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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and environmentalists reached an agreement Friday that scraps a rule the agency had used to kill or permanently remove any wolf that killed three heads of livestock in a year. Fish and Wildlife spokesman Tom Buckley said the three-strikes rule "will no longer stand." Ranchers said the policy targeted wolves that grow accustomed to preying on cattle. Several environmental groups sued in May 2008, asking a U.S. District Court in Arizona to stop the removal policy on the Mexican gray wolf, a subspecies of the gray wolf. Buckley said agency officials hope a judge...

For some people, hybrid wolf dogs are pets. For others, they're predators. Gary Schukantz said he last saw his three small dogs in his backyard ... "I didn't see any of my dogs, and I heard a yelp," . Schukantz said a hybrid wolf-dog came out of the woods and took off with his beloved pets. Shortly after the wolf ran off, Schukantz came across his youngest pet, a tiny Yorkshire terrier ..."We found his body and got him back," . Schukantz would have tried going after his pets, he said, but the wolf-dog turned on him and backed him...

The Falklands wolf has puzzled evolutionary biologists since Charles Darwin first encountered it during the voyage of the Beagle in the 1830s. It was the only native land mammal on the Falkland Islands, which are 300 miles off the coast of Argentina. No one knew how it got there or what mainland animals it was descended from — and it did not help that the wolf was hunted to extinction by 1876. But using genetic analysis, Graham J. Slater, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues have solved some of the mystery. The closest living...

A picture of a hunting wolf has won the prestigious Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 award. Jose Luis Rodriguez captured the imaginations of the judges with a picture that he had planned for years, and even sketched out on a piece of paper. "I wanted to capture a photo in which you would see a wolf in an act of hunting - or predation - but without blood," he told BBC News. "I didn't want a cruel image." With a great deal of patience and careful observation of the wolves' movements, he succeeded in taking the award-winning...

The Dillon ranchers who lost more than 120 buck sheep in an August wolf attack last week lost 23 lambs from the same area when wolves struck again. Kathy Konen said this week that despite the presence of a herder and guard dogs, wolves struck the herd sometime in the early morning hours Oct. 17. She and husband Jon Konen lost 23 weaned lambs. "They're in the area, and they've killed once," she said of wolves. "We knew they would come back and kill again." The Konens in August lost 122 sheep to wolves in the same pasture in the...

Politicians that Cry Wolf Let me be clear I cannot stand when good Americans change who they are and their personality once they become a candidate or become an elected official and call it “Politics”, these individuals are “Sell Outs”, they sell their souls to the devil to become an elected official and they give “politics” a bad name. Republican Assemblyman Chad Christenson who represents District 13 comes to mind. Back in 2008 Chad told a Review Journal reporter on the second-to-last day for candidate filings that he would not seek re-election, he said he would need more time to...

I recently received e-mails from friends showing mother cows with their rectums and female organs torn from their bodies by the wolves. These cows were lying down and the blood and raw meat trailed down on their legs. You could tell they were in awful pain. I am sure hundreds of our deer and elk are suffering the same way. All you wolf lovers should take a good look at these pictures and share them with your families and your children, show them what these savage animals are really all about. Anyone that supports these evil acts are evil themselves....

A Moose Hunter is considering himself lucky to be alive after being attacked by a rabid wolf. Rodrick Phillip, age 35 of Kongignak, was hunting on the Kuskokwim River when the predator made a surprise visit to his camp.

Hunters purchased nearly 2,600 wolf licenses Monday, the first day they went on sale in Montana. The sales occurred on the same day U.S. District Judge Mike Molloy of Missoula heard arguments from animal rights and environmental groups seeking to block hunts in Idaho and Montana. Idaho's hunt started Tuesday as Molloy took the arguments under consideration. the slower sales — compared to the 4,000 sold on the first day licenses were available in Idaho — might have been due to the uncertainty of the court decision. If the hunt is halted before the season starts, holders will be refunded...

Radical environmentalists have occasionally argued that the life of one member of an endangered species is worth more than the life of one member of the human race. Judging by the money it is spending on the Mexican wolf reintroduction program, federal and state governments seem to agree with this extremist viewpoint. $400,000 per Wolf Since the Mexican wolf reintroduction program was launched more than a decade ago, millions of dollars have been spent by the United States, Arizona and New Mexico governments. The goal was to reestablish a target population of 100 wolves in the mountainous areas of southwestern...

Kathy Konen has lost guard dogs to wolves in the past, but nothing prepared the Dillon rancher for the killing of 120 buck sheep last week. "They were in the sagebrush, on the creek bottom - just all over the pasture," Konen said Thursday. "It's a terrible loss to our livestock program." Konen said they discovered the attack Aug. 16 while checking their sheep in the Rock Creek drainage of the Blacktail Mountains south of Dillon, where they pasture buck sheep in summer. She said they check their sheep every two or three days, so the attack was recent. She...

A landowner has been cited in Jefferson County after a small group of wolf hybrid dogs were found running loose... Police issued homeowner Kay Simmons a summons ... It was Simmons' 11th violation.

Starting today, hunters can walk into any license vendor in Idaho and buy a tag to kill a gray wolf. Vendors such as Daniel Stephenson, owner of River of No Return Taxidermy in Salmon, Idaho, expect robust demand. "In our area, there're lots of [wolves] and they're not a real popular thing for deer and elk hunters," Stephenson said. "So everybody wants a chance to go get one." The Idaho Fish and Game Commission approved a plan August 17 to allow up to 220 wolves to be killed by the public this coming fall and winter. Licensed hunters will be...

A Bakersfield woman says she has been hounded by county animal control officers to license her dog. Funny thing is, the pooch officials were so concerned about is a stuffed animal. Dottie Elkin lives by herself in a quaint home in south Bakersfield. For the past few months the 83-year old says she's hated getting the mail, due to letters she's receiving from the Kern County Animal Control Department. "I told them I do not have a dog, it's a stuffed dog," Elkin said. That's right, Elkin has a stuff "guard dog" named Wolf, keeping watch at her front door....

Idaho Department of Fish and Game Director Cal Groen sent letters offering up Idaho wolves to any state that wanted to manage them. So far, at least 20 states have rejected Idaho's pitch to trap and export some of its wolves. nobody wants them... In May, the federal government removed more than 1,300 wolves in Montana and Idaho from the endangered species list. Environmentalists have sued to restore federal oversight.

Fifteen wolf packs have denned and produced pups in Wyoming outside Yellowstone National Park this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reported. The federal agency, which announced it is continuing to monitor reproduction, did not say in its assessment how many pups might have been born to each pack. Yellowstone packs are raising litters without any apparent deleterious effects... Trappers are also working the Union Pass area near Dubois, where a calf was killed ... Last week, a yearling steer was killed by wolves

....The series, which is set to launch in June from Chicago-based Devil's Due Publishing, kicks off with Barack the Barbarian: Quest for the Treasure of Stimuli. Hugely muscled, wearing a fur loincloth and grasping a bloody battle axe in his manly hands, Barack the Barbarian is a "mighty hero"...A particular foe will be Red Sarah, a comic book version of Sarah Palin who is pictured in a wolf fur cape, a fur bikini, and little else apart from her trademark spectacles...

For the fifth time in six years, the gray wolf last week was returned to the federal endangered species list after being removed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The move was prompted by a lawsuit filed by a number of groups, including The Humane Society of the United States and The Center for Biological Diversity. The organizations successfully argued that the USFWS must provide more opportunity for public comment before it can delist wolves in the Upper Midwest. The groups also contend the government needs to better document the potential effects a possible hunting season might have on...

BILLINGS, Mont. — Montana and Idaho are moving to host the first open gray wolf hunts in the lower 48 states after the animal's removal from the endangered list across much of the Northern Rockies.

Federal wildlife managers have decided to allow an endangered Mexican gray wolf that has been linked to four livestock killings to remain in the wild in southwestern New Mexico. Despite a policy that allows the agency to remove a wolf from the wild after three livestock kills in one year, Tuggle said in a memo to the coordinator of the Mexican gray wolf recovery program ... Tuggle requested in his memo that the recovery program's interagency field team continue to monitor the San Mateo pack and try to prevent any further livestock kills by the pack.

Two interesting notes regarding the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups in the United States over the weekend. First, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va), took the unusual and courageous step of directly tackling CAIR on the floor of the House last Friday. In his speech, also available on Youtube, Wolf laid out CAIR's history in some detail and asked the FBI and the main Justice Department to clarify the status of their relationships with CAIR. After reviewing the group's history, Wolf identified one of their most effective tactics and why it is so dangerous:

Ranchers in the Lemhi Valley of Idaho have suffered increased losses from wolf depredation, as wolf numbers expand. Allen Bodenhamer, who raises cattle near Baker, ID lost three calves this past spring. At first he thought the kills were made by coyotes, then realized he was dealing with wolves. “When coyotes kill a calf they get hold of the back of the neck and basically strangle it. They usually don’t start eating on it while it is still alive. A wolf grabs it by the top of the back or just in front of the hips and is eating on...

HOLDEN, Maine -Conservationists and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are looking for a few dozen good howlers. The Wolf Inquiry Project plans to conduct "howling surveys" in several sections of Maine's North Woods this summer in hopes of discovering whether wolves are resettling in the state. The Bangor Daily News reports that project coordinators are seeking individuals willing to spend a night howling in the woods and who won't be scared off if they get a response.

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) - A landowner shot and killed a wolf on private property near Hamilton over the weekend after he said he saw the animal chasing his cattle. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks investigated Saturday's incident and said the man's actions were warranted. Federal rules say wolves in the experimental wolf population area of Montana - which includes much of the southern half of the state - can legally be killed if they are seen killing or threatening to kill dogs or livestock. All incidents must be reported to FWP within 24 hours.

Alaska's controversial program, designed to cull the state's wolf population, captured America's attention last year when detractors gleefully hung it around vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's neck as an example of, well, something. Unsportsmanlike conduct? Unladylike behavior? A taste for blood? No matter—the criticism gave Palin supporters another reason to shout "attagirl" to "give 'em hell" Sarah. What do urban and suburban folks in the lower 48 states know about life in the wilderness, anyway? Michael Goldfarb, Sen. John McCain's former campaign spokesperson, went so far as to call the program "political gold" for the plucky VP candidate.

Wolves killed 11 sheep and injured five more Thursday south of Two Dot, USDA Wildlife Services officials confirmed Friday. "It's quite gruesome," said Tonya Martin, the sheep rancher whose stock was raided. A wolf killed five sheep and injured another five last March on the Martin ranch on Big Elk Creek. Efforts to capture the wolf were unsuccessful. The Martins told officials that four wolves were seen in the area. An adjacent landowner also reported that their cattle had been run through a fence Thursday... Wolves in Montana are federally protected...

Unprecedented attacks of wolves on deer herds have been reported in the Izhemsky region of the Komi republic; sometimes, the dreaded beasts even venture into villages. Director of the "Izhemsky Deer Farm" Ivan Kanev says that every day, 23 deer farming brigades try to defend their livestock against wolf packs, but in vain. To date, the damage caused by wolves to the deer farm is more than one thousand animals. Full-grown wolves are not even afraid of venturing into villages. For instance, wolves have ripped apart 15 watch dogs to pieces in one settlement since beginning of the winter. Deer...

A female wolf from the Yellowstone region has roamed about 1,000 miles and is thought to be wandering Colorado's central mountains. State wildlife officials say a GPS collar on the 18-month-old gray wolf indicated her last known position was in Eagle County, about 120 miles west of Denver. This is at least the second time a Yellowstone-area wolf has to make it to Colorado. A female wolf wearing a radio collar was hit and killed by a vehicle on Interstate 70 near Idaho Springs in June 2004.

Has Barack Obama’s presidency already failed? In normal times, this would be a ludicrous question. But these are not normal times. They are times of great danger. Today, the new US administration can disown responsibility for its inheritance; tomorrow, it will own it. Today, it can offer solutions; tomorrow it will have become the problem. Today, it is in control of events; tomorrow, events will take control of it. Doing too little is now far riskier than doing too much. If he fails to act decisively, the president risks being overwhelmed, like his predecessor. The costs to the US and...

<p>Did anyone else read this story in the New York Post about wolves in Connecticut?</p> <p>Once native to the state, Wolves were hunted out. However, Wolf sightings have increased dramatically across the state, as Wolves make their way back into Vermont, Maine, etc.</p>

AS PRESIDENT George W Bush prepares to step down after eight years in the White House, the writer and activist Naomi Wolf has hit out at the damage his administration has done to the American constitution. In a stunning indictment, she likened steps taken by Mr Bush to those employed by Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini and other dictators of the 20th century. She said: “There are ten classic steps dictators or would-be dictators always take when they wish to close down an open society. And each of those ten steps is now underway in the United States today.”...

Is That Sarah Palin Steering For Santa? Word has it that this Christmas card was circulated around Alaska’s Legislature last week: The card is a work of creative genius by Alaskan aviation and wildlife artist Sandie Jamieson

Wolves in Idaho have killed 325 cattle, sheep and dogs so far in 2008, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game says. "You can't just keep stuffing wolves on top of each other,"

As she was letting her dog out into her large, fenced yard in Enterprise on the evening of Nov. 19, Lori Lund was aware a wolf had been spotted around the community. She looked around the well-lit yard to make sure there was no wolf in sight. As she opened the door, her Maltese poodle - just a puppy - scooted past her and was instantly attacked by a wolf. The predator had been lying out of sight under a table next to the door. "I froze. I couldn't move," Lund said. "Once I realized what was happening, I pulled...

It's not easy being a preteen "wolf boy" - but scientists at Columbia University are confident they've finally found the silver bullet that can cure one. Pruthviraj Patil, 11, suffers from a rare genetic disorder known as hypertrichosis - or "werewolf syndrome" - which causes a thick coat of hair to grow over every inch of his body except his palms and feet. (edit)When he was born in a village near Mumbai, his mother was told she had given birth to a god, but in school, there have been more bullies than believers. Christiano and her colleagues at Columbia...

Officials with Wild Earth Guardians filed a petition Tuesday under the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedure Act asking the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to develop a recovery plan for wolves in the Southern Rocky Mountains. At the same time, Catron County commissioners in New Mexico are calling for the removal of a non-collared wolf causing predation against domestic pets and livestock in their area. The expansive region WildEarth Guardians seeks to open to wolves includes much of western Colorado, northern New Mexico and south-central Wyoming. On the other side of the wolf debate, Catron County commissioners in...

Catron County officials say an endangered Mexican gray wolf has been causing problems in the Cruzville area and they want the animal removed. The county said Monday that the uncollared wolf has killed family pets and attacked a horse at one property in the western New Mexico community. The county's wolf investigator has apparently confirmed the problems.

First, let me state that I support Sarah Palin and I couldn't be happier that she is the VP choice for McCain. Having said that, a friend said that Palin has put a bounty on wolves in Alaska. Specifically, this was the email sent out: Hoping to boost the number of wolves killed this year by permitees, Palin announced the state would pay $150 for each kill. According to an Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) news release, the bounty was instituted to "motivate permittees to redouble their efforts and to help offset the high cost of aviation fuel,...

Wolfe has billboards in 22 counties that say, "Gas too high? Thank Rockefeller. He blocks drilling." He hopes to have one of the 16-by-36-foot billboards in each of the state's 55 counties. "This coming Saturday, a crew of us will be putting one up on Route 50 in Doddridge County," he said. Volunteers in Berkeley County are helping place one there, too. It's a jab at Rockefeller refusing to vote for drilling oil in places considered environmentally sensitive, such as the Alaska wildlife region. Tuesday, Wolfe had just picked up a batch of bumper stickers that say, "Drill now. Wolfe,...

KALISPELL (AP) — A man hunting black bear shot and killed a wolf near Olney, northwest of Whitefish. Zachary Harms of Kalispell was driving his truck up a forest road Tuesday when he saw movement. He walked along the road with his rifle, thinking he may have seen a black bear. Two wolves then ran out from the side of the road. One ran across the road and up the hillside. The other ran down the road towards Harms. The wolf closed to approximately 10 feet and Harms fired, hitting the female wolf in the front of the head. The...

Montana’s wolf population increased 34 percent over the past year, to an estimated 422 wolves in 73 packs... The wolves are nearly equally distributed between northern and southern Montana...although the bulk of the population growth was in northwestern and far western Montana... Wolves are still listed under the Endangered Species Act. Delisting was set for late March, but lawsuits are expected to delay that. As for conflicts with ranchers, the FWP reported an increase in the number of confirmed cattle deaths due to wolves, from 32 to 75, and an increase in the number of sheep deaths, from four to...

Are Wolves The Pronghorn's Best Friend?Yellowstone pronghorn populations directly benefit from the presence of wolves, a new Wildlife Conservation Society study says. (Credit: Julie Larsen Maher/Wildlife Conservation Society) ScienceDaily (Mar. 4, 2008) — As western states debate removing the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act, a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society cautions that doing so may result in an unintended decline in another species: the pronghorn, a uniquely North American animal that resembles an African antelope. The study, appearing in the latest issue of the journal Ecology, says that fewer wolves mean more coyotes, which...

A sled dog tour operator in the Interior village of Bettles said wolves have killed and eaten two of his sled dogs in the past two weeks, continuing what has been a statewide trend this winter. “They drug them right out of their collars,” Max Hanst said by phone Tuesday from the village 180 miles north of Fairbanks. “The most recent one was three nights ago. I lost another one six days before that.” Three days prior to the first attack, Hanst said he shot and killed an old, emaciated wolf trying to dig its way into a puppy pen....

Rocky Mountain National Park officials say a recent report of a possible wolf sighting is credible, but it's difficult to be sure without more evidence. Ranger Jack Dinsmoor said Friday that two experienced park volunteers reported seeing what looked like a wolf on Dec. 4. They didn't get a photo, but large canine paw prints were later found in the area. Dinsmoor said park officials don't know if the animal was a wolf, a wolf-dog hybrid or ... Baskfield said the division did confirm that a large black animal caught on video by wildlife officers last February in northern Colorado...

The father of an Ontario man killed in a wolf attack in northern Saskatchewan says it's a relief to finally have the truth come out. A coroner's jury in Prince Albert ruled Thursday that wolves killed Kenton Carnegie in November 2005. The 22-year-old University of Waterloo engineering student had been on a work-term ... An expert, who prepared a report for the coroner's office, said it was more likely a bear killed Carnegie. But in the end, the jury dismissed that notion, declaring it a wolf attack. "Kenton was an honest man," he said. "His life was honest, we didn't...

'They were not afraid of us,' woman says. Neither the three women nor their dogs heard the pack of wolves creeping up behind them as they jogged on Artillery Road in the frigid morning air. One minute it was peaceful. Then she glanced back and saw the pack of about eight wolves spanning the road, only a few feet behind. A melee ensued, accompanied by screaming, snarling, blood and pepper spray. "It was the most terrifying thing I've ever been through."... The increasingly emboldened Elmendorf wolf pack is blamed for killing one dog and wounding another in Eagle River this...

Wolves roaming the outskirts of Fairbanks are making pet owners nervous... What the story calls a “pack of bold, hungry” animals made lunch of two dogs recently - one in North Pole and one about 20 miles out Chena Hot Springs Road. A number of callers to the Department of Fish and Game have reported spotting the pack. Cathie Harms, a spokesperson with the state Department of Fish and Game. “Everybody is used to seeing moose on the road, but not everybody is used to seeing wolves in their yard.”

Bringing back animals which were hunted to extinction in Britain - including the wolf, lynx, beaver and wild boar - would not be difficult, according to a new report. The animals could be brought back to live free in the wild without posing any great threat to people, crops or the environment, it is claimed. A report from the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford University (WCRU) said while further work needed to be done on their impact, there was no obvious reason to block their return. The animals roaming free in remote areas would enhance the natural environment and...

PRAY - For rancher Randy Petrich, the removal of gray wolves from the endangered-species list - a move that would open up the animals to hunting in the Northern Rockies for the first time in decades - couldn't come soon enough. Petrich has seen fresh wolf tracks almost every morning this fall - close enough to threaten his cattle. "I believe that any wolf on any given night, if there happens to be a calf there, they will kill it," ... Just 12 years since the wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park ... federal officials say the sharp rise...

I'm Tossing in with Romney With apologies for any coronaries caused. By Leon H Wolf Posted in 2008 | 2008 | Elections | Mitt Romney | Republicans | Stuff I Never Thought I'd Say — Comments (121) / Email this page » / Leave a comment » So this is probably the last thing I saw myself doing nine or ten months ago when I first started seriously following the 2008 race and committed to support Sam Brownback. But here I find myself doing it nonetheless. So I suppose a little bit of explanation here is in order. In the...