directly related to wolves.

"It's pretty rock-solid," Eisenberg said. "The information coming out is unbelievably clear."

Her next project will take these methods out of protected parks and put them to work on multiple-use national forest lands. With help from the National Science Foundation, she'll explore wildlands in Washington state, where wolves are only now returning.

The predators are, perhaps, something like forest fire - highly controversial, once maligned as a controllable evil, later understood to be one of the keys to overall forest health.
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A huge BOOOOO! for Obama's appointment of Ken Salazar as Secretary of the U.S. Department of the

Interiorhttp://myyellowstonewolves.typepad.com/myw/2009/03/not-a-good-day-to-be-a-wolf.html

March 06, 2009

Not a good day to be a wolf

Same bad plan for wolves
Salazar strips federal Endangered Species Act protection from wolves in Idaho, Montana

WASHINGTON – Today, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced he has decided to follow the Bush administration’s flawed decision to remove the protections of the Endangered Species Act from wolves in Idaho and Montana.
..more..

http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005128163#list


29 wolves shot in Idaho this season
By JON DUVAL
Express Staff Writer


A female member of the Phantom Hill wolf pack was killed Monday, the first wolf to be shot in the Wood River Valley since hunting opened in the region on Thursday, Oct. 1.

Idaho Department of Fish and Game Senior Conservation Officer Lee Garwood confirmed that the kill occurred in the Eagle Creek drainage, north of Ketchum. He said the wolf, which had been collared for tracking purposes, was about 2 years old. Garwood said a second wolf may have been close to the female when it was shot.

"There's at least nine or 10 wolves remaining in the Phantom Hill pack," he said. "It's difficult to say exactly, as we didn't see them in a group the last time we flew over the area."

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Wolf advocate and Stanley resident Lynne Stone decried the Phantom Hill pack shooting, saying few older wolves are left in that pack, especially after the alpha male was killed by a car in June. Stone said the pack could have trouble if it's mostly made up of pups and yearlings.

"It's sad because it was the pack we were using for education," she said.
Stone said she saw another wolf near Eagle Creek on Monday and shot in the air to scare it farther away from state Highway 75.

The wolf hunt in Idaho started earlier this year after the federal government removed the state's wolves from the federal endangered species list.