Three hundred reasons to release more Mexican gray wolves

While we are still struggling to understand exactly what happened with F1105, the Mexican wolf who was killed last week in New Mexico, we just keep thinking that the answer is to release more wolves into the wild. The blow of F1105's death wouldn't be quite so tragic if there was a robust wild population, and if it hadn't come on the heels of three other deaths in the last two months. (More here and here; all three are suspicious in our opinion.)

From the comments on our previous post about F1105's death,

There are only about 50 Mexican gray wolves("lobos") in the wilds of New Mexico and Arizona--not enough to ensure their survival. More than 300 lobos are in captivity, waiting to be released into the wild as part of a reintroduction program. Releasing wolves directly into New Mexico--where the best remaining unoccupied habitat exists--is critical to quickly boosting numbers and gene diversity in the wild population, but for bureaucratic reasons the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) won't do it, citing an outdated rule that prevents direct releases into New Mexico. The FWS could easily change this rule by issuing an Environmental Assessment and putting it out for public review, but it refuses to do so. Tell the FWS to take action before it's too late for Mexican wolves.

Please tell US Fish and Wildlife Service: Release Mexican wolves into New Mexico before it's too late. Sign our petition at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/tell-us-fish-and-wildlife-service-release-mexican-wolves-into-new-mexico-before-its-too-late/

Thanks, Anonymous, for alerting our readers to this opportunity to weigh in. Now, Dear Readers, please do!

Another blow to a stable wild populations of Mexican wolves

This sad news from yesterday: Environmentalists troubled by shooting death of female Mexican wolf in southwestern New Mexico. Turns out this lonely female wolf started hanging around houses, attempting to get close to other canids after a long solo year. And who can blame her, really? Wolves are intensely social and she was prime breeding age. Anyway, the feds were called in and shot her to death. It's a crying shame.

The usual suspects blame the wolf and try to portray her as a child-eater, again. In the comments of the above story, notorious wolf hater Laura Bryant Schneburger has this to say:

Two babies playing in the yard while mom unloads groceried, she comes out wolf is in yard with babies. F1105 nearly gets elderly woman bucked off while working heifers, f1105 stays at house and breeds with dog that is just her past year.

We personally love the one about the elderly woman "nearly" getting bucked off- like she somehow did it on purpose so she could eat the old lady. (Why not blame the horse?) These are the folks with the bus shelters, remember. They have an agenda to make wolves seem as menacing as possible.

We have no idea what F1105 was doing and maybe we would have felt threatened, too. Would we have called for her death? No. And the greater issue is that the ongoing hysteria and resistance to a biologically-sound recovery program and recent opposition to new releases isn't making things better for the project. Unless the project can get new wolves on the ground to form healthy packs in the wild, we're going to see a lot more unhappy endings.

It's creepy and wrong how much these guys like their job.

Probably most folks have already seen this post over at The Wildlife News. The photo is of a government plane marked with pawprints to indicate aerial wolf kills. There are really no words to describe how angry and sad this makes us. Who are these people? Have they no shame? No respect for life? It's sick and it's a sickness.

Reminds us of that Ed Abbey quote: "Whenever I see a photograph of some sportsmen grinning over his kill, I am always impressed by the striking moral and esthetic superiority of the dead animal to the live one."

More about the story behind those photos in the LA Times.

Up against it: Funding the resistance

(Via)

It's that time of year where you are being asked for your checkbooks every time you turn around, whether it is families in need or families in "want." To boot, every NGO sends out year end appeals for funds, the tax benefits of which are minimal unless your checks are maximal. But we good people of the world know that these groups need our support to keep doing what they are doing.

So here's one near and dear to our hearts: The Sierra Club Borderlands Campaign. If the border infrastructure ain't a symbol of what's wrong with this country, we're not sure what is. It's the habitat fragmentation of demarcated landscapes writ large. It's short-sighted posturing at the expense of the environment like few things are. The Sierra Club's Borderlands Campaign is the ONLY staff person of any environmental organization in the country working full-time on border issues. Isn't that amazing?

Please support this campaign by getting in touch with dan.millis@sierraclub.org or sending a check to 738 N. 5th Ave, Suite 214, Tucson AZ 85705 made payable to "The Sierra Club Foundation" with "Borderlands Program" written in the subject line.

Obama No!

We admit we were wrong about President Obama at the outset of his candidacy. We were speechlessly happy. We were stoked.

And we were quickly disappointed. Again. And again. [The list is lengthy and we'll spare you the repetition.]

So when Mrs. Obama's little holiday card/campaign fundraiser came in the mail today, it was all we could do not to barf. Not only will we not be giving money this year, Michelle, we won't be giving your dearest Barack our vote next November either.

Seriously, with announcements like these, you're asking us to donate?

Uh-uh. We'll be sending our year-end donations to groups that fight back against the Obama Administration. It's a sad fact that they have to.