On 5 Jan. 2012, a new rule in the U.S. Federal Register was published, reflecting two decades of work by Friends of Animals to protect these antelope. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will now protect all members of these three species under the Endangered Species Act—including those bred on U.S. soil and sold for sport-hunting.

60 Minutes will recount the story -Hunting animals to save them?- of how these animals ended up on the verge of extinction, and how Friends of Animals, through its project in Senegal, is protecting these animals so they can recover their footing and freedom in their own habitat.

Send your support to stop the hunting of animals

“We’re grateful that 60 Minutes is telling this landmark story,” says Friends of Animals’ president Priscilla Feral, who worked with “60 Minutes” correspondent Lara Logan in the late spring of 2011—recounting Friends of Animals’ work on this project that began in 1999 with a trip to Senegal.

Yet on the same date, the FWS published an exception to the rule removing take and transport prohibitions from the very animals that the United States has the strongest power to protect—those kept by U.S. enterprises. The blanket exemption authorized killing, commercial transport, and interstate or foreign commerce—hence, allowing continued exploitation of these animals on hunting ranches.

A court case brought by Friends of Animals and WildEarth Guardians in 2009 challenged the loophole and secured a court order finding that the exemption violated Section 10 of the Endangered Species Act. The judge call the blanket exemption “anathema” to the ESA, and in June 2009 remanded the rule to the FWS for the appropriate change.

Friends of Animals currently supports an increasing population of 175 oryxes (and dozens of dama gazelles) in northern Senegal within two, semi-desert reserves encompassing thousands of acres—and is committed to seeing these numbers grow.

“Even though this project is decades long, we’re just beginning,” says Feral. “We’re committed to ensuring these animals thrive in freedom once again.”

CBS’ 60 Minutes airs Sunday 29 January 2012 at 7:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. Check your local listings.

Friends of Animals, an advocacy organization founded in 1957, advocates for the right of animals to live free, on their own terms: www.FriendsofAnimals.org

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 24, 2012 — Bill Would Keep Hens Locked In Cages Despite Overwhelming Public Opposition

The Humane Farming Association (HFA) today announced its opposition to H.R. 3798, the Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments of 2012, introduced by Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.). If enacted, the bill would stop cage-free laws in their tracks, despite the overwhelming desires of the American public.

The amendment seeks to codify an agreement reached in 2011 between United Egg Producers (UEP) — the egg industry trade association recently sued for an alleged price fixing scheme— and the Humane Society of the United States. UEP has been repeatedly brought to court over the past several years for similar accusations of price fixing.

While claiming to “enrich” cages, the bill would:

Nullify existing state laws that ban or restrict battery cages — including California’s Proposition 2.

Deprive voters of the right and ability to pass ballot measures banning cages.

Deny state legislatures the ability to enact laws to outlaw battery cages or otherwise regulate egg factory conditions.

“UEP claims that this legislation would eventually result in ‘progress’ for laying hens,” said Bradley Miller, National Director of the Humane Farming Association. “Just the opposite is true. In reality, the egg industry merely agreed to slowly continue the meager changes in battery cage conditions that are already occurring due to state laws and public pressure.”

“We are urging citizens to contact their U.S. Representatives to oppose this bill. It represents not only a major loss for laying hens, but also for states’ rights and voters’ rights throughout the nation,” said Miller. “If it passes, it will establish egg factory cages as a national standard that could never be challenged or changed by state law or public vote, and would keep laying hens forever locked in cages.”

In addition to the Humane Farming Association, those opposed to the bill include Friends of Animals, Animal Welfare Institute, United Poultry Concerns, FARM, Associated Humane Societies, and the majority of rank and file animal advocates.

HFA Responds to the Rotten Egg Bill’s (H.R. 3798) Specific Points

For political cover, UEP inserted a few diversionary provisions. None of them holds up to scrutiny.

Ammonia Levels: The Rotten Egg Bill contains nothing that alters current standards for “ammonia levels.” The bill merely duplicates UEP’s existing standards (which allow unhealthful levels of ammonia) and seeks to put that into federal law.

Forced Molting and Euthanasia: As for ending the practice of forced molting of hens by “starvation” and water deprivation – egg companies do not advocate that to begin with. Far from changing any currently accepted molting practice, the bill merely adopts UEP’s own existing standards. The same goes for “euthanasia” standards and other empty provisions tossed in to distract from the central issue: keeping hens in cages.

UEP’s Game of Inches: Prior to the Rotten Egg Bill, the egg industry passed state legislation calling for 116 square inches of cage space per hen. With a mere 8 square inch adjustment, UEP’s federal bill calls for a still cruel and depriving 124 square inches per hen – “phased-in” over 18 years. This token modification does not “double” the cage space from what UEP has already advocated as a standard. The bill’s own proponents have stated that a hen needs at least 216 square inches just to spread her wings.

Fraudulent Labeling: As far as labeling egg cartons, UEP’s Rotten Egg Bill certainly would do that. For the very first time, the fraudulent term “enriched” cages would begin appearing on egg cartons nationwide – in order to deflect public concern – and to increase egg sales from caged hens.

The position of the Humane Farming Association and other responsible activists and organizations remains clear:

Cruelty is cruelty.

There is no such thing as an “enriched” battery cage.

No humane organization should ever endorse these abusive confinement systems.

Our state laws and voting rights must not be given away.

For media inquiries, contact Bradley Miller at 415.485.1495.

SOURCE Humane Farming Association

Contact: Nancy Rice
Friends of Animals
E-mail or Tel: 203.656.1522

Contact: Priscilla Feral,
President, Friends of Animals
E-mail or Tel: 203.656.1522

DARIEN, CT — Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) is mulling a bear hunt lottery, sending an alarming message about big, bad bears – based less on facts than a fairy tale.

A look at the data shows the DEEP tallying bears in a way that can alarm the public and create a perceived need for hunting permits.

Friends of Animals, through the Freedom of Information Act, asked for documentation, and found that the sighting numbers consist of hearsay, not science. Several tallies could simply amount to one bear migrating from one area to another.

“Nor should bears be vilified because they happen to be seen – in a state of 3.5 million people,” said Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals.

Bears are not targeted in Connecticut, a state which has not held a bear hunt since 1840.

“We’re asking our members and Connecticut residents to assure the governor that while this idea might draw money from hunters in search of a new thrill, it’s wrongheaded,” Feral said.

American black bears (Ursus americanus) are native to North America, and are the continent’s smallest and most common bear species. They are omnivores whose diets vary, contingent on location and season. They typically live in woodlands, but are known to become attracted to human communities because of the availability of food.

Friends of Animals is asking members and Connecticut residents to contact the governor and ask that the bear hunt be removed from further consideration. The group has stated that the only appropriate action is education: to have Connecticut be a model for safe, ecologically aware living, involving respecting bears rather than turning them into an annual sport.

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy can be reached at: governor.malloy@ct.gov or toll-free on 1-800-406-1527

“Wolves are well known for controlling their own population,” stated Jay Mallonee when interviewed for this document (on 6 Jan. 2012), adding: “Perhaps at some point we’ll just have to accept what the data from ecology and environmental science ultimately indicate: learn to live with wildlife rather than control it.”

Intolerance and the quest for convenience on our part, Mallonee observes, “only dull the truth about these animals” and both are present in the current rush to de-list the wolves from federal protection and hand them over to control by the State of Wyoming.

Wyoming’s current wolf management plan ensures that no wolves will inhabit the vast majority of Wyoming. The U.S. government would err severely if the Proposed Rule to remove federal protections for Wyoming wolves is accepted as law. We submit the following specific concerns and objections.

Division of Policy and Directives Management
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
4401 N. Fairfax Drive
MS 2042-PDM
Arlington, VA 22203

Re: FWS-R6-ES-2011-0039
Comments on Proposed Rule Removing Wolves in Wyoming from the Protection of the Endangered Species Act

On behalf of Friends of Animals, please consider the following comment on your proposal to de-list Canis lupus in Wyoming via 76 Fed. Reg. 61782-61823.

Wyoming’s current wolf management plan ensures that no wolves will inhabit the vast majority of Wyoming. The U.S. government would err severely if the Proposed Rule to remove federal protections for Wyoming wolves is accepted as law. We submit the following specific concerns and objections.

1. The Government’s Description and Analysis of the Biology, Population, and Distribution Is Incomplete and Inaccurate

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (hereinafter “FWS”) describes the Northern Rocky Mountain wolf population at issue without considering continuing losses suffered by the wolves’ communities on account of the hunting seasons currently being waged against these animals by Idaho and Montana.

Moreover, the FWS description of the wolf population must acknowledge the inexact nature of estimating wolf populations generally—and the lack of any protocol in the subject of this Proposed Rule.

Note that Montana’s 2011 hunt, established with a quota of 220 wolves, is overseen by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (hereinafter “FWP”), the state agency responsible for collecting data about wolves. Montana-based biologist Jay S. Mallonee points out the salient errors and drawbacks in the data collection as follows:

• Living organisms’ populations change over time, due to (a) births and deaths, and (b) migration: immigration and emigration.

• During 2009, 804 wolves apparently lived in Montana, but not all at once. The wolves remaining in December are viewed as a working number by FWP to represent the minimum number of wolves that year.

• To ascertain a current working number, FWP relied heavily on opportunistic and anecdotal information (e.g., reporting from hunters; aerial tracking of a few radio-collared wolves), producing questionable information for the annual reports.

• The year 2009 began with 497 wolves. Management and recreational killing subtracted 280 wolves, for a new total of 217. FWP claimed that 307 wolves augmented this population, for a December total of 524. FWP officials reported 166 births—implying, then, that 141 wolves migrated into Montana. But emigration is a guess and immigration is unknown. Together, they are half of the equation to determine the total number of wolves in the state. There was no justification for factoring in 141 extra wolves.

• The numbers for 2010 provided by FWP also do not add up. Consequently, other management decisions based on this number are also flawed.

• Because no scientific protocols were used to procure the data used as their basis, the hunting quotas are arbitrary, and to claim that wolf hunts are based in science is a falsehood.

• As correspondence from Montana officials shows, states may claim science but do not use the scientific method. This is crucial to any decisions on Rocky Mountain wolves. In Jay Mallonee’s e-mail exchanges with FWP and the Montana governor’s office (posted here: www.wolfandwildlifestudies.com/downloads/emailexchanges.pdf), we see Kent Laudon, Wolf Management Specialist with Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks (FWP) in September 2010 stating: “Jay there are no protocols. No protocol would be necessary or even help really…We do, occasionally, find wolves incidentally by air craft. So, aircraft is used to monitor radio collared wolves/packs…” As Mallonee states to Jim Williams, FWP Wildlife Program Manager: “Kent said no protocols were followed, which by default means no science…”

There is a further serious infirmity with the basis of the State’s wolf-killing decisions that involves numbers that were factored in without any basis. Jay S. Mallonee points out the salient errors and drawbacks in the FWP justifications for killing wolves as follows:

• In 2009, 97 cattle were lost to wolves. Statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture count 2.6 million cattle, including calves, in Montana. Ninety-seven out of 2.6 million is only 0.004 percent. (Western Montana, where the wolves live, has 494,100 cattle—fewer than on the east side of the state. Even here, only 97, i.e. 0.02 percent of the western cattle population, were killed by wolves.)

• Similar low percentages apply to sheep. Wolves were documented as killing 0.6 percent of them. In 2009, therefore, wolves were responsible for about 0.06 percent of total farm animal loss. (Even if 1,000 cattle were reported for 2009, this would only be 0.2 percent of the cattle in western Montana killed by wolves.)

• Potential threat to prey has been used as a reason to kill additional wolves. In Montana, where prey population numbers are not measured annually, it remains unknown how many deer, elk, and moose exist. Where elk populations have been studied—in southwest Montana and Yellowstone National Park—research found mixed impacts: some herds declined, some increased (in southwestern Montana), and others showed little or no effect from wolves.
Friends of Animals published a summary of the above-listed problems in Jay S. Mallonee, Hunting Montana’s Wolves,Friends of Animals ActionLine (Winter 2011-12). For the full analysis, a PDF (portable document file) of the original scientific paper on which our summary is based can be obtained from www.wolfandwildlifestudies.com.

There is no scientific consensus on how wolf predation influences prey population dynamics—whether in Montana or Wyoming. Environmental conditions affect this in ways science does not yet fully understand. Without research in specific areas (such as the elk studies), the influence of wolves remains unknown.

2. The Proposed Rule Does Not Provide Accurate and Adequate Review and Analysis of the Factors Relating to Threats

Several factors of high importance have been neglected here:

• Migration between the Distinct Population Segments is critical; Montana’s wolves are connected with those of Wyoming. On migrations and interactions among groups of wolves across regions, see A. Miklosi, Dog Behaviour, Evolution, and Cognition (Oxford University Press, 2007).

• The Proposed Rule is incorrectly premised upon the existence of a recovered wolf population when this is not the case. See, e.g., Bradley J. Bergstrom et al., The Northern Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf Is Not Yet Recovered, BioScience, December 2009, Vol. 59, No. 11, 59:991-999; available here.

• The FWS disregards current research and its own precedents in the rush to de-list Montana wolves, even while admitting that wolves in the Wyoming portion of the Distinct Population Segment are not recovered.

• This flaw is significantly exacerbated with the de-listing in other areas of the Northern Rockies. Significantly, future migration of wolves to the Greater Yellowstone Area from central Idaho or northwest Montana will be impeded as wolf populations in those areas have been reduced by recreational kills.

• Moreover, the advent of de-listing in other areas, and the subsequent state-run killing efforts, will have unexpected impacts because raw numbers do not show the responses within or between wolf packs, which can create unpredictable vulnerabilities.

• Hunts remove a number of individuals in a short time and disrupt regional population networks, which already help to control wolf numbers. See A. Miklosi, Dog Behaviour, Evolution, and Cognition (Oxford University Press, 2007). Also see L.Y. Rutledge et al., Protection From Harvesting Restores the Natural Social Structure of Eastern Wolf Packs, Biological Conservation, doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2009.10.017 (2009); cited in J.S. Mallonee, Hunting Wolves in Montana–Where Are the Data? Nature and Science 9(9)(2011); available
here.

• Predator loss and manipulation in turn contributes to the trophic downgrading of ecosystems globally. See A. Estes et al., Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth, Science 333:301-306 (2011). In this recent study, published in the prestigious scientific journal Science, the current top ecologists in the world reviewed 20 years of science and found that the elimination of predators has had detrimental effects on all global ecosystems. As State wolf management has yet to acknowledge or take into consideration this current science, the FWS would err if the Proposed Rule to remove federal protections for Wyoming wolves is accepted as law.

• In addition, climate change is expected to affect the North American continent severely between the present time and 2100. The FWS does not know how this will impact the migration of sensitive predator and prey populations in coming decades; scientists do know, however, that (a) rising levels of human-produced greenhouse gases and subsequent climate change are expected to modify plant communities so drastically that nearly 40 percent of land-based ecosystems will change from one major ecological community type—such as forest, grassland or tundra—into another; and (b) North American species will need to find ways to adapt and migrate. See NASA release 2011-387: “Climate Change May Bring Big Ecosystem Changes” (issued Dec. 14, 2011) (referring to simulations carried out by according to researchers from NASA researchers and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and published in the journal Climatic Change); available here.

Wolf groupings are greater than the sum of their parts. Members interact with each other and with their surrounding environment. The net result is a force that changes over time as the wolves react, individually and collectively, to unfolding environmental variations such as increasing or decreasing prey populations, prey migration, loss of members within the group, and climatic changes—the latter of which are about to experience, if UN simulations are correct, “about the same warming that occurred following the Last Glacial Maximum almost 20,000 years ago, except about 100 times faster.” (See NASA release).

Wilmers and Getz (2005) analyzed 55 years of weather data from Yellowstone, and found that winters are getting shorter, with fewer days with snow on the ground and increased number of days with temperatures above freezing. In the absence of wolves, early snow thaw leads to a substantial reduction in late-winter carrion, causing potential food bottlenecks for scavengers. Wolves, however, mitigate late-winter reduction in carrion due to earlier snow thaws by regularly killing large prey. By buffering the effects of climate change on carrion availability, wolves allow scavengers to adapt to a changing environment over a longer time scale commensurate with natural processes. This illustrates the importance of restoring and maintaining intact food chains in the face of large-scale environmental perturbations such as climate change. See C.C. Wilmers and W.M Getz, Gray Wolves as Climate Change Buffers, PLoS Biology 3(4):e92 (2005).

As State wolf management has yet to adapt itself to this current science and its urgent ramifications, the FWS would err if the Proposed Rule to remove federal protections for Wyoming wolves is accepted as law.

3. The FWS Conclusions, Including a Projection of Maintenance of a Viable Population, Are Neither Logical nor Supported by the Evidence Provided

The FWS analysis should be independent of the Recovery Plan, which, for reasons outlined above, fails to represent the best available science. Moreover, the Recovery Plan’s 10-pack-per-state standard—only 20 breeding individuals in each State at issue—is draconian, and fails to provide for viability.

A scientific review of the FWS’s Final Wyoming Gray Wolf Peer Review Summary Report has experts split on whether the species would continue to recover if removed from Endangered Species Act protection in the state; the point of contention involves whether the projection of a viable population is valid. See Cory Hatch, Researchers Split Over Wyoming’s Wolf Plan, Jackson Hole Daily (6 Jan. 2012); available here.After representatives from the U.S. Geological Survey Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, the University of Montana, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and Michigan Technological University reviewed the Wyoming wolf management plan, the authors stated: “[T]he Plan, as written, does not do an adequate job of explaining how wolf populations will be maintained, and how recovery will be maintained.”

4. FWS Did Not Base the Proposed Rule on All the Necessary and Pertinent Literature

Please refer to the discussion we provide at 1-3 above. Also important is the precedent-setting study of the Fishtrap wolves, found to spend the lesser portion of their time together as a complete group, because of the many demands to survive; the implication from this study (as we have confirmed with its author) is that disruptions imposed by State management will prevent individuals from attending to their survival needs efficiently, thus is likely to increase mortality risk. See J.S. Mallonee, Movements of Radio Collared Wolves and Their Significance on Pack Assembly, The Journal of American Science 4(1):53-58 (2008); available here.

Radio monitoring of the Fishtrap pack began in June 2003, under the guidance of U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Mallonee’s published paper on the Fishtrap pack was the first sustained observations showing the individuals spent the minority of time fully assembled. (The working assumption made by past researchers was that wolves do everything together as a group.) GPS tracking showed wolves in the Fishtrap group separating to find prey and other resources seasonally and daily, train the pups, etc. The wolves were fully assembled in no more than thirty-one percent of the surveys during the two-year period; their constant movements precluded a complete pack most of the time. Monitoring, hunting, and marking their territory were full-time jobs and the work load was apparently shared by all members. To accomplish this, it appeared the Fishtrap wolves were indeed a tight-knit group, but socially rather than physically. Mallonee asks, “What kind of environmental imbalances do we produce by managing the numbers of wolves and other wildlife?”

The above-described dynamic underscores the difficulty agencies would have in making valid assurances that the State is likely to maintain a recovery baseline – even if one could be considered valid. “Wolves are well known for controlling their own population,” stated Jay Mallonee when interviewed for this document (on 6 Jan. 2012), adding: “Perhaps at some point we’ll just have to accept what the data from ecology and environmental science ultimately indicate: learn to live with wildlife rather than control it.”

Intolerance and the quest for convenience on our part, Mallonee observes, “only dull the truth about these animals” and both are present in the current rush to de-list in Wyoming.

Of additional relevance is the research (Rutledge et al., 2009; cited at 2. above) which demonstrated that hunting wolves in unprotected areas changes the conduct of distant wolf packs in protected areas.

Taken as a whole, the research cited herein suggests that FWS neglects relevant science showing that wolves comprise and act as networks, inhabiting entire regions.

5. It Is Unreasonable to Conclude that Wyoming’s Approach to Wolf Management Will Likely Maintain Wyoming’s Wolf Population Above Recovery Levels

Wyoming’s current approach to wolf management virtually repeats that previously proposed by Wyoming and rejected by FWS. Wyoming now proposes to add a “seasonal wolf trophy game management area” south of Jackson and north of Afton. Seasonal openings and closures will not stop wolves from migrating throughout the year and thus cannot ensure recovery is maintained.

6. It Is Unreasonable to Conclude that Wyoming’s Approach to Wolf Management Would Ensure Sufficient Levels of Gene Flow (Either Natural or Human-Assisted) to Prevent Genetic Problems from Negatively Impacting the Greater Yellowstone Area’s Population or the Larger Northern Rocky Mountain Metapopulation in a Manner that Would Meaningfully Impact Viability

The idea of “human assisted” gene flow conflicts with the Endangered Species Act’s concept of recovery, i.e., reaching a point at which the Act’s protections are no longer necessary to the persistence of the species. The partial reliance on the part of FWS on human assistance means, and acknowledges, that the wolf communities have not recovered.

Moreover, the Proposed Rule does not explain: (1) the nature of such assistance; (2) the trigger that would activate it; (3) how it will be financed; (4) or the federal government’s authority to require it. Currently, wolves are not treated by the U.S. or Wyoming governments in a way that would make any of this possible. Wolves are managed, not for conservation in a whole ecosystem approach, but through techniques that are environmentally destructive, as the current science is ignored.

Relying on unenforceable intentions of Wyoming to “take adaptive measures, as appropriate to achieve a long-term goal of at least one effective migrant per generation” to ensure genetic connectivity is unlawful.

7. The Distinct Population Segment Boundaries Are Inappropriate

Science does not justify a distinction between wolves who historically inhabited Wyoming from those who historically inhabited northern Colorado. Wolves were originally protected by ESA listing in both areas.

The original Distinct Population Segment for Northern Rocky Mountain wolves, proposed by the FWS as the Western DPS, included northern Colorado. 76 Fed. Reg. 61782-84 now states, incomprehensibly, that current DPS boundary “more closely approximates the historic range of the originally listed NRM gray wolf in the United States.” It is unacceptable that the FWS abandons the potential for wolves to naturally recover in Colorado.

8. Reliance on Future Changes to Wyoming Law is Inappropriate

The Proposed Rule relies on future changes to Wyoming law and Wyoming Game and Fish Commission regulations to create an adequate Wolf Management Plan. 76 Fed. Reg. 61782, at 61788. We have yet to see such expected future changes. We have had no opportunity to comment on them.

The Proposed Rule indicates that a new public comment period will be held only if future Wyoming laws and regulations “deviate significantly” from law the federal government expects Wyoming to make. 76 Fed. Reg. 61782, at 61810. We request the opportunity to comment on changes to Wyoming law and regulations, and to discuss whether any deviations from the expected laws and regulations are significant.

9. Human-Caused Mortality Is Super-Additive

The Proposed Rule relies on the assertion that wolves “can maintain population levels despite very high sustained human-caused mortality rates of 22 to greater than 50 percent” (76 Fed. Reg. 61782 at 61801, 806-08). Wyoming-specific data indicate that wolves outside Yellowstone can endure 36% mortality; only 13% of this mortality would be left to hunters, and yet studies indicate recreational killing has super-additive effects on total wolf mortality. See, e.g., Scott Creel and Jay J. Rotella, Meta-Analysis of Relationships Between Human Offtake, Total Mortality and Population Dynamics of Gray Wolves (Canis lupus), PLoS ONE, Sep. 2010, Vol. 5, Issue 9, e12918. Their analysis does not support an allowance of recreational killing; and the FWS citing of Creel and Rotella is inapposite.

The Proposed Rule states “while human-caused mortality may alter pack structure, we have no evidence that indicates this issue is a significant concern for wolf conservation.” 76 Fed. Reg. 61782 at 61819. In contrast, studies show that human killing of wolves is associated with a strongly additive or super-additive increase in total wolf mortality and that wolf populations thus decline beyond agency predictions. See, e.g., Creel and Rotella (2010).

Important here again is the study of the Fishtrap wolves, indicating that disruption of the group will prevent individuals from attending to their survival needs efficiently, thus indirectly increasing mortality risk. See J.S. Mallonee, Movements of Radio Collared Wolves and Their Significance on Pack Assembly, cited at 4. above.

FWS fails to correctly consider the unpredictability by which human-caused mortality unbalances groups of wolves, causing indirect deaths and psychological trauma. See J. S. Mallonee and P. Joslin, P., Traumatic Stress Disorder Observed in an Adult Wild Captive Wolf (Canis lupus), Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 7:107-126 (2004).

10. The Proposed Rule Inappropriately Discounts Increased Hunting in the
Island Park Hunting Unit

The Proposed Rule acknowledges that some Wyoming wolves may be killed in Idaho’s recreational kill season in an area known as the Island Park or Upper Snake Management Zone (76 Fed. Reg. 61782 at 617802), yet inappropriately neglects Idaho’s six-fold increase in hunting permits for this area – from five in 2009 to 30 in 2011. While the Proposed Rule acknowledges that wolf populations in this area are targeted, it does not analyze the impacts of this killing on genetic connectivity to Yellowstone – or how it will make Wyoming’s seasonal closure area even less effective in maintaining natural genetic connectivity between Greater Yellowstone Area and other Rocky Mountain wolves.

11. The Proposed Rule Should Analyze Its Impacts to Wolf Population Genetic Connectivity at Minimum Population Levels

Given the certainty that genetic connectivity will decrease under the Proposed Rule, FWS declares an “ongoing” process “to identify, maintain, and improve linkage of wildlife movement areas between the large blocks of public land in the region.” 76 Fed. Reg. 61782 at 61816. This is dangerously vague, lacking standards of procedure or measurement, and thus illegal.

Moreover, human intolerance for wolves in the linkage areas will not be addressed by this process.

12. The Per-State Recovery Baseline Must Be Explained

The Proposed Rule states that “if the [wolf] population is maintained near the minimum recovery target of 150 wolves per State, a scenario we view as extremely unlikely, we would expect dispersal to noticeably decrease.” 76 Fed. Reg. 61782 at 61815.

First, please explain the 150-per-state baseline. This appears to be another arbitrary number that has no basis in fact. Is there any documentation or data supporting this baseline?

Second, please explain why the government considers this scenario “extremely unlikely.” On the contrary, it is extremely likely, given the clear messages projected by the State of Wyoming that it would kill wolves to (and quite possibly below) the minimum required level – though again the FWS must clarify how it arrived at this proposed minimum number.

As noted at 3. above, after experts reviewed the Wyoming wolf management plan, the authors stated: “It may indeed be that it is not in the State’s interest to manage down to the absolute minimum population; however, that is what is stated in the plan, and it is not reasonable to simply assume that there will be consistent and long-term commitment to managing for levels above that target.”

13. The Projected Shift in Public Attitudes Has No Basis

Success in retaining political office often depends on wolf-killing promises. Wyoming’s political personalities are pressed to respond to calls to protect local economies and are expected to value wolves only insofar as they equate to tourist dollars. For public discussion and commentary representative of this pressure, see Kevin Huelsmann, Gov Rebuffs Wolf Pleas, Jackson Hole Daily (30 Jul. 2011); available here.

Wyoming wishes to classify wolves as unprotected predators subject to shooting on sight in most areas. There is no sign that dominant economic arguments or social attitudes have changed, and no basis for FWS to “expect” that State management will “improve” attitudes about wolves in Wyoming as it states in the Proposed Rule (76 Fed. Reg. 61782 at 61813).

14. The FWS Should Disaggregate Biologically Unsuitable Habitat From Land Humans Begrudge Wolves From Inhabiting.

The steppe habitat of Wyoming once supported viable wolf populations. The FWS does not present facts showing this area is biologically incapable of supporting wolves, but rather that human intolerance and Wyoming’s predator management system will result in wolves being unable to persist in this area (76 Fed. Reg. 61782 at 61812).

Were the FWS instead to acknowledge that wolves could continue to be endangered, or remain extirpated, from the vast majority of Wyoming, then it would be illogical to de-list wolves in the predator management portion of the State.

Logic, not panic, should guide our federal government’s decision-making here. Jay Mallonee states that wolves are targeted for a unique reason. Not because we wish to consume them. Rather: “Wolves are killed mostly out of fear, hatred, and a perceived competition for the other animals that we do eat.” The FWS would be irresponsible for acquiescing to it, but if this Proposed Rule is accepted, this is the social panic which will be at play.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment on the Proposed Rule. For all the reasons stated in this comment, it is our position that the Proposed Rule is biologically and legally unsound and unacceptable.

Respectfully submitted on this date of 7 Jan. 2012,

Lee Hall, JD, Vice President - Legal Affairs, Friends of Animals
On behalf of Friends of Animals, Inc.
Headquarters: 777 Post Road, Suite 205, Darien CT 06820 U.S.

Contact: Lee Hall, Friends of Animals: (610) 964-0090 or email

Taylor Jones, WildEarth Guardians: (303) 353-1490 or email

Persistence Has Paid: Animal Advocates Gain Formal Protection for African Antelopes Trophy-Hunted in U.S.

Washington, DC – This week marks the conclusion of a long trek to written-in-stone protection for North African antelopes living in zoos or on Texas ranches.

Publication of a new rule in the U.S. Federal Register on January 5, 2012 is the culmination of more than one decade of effort by Friends of Animals to protect scimitar-horned oryx, addax, and dama gazelles. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will now protect all members of these three species as “endangered”—including those bred on U.S. soil and sold for sport-hunting.

These antelope communities are critically endangered in their home territories in northern Africa, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. The addax and dama gazelles are nearly wiped out, and scimitar-horned oryx would be virtually extinct, if not for Friends of Animals’ work in protecting them and reintroducing them into Senegal. Yet most of these antelopes live on Texas hunting ranches, where they are bred.

As early as 1991, the scimitar-horned oryx, dama gazelle, and addax were proposed for ESA protection. Friends of Animals went to the desert of Senegal, Africa, to help the rare antelopes regain footing in their own habitat. In addition, Friends of Animals, with the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law, sued the federal government to list the these antelopes as “endangered” under U.S. law. In September 2005, the FWS did list the three species as “endangered,” noting that desertification, human encroachment, ranching, regional military activity, and hunting imperil these antelopes.

All three groups of antelope have well-established listings in the strict Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, prohibiting international travel to hunt them. Shooting them in Africa would be illegal poaching. Yet under the exemption, killing them in the U.S. was legal.

Lee Hall, Vice President of Legal Affairs for Friends of Animals, lauded the new rule, saying, “At last these antelopes are free from being handled and killed for kicks. This protects three communities of North African antelopes from being transplanted to or bred into exploitive captivity, and stalked because of their remarkably graceful horns.”

With the blanket exemption in place, a lucrative industry in hunting “popular exotics” and supplying feed, fencing, and taxidermy has continued to operate. FWS accepted arguments that hunting is good for antelope because it provides an incentive for maintaining their populations.

Hall continued, “The publication of this rule ends the preposterous legal fiction that canned hunting ranches protect and propagate endangered species when in reality they are pimping members of species just barely hanging onto life on Earth—in effect, exploiting the ‘endangered’ classification for profit.”

Advocates Strike Back

A court case brought by Friends of Animals and WildEarth Guardians in 2009 challenged the loophole and secured a court order finding that the exemption violated Section 10 of the ESA by letting canned hunting ranches “harm, harass, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect” members of endangered species. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. called blanket exemptions “anathema” to the ESA, and in June 2009 remanded the rule to the FWS for the appropriate change. Change has now come.

“This success is a step forward for all endangered species,” said Taylor Jones, Endangered Species Advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “The ESA is a powerful law, but it cannot work as it was meant to if exemptions are freely granted for any species hunters might want to hang on their wall.”

The pro-hunting Safari Club, represented by house attorney Anna Seidman, wants to set aside the new rule and give tourists the legal prerogative to pay $3,500 or more to kill the 2,000-plus captive antelopes still alive on U.S. ranches.

Friends of Animals’ Lee Hall counters: “While the Endangered Species Act does allow, for example, some movement of listed animals for science-related reasons or to enhance the propagation or survival of the animals—contingent on a public feedback process for each good-faith application—it is not meant to authorize sport-hunting.”

“Hunting these antelopes is no way to save them or treat them with dignity; nor is it a dignified interpretation of the Endangered Species Act,” Hall stated.

Friends of Animals, an animal advocacy organization founded in 1957, advocates for the rights of animals to live free, on their own terms: www.FriendsofAnimals.org

WildEarth Guardians works to protect and restore wildlife, wild places and wild rivers in the American West: www.wildearthguardians.org

I arrived in Dakar, Senegal and then went out on the road for my visit to Friends of Animals’ projects protecting antelopes and chimpanzees. These are my thought on the first part of this journey.

On Wednesday I was leaping for joy at the sight of patas monkeys running through a 700-hectare reserve in northern Senegal. I photographed lots of scimitar-horned oryxes, gazelles of three species, and desert tortoises. Also got full of cactus prickers. Ouch! Patas monkeys eat the cactus flowers, so the cactus spreads. Catherine Podojil responded to my Facebook update: “Apparently the patas monkeys know how to avoid the cactus prickers as they eat.” They’ve got us beat in the pricker-avoidance department for sure. The patas are so huge and fast! Somehow, they peel the cactus fruit, eat the flowers, and don’t suffer with the prickers. Now that’s amazing.

Arrived in Saint Louis and headed to Dakar for more meetings with National Parks. Janis Carter is here with me, having arrived from The Gambia. We are spending New Year’s eve talking about chimpanzees. I’m eating wonderful melons, salad and bread.

I counted 30 to 40 scimitar-horned oryxes going into Ferlo National Park, and a dozen or more dama gazelles! I’m pleased to see the oryxes so healthy. We set up a fund to help provide more water for antelopes inside Ferlo as the Parks Department’s new budget starts in February and water is needed - especially in the month ahead.

Everyone here, as you know, speaks French and a tribal language. So I’m in my own world with English and a bleeding heart that wants to correct every wrong as I pass through this life.

I have e-mailed Max at CBS to report the new oryx count: more than 175. There have been calves born in Ferlo and the vet here gave me a new count. Sixty Minutes is about to cover our efforts to protect these antelope - here, and where they are subjected to confined hunts.

I’ve had two meetings with government people. The Deputy Minister thinks it ridiculous that the U.S. would ever allow trophy hunting of oryxes at recreational ranches, for these are the very same animals Senegal is trying to save in their homeland. And now the Safari Club is upset that Friends of Animals stopped this practice? Absurd and appalling.

I want to say something as a vegan. We’re so removed in the U.S. from this landscape of goat, sheep and cow raising. How tied it is to villagers - people all over Senegal and much of the world! I see an animal who moments later is carried to a slaughter room downtown or in a village. This is so harrowing. Horses are transportation. Same with donkeys for people who can’t afford cars. And public transportation is unsafe.

Some of our rights theorists are so removed from the way of life of people who not only will never hear their names and couldn’t make sense of theory anyway. Arriving at the New Year, I would say that global culture is a mess. I’m trying to make a small part of it sensible, at least to me. My nerves are pretty shot now after thousands of miles of travel: hot, dusty, landscapes; goats, sheep, cows carried to slaughter in a market and much of this is smack in your face. We’re so removed from it in the U.S.

Slogans such as Meat Is Murder amongst ourselves in the US and Europe are not changing anything in the world. Explaining my “strict vegetarian/vegan” diet with people in person is accepted and treated as the most fascinating message most everyone here has heard. This has been harrowing; haunting. I’m consumed with it and try to focus on the animals who are not someone’s food. More later,

Priscilla.

While the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) may be muttering “reports of the end of the seal hunt have been greatly exaggerated”, it appears one of the final two big purchasers of seal corpses - Russia - has now halted the sale of seal fur. Russian President Vladimir Putin banned Russia’s seal slaughter in 2009, after feeling disgusted by the carnage.

Friends of Animals initiated a letter-writing campaign to Russia urging them to help prevent the massacre of seals elsewhere by banning imports.

Now, we’re hopeful Russia, as well as Belarus and Kazakhstan, have indeed banned the import of seal skins, according to WTO documents unearthed by IFAW.

With Russia’s seal fur market eliminated, there’s increased pressure to press China to end seal skin imports.

For more, check out this article from the Globe & Mail: Russian ban ‘spells the end of Canadian sealing,’ activists say

Dave Shishkoff
Canadian Correspondent
Friends of Animals

Animal rights advocates are gaining support for legislation to ban horse-drawn carriages.

By EMILY B. HAGER

“Horses frighten very easily,” said Edita Birnkrant, the New York director of one of the advocacy groups, Friends of Animals. “The noises of New York City, the chaos — it is all just an inherently dangerous environment, and they don’t belong here.”

Librado Romero/The New York Times

A ride through Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage is one of New York City’s most storied attractions, the rhythmic clip-clop offering a respite from the hustle of everyday life.

But now this old-fashioned industry is facing unprecedented turmoil.

After campaigning for decades, animal rights advocates are gaining support for legislation that would ban the hansom cabs, including endorsements from mayoral candidates and celebrities.

The carriage owners say they are being harassed, but they also acknowledge carrying out a campaign to infiltrate the activist groups and secretly record their strategy sessions.

Both the animal rights advocates and the carriage owners say they have been subjected to threats of violence by the other side.

The struggle is so tense that when an accident last summer left a carriage driver in a coma, the hospital where he was recovering was not immediately disclosed, out of concern that activists would stage protests there.

Besides the animal rights campaigners, the industry is facing a classic New York peril: rising real estate values. Developers covet the stables on the Far West Side where the horses have long been kept.

New York City’s carriage horses have long been a cause célèbre for animal rights advocates. Now, though, even the trade’s staunchest defenders say its survival is threatened as never before.

“People in our business probably think that we probably won’t survive forever and are asking, ‘How long will we last,’ ” said Conor McHugh, a carriage driver and the manager of Clinton Park Stables, one of four stables in the city that house the horses.

“But we will keep fighting,” Mr. McHugh added.

The city’s licensed carriage horse industry — 68 carriages, 216 horses and 282 drivers — brings in roughly $15 million annually, officials estimate.

Drivers charge $50 for a 20-minute ride through Central Park, and $20 for each additional 10 minutes. On a good day, they can make 15 trips, grossing at least $750 plus tips.

Drivers’ earnings are said to range from $40,000 to $100,000 annually, depending primarily on whether they own their horses, what shifts they work (day shifts are better) and how bad the weather and the economy are.

So far this year, seven incidents involving carriage horses have been reported, including a collision with a taxi. With each accident, animal rights campaigners raise alarms. They say carriage horses work under cruel conditions: nine-hour shifts, wading through Manhattan traffic, in almost any weather, with no space to frolic in a pasture.

The activists have rounded up endorsements from celebrities like the designer Calvin Klein and the actresses Pamela Anderson and Lea Michele, while lawmakers allied with them have introduced bills at the state and city levels to abolish the industry.

Last year, the City Council approved a measure to improve working and living conditions for the horses but would not pass a ban.

Many weekends, one group or another gathers across from the Plaza Hotel, where carriages congregate at an entrance to Central Park, to hold a protest.

“Horses frighten very easily,” said Edita Birnkrant, the New York director of one of the advocacy groups, Friends of Animals. “The noises of New York City, the chaos — it is all just an inherently dangerous environment, and they don’t belong here.”

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been an ardent supporter of the carriages. After a horse fell Sunday in Midtown Manhattan, Mr. Bloomberg dismissed criticism of the industry.

“Carriage horses have traditionally been a part of New York City,” he said. “The tourists love them, and we’ve used from time immemorial animals to pull things. They are well treated, and we’ll continue to make sure that they are well treated.”

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is one of the groups leading the effort to ban the carriages. It is also one of the three entities — along with the city’s health department and the Department of Consumer Affairs — that regulate the industry.

“I don’t see it as a conflict,” the society’s president, Ed Sayres, said last month on the steps of City Hall after a rally against the carriages. “If we don’t bring forward the risk factor that we are observing, then it would be negligent.”

In 2009, Mr. Sayres teamed up with Stephen Nislick, chief executive of the development company Edison Properties, which owns Manhattan Mini Storage, to develop a plan to replace the carriage horses with electric-powered replicas of antique cars.

“The cars provide an economic win for the drivers, owners and for the city,” Mr. Nislick said.

With $400,000 from the A.S.P.C.A., and a contribution from Mr. Nislick, the two men started NY-Class, a nonprofit organization that has collected more than 55,000 signatures backing city legislation that would carry out their plan.

Their campaign has been roiled, however, by a dispute over the death of a carriage horse named Charlie in October. The A.S.P.C.A. at first quoted its chief equine veterinarian, Dr. Corey, as saying the horse “was not a healthy horse and was likely suffering from pain.”

Soon after, Dr. Corey retracted her statement and said the society had pushed her to distort her findings to turn public opinion against the carriages. “I was under a lot of pressure during the writing of that press release,” she said.

She said there was no evidence that Charlie was experiencing pain or had been abused.

The society suspended Dr. Corey after she spoke out. She then filed a complaint with the state attorney general’s office, contending that on several occasions she had been pressured to slant her professional opinion to help achieve a ban.

A spokeswoman for the A.S.P.C.A., Elizabeth Estroff, said it was baffled by Dr. Corey’s claims, adding that Dr. Corey had “ultimately reviewed, edited and approved the final statement” about the horse.

The carriage industry has filed its own complaints with city and state agencies against the A.S.P.C.A. and NY-Class. Some carriage owners have gone to NY-Class meetings, without disclosing their identities. They have recorded discussions that they maintain show that the activists are bent on distorting the carriage industry’s record.

On one recording, Mr. Nislick describes efforts to gain the support of city politicians by giving them campaign contributions.

The politicians “want money from people and they want your vote,” Mr. Nislick said, according to the recording.

Asked about the recordings, Mr. Nislick declined to comment.

The carriage owners also assert that Mr. Nislick wants to be able to gain control of the land under the carriage horse stables.

Two of the stables are on a prime block between West 37th and 38th Streets in the heart of Hudson Yards, a sprawling commercial and residential development.

Mr. Nislick denied being interested in the land, but other developers envision transforming the lots into hotels and office buildings.

If the stables were sold and then closed, the carriage horses could end up homeless, and their owners could go out of business. Relocating uptown, and closer to Central Park, may not be an option with real estate scarce.

The stables on 37th and 38th Streets are in the district of the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, a Democrat who is expected to run for mayor. Like Mr. Bloomberg, Ms. Quinn has supported the carriage industry, though she has called recently for increased oversight of the horses.

Two other likely Democratic mayoral candidates — Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, and William C. Thompson Jr., the former city comptroller — have supported the ban, as well as the electric car initiative.

NY-Class and other animal rights groups pledge that if the carriages are eliminated, they will find safe pastures for the 216 horses. But many veterinarians say horse sanctuaries around the country are full, and facing difficulties because of the economy.

“If we banned the carriage horse industry tomorrow, they would go straight to slaughter,” said Dr. Nena Winand, an upstate New York veterinarian who is a member of the American Society of Equine Practitioners. “There is no big field out there, there is no one to pay the bills.”

The Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS) is honored to announce that Primarily Primates has achieved GFAS Verification.

“I have enjoyed working with Primarily Primates on the verification process,” states Patty Finch, executive director of GFAS. “It is an important and large sanctuary, housing many of the most difficult to place animals, such as chimpanzees, many species of monkeys, and parrots. No matter what level of detail was requested of the sanctuary, they provided it without complaint. With more than 400 animals, it was quite a task for them.”

The GFAS Verification means Primarily Primates meets the comprehensive and rigorous definition of a true sanctuary and is providing humane and responsible care of the animals, meeting thorough and peer-reviewed standards established by GFAS, which is the only globally recognized organization providing standards for identifying legitimate animal sanctuaries and rescue centers. The verification status also provides a clear and trusted means for the public, donors worldwide and government agencies to recognize Primarily Primates as an organization that is worthy of support for continued growth and development.

“The accreditation committee was impressed that 19 new outdoor, natural substrate large enclosures have been built at Primarily Primates since 2007,” states Finch. “Such development is financially challenging, so we are pleased that Primarily Primates has been able to achieve these improvements, even in this economy, showing their determination to do what is best for the animals. Their detailed plans for future improvements is impressive. They are also on a path to continuous improvements in enrichment, which is always a fun challenge for all sanctuaries, especially when dealing with chimpanzees, monkeys and parrots!”

About Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries

Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the sole purpose of strengthening and supporting the work of animal sanctuaries worldwide. The goal of GFAS in working with and assisting sanctuaries is to ensure they are supported, honored, recognized and rewarded for meeting important criteria in providing care to the animals in residence. GFAS was founded in 2007 by animal protection leaders from a number of different organizations in response to virtually unchecked and hidden animal exploitation of animals for human entertainment and financial profit. These founding leaders sit on the GFAS Board of Directors to continue guiding the organization’s work in a collaborative manner. They represent top leadership from Born Free USA, The Humane Society of the United States, World Society for the Protection of Animals, American Anti-Vivisection Society, National Anti-Vivisection Society, and International Fund for Animal Welfare.

About Primarily Primates

Primarily Primates, Inc. is a non-profit sanctuary in Bexar County, Texas that operates to house, and protect undomesticated animals, primarily apes and monkeys, many of whom are cast-offs from the pet trade and biomedical research institutions. Individuals who have been accepted into the refuge include chimpanzees once used in space training and testing protocols by the United States Air Force; and Oliver, a chimpanzee once paraded on television shows as the “humanzee” because of a habit of walking upright. Primarily Primates was founded in 1978. Its staff includes a veterinarian who is a specialist in primate health and surgery as well as highly experienced caregivers. Its current board, structured in 2007, includes a long-time sanctuary facilitator with extensive primate experience, and the president of the animal-advocacy group Friends of Animals.

Wolf and Wildlife Studies is an organization owned and operated by Jay Mallonee, and is dedicated to educating the public about the environment. This occurs through ongoing field research of northwest Montana’s wolves, including a nine year study of the Fishtrap pack. Mallonee recently published a review of the government’s data regarding wolf population numbers, which he found to be flawed. Therefore, the quota set for Montana’s current public wolf hunt is completely arbitrary, because the state of Montana does not actually know how many wolves it has. Please visit our website to download this paper and for additional information about wildlife and animal behavior.

Web site:
http://www.wolfandwildlifestudies.com/

Hunting paper:
http://www.wolfandwildlifestudies.com/downloads/natureandscience.pdf

Contact: Taylor Jones, WildEarth Guardians, 303-353-1490 or email

Lee Hall, Friends of Animals, 610-964-0090 or email

Washington, DC – This week the National Marine Fisheries Service announced a positive preliminary finding on a petition WildEarth Guardians and Friends of Animals submitted to list scalloped hammerhead sharks as “threatened” or “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The agency found that the primary threat to these sharks—capture and “finning”—is jeopardizing the species. The agency will conduct a 12-month review of the species to determine if listing is warranted.

“This is an important first step to protection for these ‘wolves of the sea,’” said Taylor Jones, Endangered Species Advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “More than 99 percent of plants and animals listed under the Act persist today. We hope that the hammerhead can escape extinction under the strong protections of the ESA.”

The hammerhead’s name describes its characteristic elongated, flattened head, which on the scalloped hammerhead has distinctive, curved indentations along the front edge. Scalloped hammerhead sharks can live to 30 years. Adults usually travel alone or in pairs, but juveniles gather in large schools. Most sharks, including scalloped hammerheads, play an important role as apex predators in maintaining ocean bio-communities. Ecosystem stability and biodiversity, congressional priorities for the ESA, could seriously suffer from the loss of these top predators. Listing species with global distribution can both protect the species domestically, and help focus U.S. resources toward enforcement of international regulation and recovery of the species.

Scalloped hammerhead sharks have very high commercial value. While scalloped hammerheads are especially coveted for their fins, which are used in dishes such as shark-fin soup, the shark’s flesh is also sold in various forms as food, the hides are commercially valued, and the remainder is used for vitamins and fishmeal for agribusiness use. The commercial value of the species, combined with the sharks’ slow rate of reproduction, makes them highly vulnerable to exploitation.

“Shark exploitation must be confronted if scalloped hammerheads and other sharks are to survive and thrive,” said Lee Hall, Vice President of Legal Affairs for Friends of Animals.

The practice of “finning” is of particular concern for scalloped hammerheads and other sharks. In this practice, crews land the sharks and remove only their fins, disposing of the remainder of the animals overboard and leaving disabled sharks to drown or die of starvation. By taking only the fins, crews catch and kill many more sharks than their boats could otherwise hold—and many more than can be officially recorded as losses to the bio-community.

Hong Kong is a primary hub for the shark fin trade, and as China’s economy strengthens, demand for the expensive shark-fin soup rises. Fortunately for the sharks, international campaigns to ban the shark fin trade have begun to raise awareness of the predators’ imperilment.

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Excerpt:

Perhaps not surprisingly, not everyone is on board with that idea, either. Priscilla Feral, president of the animal rights group Friends of Animals, told News Watch via email, “When lemurs and bats are wiped out of Madagascar, do goats appear to feed children, or do plant-based diets provide the best means for feeding a hungry world?”

Despite their best intentions to avoid such conflicts, environmentalists often end up squaring off against those who say protection measures deny them jobs or other resources. Perhaps nowhere is this debate more heated than when it comes to Africa, whether the issue is malaria vs. DDT or GMOs vs. the precautionary principle. Among the most incendiary topics of all is starving children, and how environmental policies may be affecting them.

At first glance, a study released today from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, may seem to pile fuel on the fire, although News Watch spoke with one of the study’s authors, who urged a thoughtful and measured response. The research was published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Since 1997, when Darien’s First Selectman appointed the Darien Deer Management Committee with Kent Haydock as chair, the town has pursued deer “as Public Enemy Number 1,” said Priscilla Feral, president of the Darien-based Friends of Animals.

The first organized kill took place in 2005 in town-owned property of Selleck’s Woods after gaining approval from Darien’s Parks & Recreation Commission, which oversees the land. Ironically, Darien Land Trust’s Dunlap Woods has also allowed deer to be shot by archers, although Norwalk’s Land Trust prohibits deer-hunting.

The Parks & Recreation Commission has neither questioned the moral or scientific need for killing the deer, nor pressed for pertinent data from the so-called Deer Management Committee.

Friends of Animals staff members, including president Priscilla Feral, have met with Darien officials, requesting opportunities to speak about this issue. The advocacy organization has also organized public demonstrations, letter writing and phone campaigns. Letters to local newspapers have been published each year along with educational advertisements.

In 2011, Friends of Animals’ Outreach Coordinator Nancy Rice filed a complaint with the Freedom of Information Commission, on the ground that the committee and the first selectman failed to release requested information which should be public. The requested information shows that the Darien Deer Management Committee has not had a meeting in ten years. It has also failed to adhere to Darien’s town charter rules, and a ruling from the hearing officer is pending.

Darien resident Peter Hawkins, who was invited by Kent Haydock to be part of the deer committee, aware of this new information, challenged Haydock and other committee members on deer-targeting decisions.

“At least 50 deer have been shot in Selleck’s Woods since 2005 and others have been killed on Land Trust property and private property because of the town’s deer-hunt advocacy,” Feral said. “It’s high time to hold comprehensive educational programs in Darien about how to peacefully address conflicts – and to best live with deer and other wildlife, as opposed to launching violent, Draconian schemes that treat deer like snow removal.”

Dear Friends of Animals,

I have just returned from Pasadena, where I stood on your behalf in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as an Amicus Curiae - Friend of the Court.

Friends of Animals’ brief supported a filing for an injunction submitted and argued by Attorney Jay Tutchton of WildEarth Guardians on behalf of an alliance of non-profits litigating to return federal protection to the wolves of the northern Rocky Mountains. The case asserts that Congress used an unconstitutional method (slipping a rider onto a must-pass budget bill in April) to remove Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in Idaho, Montana, and parts of Oregon, Washington and Utah.

Idaho and Montana have, since August, offered more than 36,000 hunting permits against wolves. Hundreds of wolves are now being killed. In their case against federal protection, the states insist this bloody business won’t endanger the wolf population.

The Ninth Circuit is considering an emergency stop to the state-sponsored, systematic assault on wolves as the judges review the merits of the litigation. We gave it our best shot; now, it’s in the judges’ hands.

Meanwhile, we’ll not sit on ours. Friends of Animals members and supporters are holding Howl-Ins from New York to Montana. Contact Dustin Rhodes for help setting one up in your town. We look forward to working with you for the future of wolves of the Western States.

We also ask people who care about wolves – and that should be a global population – to continue to boycott Idaho and Montana, where wolves are being actively targeted. (This includes Yellowstone National Park travel.)

Thank you for being a supporter of Friends of Animals. As always, I can assure you your determination is being seen and heard where it matters most.

Sincerely,

Priscilla Feral,
President
Friends of Animals

File photo of a three-year-old male wolf. Credit: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife

BOISE, Idaho — Conservation groups were in a Southern California courtroom Tuesday trying to stop ongoing wolf hunts in Idaho and Montana.

The conservation groups and attorneys representing the federal government presented arguments in Pasadena to a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Priscilla Feral is the president of Friends of Animals, one of the conservation groups mounting the legal effort.

“There is grave harm to wolves,” she said. “They are being harmed right now and hundreds are dying and that’s the reason for granting us our injunction.”

Feral said a decision on the injunction could be made this week. But the bigger issue over removing federal protection for wolves could take several months.

Idaho Fish and Game says 107 wolves have been killed this season.

© 2011 Boise State Public Radio/Idaho Public Television