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Nature Deficit Disorder

Meador: Earth Journal. Wolf hunt vs. depredation control. There is no clear scientific evidence connecting wolf hunting to reduced livestock losses due to depredation.

Wolf hunt vs. depredation control

This week's legislative hearing on wolf management by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources roamed all over the landscape, topically and philosophically, but for me the most interesting portions centered on "depredation conflicts. " Wolf quotas filled easily. Now that Minnesota’s first sport seasons on wolves are history, it’s interesting to revisit an early chapter in the evolution of this program – and to compare some predictions of a year ago with the final results now posted.

Wolf quotas filled easily

Dr. David Mech It was last Jan. 26 when Dr. Non-lethal depredation control. From Oregon comes a hopeful little success story about raising cattle in wolf country, wherein ranchers are protecting their herds with colorfully nonlethal alternatives to trapping and shooting.

Non-lethal depredation control

From the AP science writer Jeff Barnard, as published over the weekend in the Christian Science Monitor: As long as wolves have been making their comeback, biologists and ranchers have had a decidedly Old West option for dealing with those that develop a taste for beef: Shoot to kill. But for the past year, Oregon has been a "wolf-safe" zone, with ranchers turning to more modern, nonlethal ways to protect livestock. While the number of wolves roaming the state has gone up, livestock kills haven't — and now conservation groups are hoping Oregon can serve as a model for other Western states working to return the predator to the wild.

Court rules wolf seasons beyond public challenge. The court's logic would seem to mean that nobody can have standing to challenge the wolf hunt in court, for any reason whatsoever.

Court rules wolf seasons beyond public challenge

Whether you're for or against the killing of wolves for sport, you might think the public has a right to be heard on a matter so enduringly contentious and emotional. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) thinks otherwise and so, apparently, does the Minnesota Court of Appeals. News reports on Tuesday's perfunctory dismissal of a challenge to the new trapping and hunting seasons have cited the court's conclusion that the plaintiffs lacked "standing" to raise objections, but didn't explain the legal reasoning behind it. And I was frankly scratching my head, because questions of standing usually seem to turn on such factors as having a demonstrable stake in the issues (no injury, no standing) or whether a lawsuit was filed in the correct jurisdiction, etc.

MPR News. DNR prepares to study wolf hunt. Listen DNR wolf survey aims to learn about behavior as hunting season approaches Oct 18, 2012 At the edge of Itasca State Park, expert wolf trapper Barry Sampson is setting traps.

DNR prepares to study wolf hunt

But Sampson, a wildlife biologist for the state Department of Natural Resources who has trapped wolves for 20 years, has no intention of harming the animals. He just wants to catch one. Minnesota's first-ever managed wolf hunt gets underway in about two weeks, barring a successful legal challenge that could stop the hunt. Wolf hunt won't help livestock. Listen Story audio A few weeks ago, rancher Dale Lueck noticed four wolves emerge from the trees that surround his 300-acre ranch full of knee-high grass just a few miles north of Mille Lacs Lake.

Wolf hunt won't help livestock

Pacelle: HSUS. Back in the late 1950s, The HSUS printed this mission statement on its membership cards: “Every Field of Humane Work—EVERYWHERE.

Pacelle: HSUS

" But even our founders could not have anticipated how today The HSUS and its affiliates bring so many tools to the fight. The recent landmark legal victory in the International Court of Justice against Japan’s commercial whaling activities in the Southern Ocean has had me thinking about our work in the courts. In 2005, my colleague Mike Markarian and I reached out to Jonathan Lovvorn, then an attorney at a public interest law firm, about heading and building a dedicated legal unit for animals. Less than a decade later, we’ve grown our team to 24 litigators—aided by a network of over 1,000 pro bono lawyers from the nation’s top law firms—and this team is working like never before to help all animals, on both the domestic and international stages, and to bring new levels of firepower to our cause.

Humane solutions for human/wildlife conflict. Wayne Pacelle is the president and chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

Humane solutions for human/wildlife conflict

This Op-Ed is adapted from a post on the blog A Humane Nation, where the content ran before appearing in LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The work of The HSUS is grounded on a couple of core principles: animals have the capacity to suffer, and we humans have the capacity to help them. Trophy Hunting Is Not Conservation. I hope you have been following the exchanges in the Talk Back posts, where we are posting a sampler of reader comments (if you’d like to join the conversation, offer a comment below).

Trophy Hunting Is Not Conservation

Thus far, I have stayed an arm’s length away and let the dialogue develop between readers. But Fred’s comments prompt a response from me. News Index by Project Coyote. Marin County livestock and wildlife protection program. (photo above: Great Pyrenees protecting its flock at the Marcia Barinaga Ranch in Marin County, CA - Keli Hendricks/ProjectCoyote.org ) In the picturesque community of Marin County California- just North of San Francisco- public controversy over the use of poisons, snares, “denning” (the killing coyote and fox pups in their dens), and other lethal methods led to a majority decision by the Marin County Board of Supervisors to stop contracting with the U.S.

Marin County livestock and wildlife protection program

Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services predator control program in 2000. Instead the Board approved an alternative community-based program to assist ranchers with livestock-predator conflicts known as the Marin County Livestock and Wildlife Protection Program (hereafter MCLWPP), a collaborative effort involving multiple stakeholders from local wildlife protection organizations to ranchers, scientists, and county government officials (Fox 2008). Fox: banning wildlife-killing contests. Bekoff: carnivores in our midst. Marc Bekoff, emeritus professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is one of the world's pioneering cognitive ethologists, a Guggenheim Fellow, and co-founder with Jane Goodall of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Bekoff's latest book is Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed (New World Library, 2013).

Clark, KCET: importance of large carnivores. An epochal study published Friday in the journal Science paints a truly frightening picture of a world without large carnivores, and a couple of Californian predators play a leading role. The study, "Status and Ecological Effects of the World's Largest Carnivores," examined more than 100 recent surveys of the roles that the world's largest predators play in shaping the ecosystems that they live in. They found that removing predators from an ecosystem can cause that ecosystem to unravel, with effects ranging from increase in pest animals to rivers changing course.

Paquet, Ferris: wolf delisting unscientific. By Paul Paquet and Bob Ferris Special to the Mercury News Posted: 03/21/2014 10:00:00 AM PDT25 Comments|Updated: 30 days ago Silicon Valley embraces science and loves innovation. Coyote Watch Canada. Farming In Harmony. Co-existing with Coyotes. Perich: Wild North. DNR Roundtable 2014. Points North. End Run Around Public Discourse. Predator Defense. Wildlife Services. Wolves. Coyotes. Maughan, Cole et al.: Wildlife News. Cole: incidental trapping figures from IDFG. Lynch: Q3 2012 YNP Wolf Update. Maughan: Idaho elk mismanagement. Controversy over wolves and elk was predicted before wolves entered the area- Idaho Fish and Game reports it has used a helicopter to kill 23 wolves in the north central Idaho area commonly called the Lolo. Wuerthner: Wildlife Conservation And Wolves. Many state wildlife agencies and organizations promote the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (NAMWC) as a guiding philosophy for management.

News tips 4/17/2014 ed. Wisconsin Outdoor Fun: wolf news. Wolves on trailCams. Mandatory WI wolf-trapper education? MI DNR guesses about wolf hunt. TRAVERSE CITY, MICH. — Most of the wolves killed during the recent hunt in Michigan's Upper Peninsula probably belonged to packs that have caused problems for people, which partially fulfilled a primary objective of the season even though fewer animals were shot than expected, state wildlife biologists say.