Posted on 07/02/2013 11:06:56 AM PDT by equaviator
LANSING, Mich. – With the Michigan legislature approving a bill in the waning days of the lame duck session to allow the trophy hunting of wolves in Michigan for the first time in nearly 50 years, a coalition of animal welfare, conservation groups and Native American tribes is launching a referendum campaign to qualify for the November 2014 general election ballot.
The ballot committee, Keep Michigan Wolves Protected, intends to gather 225,000 signatures of Michigan voters by late March in order to qualify for the ballot, and is planning grassroots organizing events to be held across the state in the next few weeks to recruit volunteer signature gatherers. The group has also launched a new website for volunteers and voters at KeepWolvesProtected.com.
“Wolves have been protected in Michigan for nearly 50 years,” said Jill Fritz, Michigan state director for The Humane Society of the United States and director for Keep Michigan Wolves Protected. “With fewer than 700 wolves in Michigan, it’s not right to spend decades bringing the wolf back from the brink of extinction only to turn around and allow them to be killed for sport.”
It’s already legal in Michigan to kill wolves that attack livestock or dogs, making a trophy hunting season unnecessary. People don’t eat wolves, and they would be killed just for fun and trophies. Trophy hunting and fur trapping of this still-recovering species is premature, inhumane, and unnecessary.
"There is no scientific evidence to suggest that wolves need to be hunted,” said John Vucetich, associate professor of the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science at Michigan Technological University, and director of the Isle Royale Wolf-Moose Project. “It's not common sense to spend decades bringing the wolf back from the brink of extinction only to turn around and allow them to be killed for sport.”
Wolf hunting may involve especially cruel and unfair practices, such as painful steel-jawed leghold traps, hunting over bait and even using packs of dogs to chase down and kill wolves.
“Kalamazoo Humane Society has always opposed gratuitous and inhumane killing of animals,” said Aaron Winters, executive director for Kalamazoo Humane Society. “That’s why we strongly back this referendum to prevent the use of cruel and reckless trapping and trophy hunting of the small population of wolves in our state.” Organizing events are being planned for later this week and next in Ann Arbor, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Marquette, Saginaw and Traverse City.
Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation in December 2012 that designates the wolf a game species and authorizes the Natural Resources Commission to establish a wolf hunting season.
“The wolf is valuable to the ecosystem,” said Jackie Winkowski, owner of Snowy Plains Kennel, a sled dog business in Marquette. “It’s senseless to ruin the outdoor experience for people who enjoy the beauty of nature, in favor of a segment of the population that enjoys killing for trophies.”
Keep Michigan Wolves Protected is supported by the Barry County Humane Society, Dearborn Animal Shelter, Kalamazoo Humane Society, The Humane Society of the United States and other groups. The new coalition is building its endorsements and other official supporters will be announced soon.
ping
Wherever you find a fund-raising opportunity, HSUS will be found, also.
:: Organizing events are being planned for later this week and next in Ann Arbor, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Marquette, Saginaw and Traverse City. ::
Gotta wonder what the wolf population is wandering around in these ^urban centers^..?
“With fewer than 700 wolves in Michigan, it’s not right to spend decades bringing the wolf back from the brink of extinction only to turn around and allow them to be killed for sport.”
Um, sure it is! When the populations threaten other wildlife & tourism (deer is a favorite wolf snack) and livestock, it is! Wisconsin’s hunting industry brings BILLIONS to our economy each year.
Wisconsin did the same thing. Last year was our first wolf hunt. 2,000 people applied, about 200 tags were issued, about 150 wolves culled. They want our population to stablize at 500 or so.
Maybe I’m jaded as we hunt. *SHRUG*
My beau hunts bear; he is fearless, but not stupidly so. He picked up a HUGE Snapping Turtle by the tail the other day, to help it across the road. That thing was p*ssed and snappin’ away. *SHUDDER*
I’ll hunt deer, when asked. I’d be afraid to tangle with my Labrador when she’s crabby, let alone a wolf, even WITH Superior Fire Power, LOL!
Pissed-off snapping turtle vs. hungry wolf...Hmmmm.
I think I’d go with the turtle...”Run away!”
A year or so back there was a tribal spokesman from the UP who read the PETA freaks the riot act over using fake beliefs about the Indians to oppose wolf hunting.
He said that the wolves had been sacred to the indians but the Petafreaks should not mistake sacred with indian self sacrifice. He said that his ancestors often killed wolves on sight both because they were hunting competition and a threat to their villages.
In my 17 years at home before I left for the Air Force, I saw exactly two black bear in the Lower Peninsula. They are now in the woods around home and sometimes enter the village and walk through our backyard.
Sine the State stopped the bounty on predators all of the rabbit, Ruffed Grouse and Woodcock have almost disappeared. Hunting has been terrible for decades and when I go up to hunt in the winter I see predator tracks all through the snow and the remains of game animals.
We need to put the bounty back. I do not care if there are more bobcat, fox, and wolves. I would rather have better hunting.
Just one of those “irony” statements, really.
Notice how the loudest voices crying “endangered” are the urban ideologues, not the parochial demographic most impacted by wolves?
Kinda like the only one’s yelling “racism” are the doughy, white old guys” (ref: Sissy Matthews), not the grievance industry pimps we usually hear.
Yeah my liberal relatives all think the countryside is all paved over because its all they know.
My brother in law thinks farming Detroit is a great idea because there is no place else to farm in Michigan. He apparently thinks the millions of acres of Michigan farmland are part of one giant corporate farm and Detroit can compete 1 acre at a time.
Sad.
I still plan on retiring in the “farmslands of southern counties” in about 15 years. Gonna put a “drag&drop” 2-bedroom on 5 acres purchased from one of my high-school/church buddies, fill the freezer with goose and deer and the root cellar with garden fare. Late summer will be filled with pit-BBQ cooking and canning all sorts of veggies.
But...please don’t tell my wife just yet.
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