For Immediate Release: 27 March 2007
Today, in the latest news in the case FRIENDS OF ANIMALS vs. STATE OF ALASKA, Friends of Animals quickly moved for a preliminary injunction in the Superior Court for the State of Alaska to halt the State’s newest assault on wolves.
This time, the Board of Game is offering a bounty to permit holders who kill in several designated control areas, then bring in the foreleg of the dead wolf.
The Board has consistently sought to kill wolves whenever it has had the chance, stated the Friends of Animals filing, “relying on whatever justification is close at hand and ignoring or dismissing out of hand any inconvenient facts or ethical arguments.”
Friends of Animals called “predator control,” which the state carries out by a permit-based system of killing wolves from aircraft, “outdated and unethical” and “frankly barbaric.”
Added the Plaintiffs: “The Board’s history of action on this issue is one of blatant contempt for the policy preferences of the majority of Alaskans, blatant disdain for the public process, and blatant disregard for any information that runs contrary to its preconceived and outdated notion that killing wolves from planes is always a good idea.”
While turning the wolf-kill effort into a bounty hunt, the Board is now arranging an armada of shooters to exterminate as many wolves as possible over the next week, tracking them down using radio collars placed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to study them. Calling Alaska’s Board of Game “an agency run amok,” and invoking both federal and state law, Friends of Animals called for an immediate halt to the scheme.
Another Plaintiff is an Alaska resident. Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals, said: “Through this filing we intend to halt these abominable practices. Our motion is expressly filed on behalf of the people of Alaska, in the interest of a thriving biocommunity, and with respect for the inherent value of wolves themselves.”
Friends of Animals, headquartered in Darien, Connecticut, is a global leader in animal rights advocacy, founded in 1957.