Updated November 6. 2015

So, how about all of those online and email petitions? 
Do they work?
Do they save our Buddies?

Hey Wolves, and all of us who work to help all of our animal Buddies.
I did not mean to ruffle anyone's feathers by saying that online petitions are useless. 
But they are a waste of your energy, and they cost us the lives of our animals.
When you simply sign a petition, and think you have solved a problem, but you have not?
The problems facing our animals still exist.

All I wanted to do, is to build a community of folks that would put forth the effort to change the tide, to build a better future for our animals and our earth. We can alter the future, but not by flailing away as slacktivists.

Contact your Congress by email or phone, if you truly care.

If they know they will not get your next vote at election day, they will take action.

Been looking back at all we have been through in the last couple of years, trying to save our wolves from not just the wolf hunters, but from those who allow and encourage those hunters to “manage” our recovering wolves….. “manage”, “harvest”, “control” … three words that are more palatable than “slaughter”, “hunt”, “kill”.

So we online become enraged when someone shares an unidentified photo of a wolf hunter, holding up a dead wolf.
There are many of those photos, I waded through all of them to post on my wolf blog, and then used them in a tweet storm.
My goal was indeed to get folks so pissed over this war on wolves, so that they would take action.
They got pissed. They tweeted. 
But they did not take action.
I monitored how many views there were on the wolf blog, when I made postcards, to make it easy for folks to comment to the USFWS about delisting our gray wolves, and then again about placing protection on our Alexander Archipelago wolves in Alaska.

Bottom line?
If we don’t take realistic action to protest the bloodshed of our animals, by contacting our Congress, we are kidding ourselves about what is entailed to be an activist.
Most of these online petitions are bullshit, (sorry to be crude there.)

1.The danger of online petitions. Have we become slaktivists?
http://linkis.com/www.bosshi.com/xy2Z4

2. Evidence points to futility of online petitions
April 10, 2015
Andrew Masterson
There is significant evidence that the proliferation of online petitions is leading to the widespread substitution of big action with tiny gesture.
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/evidence-points-to-futility-of-online-petitions-20150331-1mchxh.html

3. AUG 12, 2010 11:27AM ET
Your Online Petition Is Useless
HEATHER HORN
http://www.thewire.com/politics/2010/08/your-online-petition-is-useless/19146/

4.Petitions
http://www.veggieboards.com/forum/15-action-alerts/120716-uselessness-online-petitions.html
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/petition.asp

5.Truth or Fiction: Concerning email and online petitions
http://www.truthorfiction.com/petitions/


6."Is hashtag-based activism all talk, no action?"
http://college.usatoday.com/2015/10/26/hashtag-activism/

7."Don’t be an armchair activist" http://www.technicianonline.com/opinion/article_337de30c-8372-11e5-89ae-bff3a0bdab44.htm


Many of them are tossed out immediately, as the agencies and politicians that receive them know that are prone to be fraudulent. 
You can sign a petition several times, under different names, and the petition author will not know.

So?
If you care about the fact that our appointed officials are selling out our wildlife and wilderness?
"Science Endangered at the Fish and Wildlife Service"
http://www.endangered.org/science-endangered-at-the-fish-and-wildlife-service/  .........
then start sending emails, or snail mail, or placing phone calls to your Congress.
I set up that information on every blog I have.
Here it is: 
http://waronwilderness.blogspot.com/p/usa-congress-house-of-representatives.html

Won't share any more bogus petitions from questionable NGOs 
(Non Government Organizations).
Other than Defenders of Wildlife, I have no faith in the rest of them, after working with them for several years.

I have been blessed with a once only in a lifetime love, friend, and partner who encouraged me to quit following the path of the naive online activist, fueled only by rage. 
Rage can force us to act blindly, to act without question. 
But we need to question. 
There are those who would manipulate activists for profit.


Let's be informed, and awake, folks..... we still can change the world.

A few thoughts on activism.

June 5. 2015

Wish I could say that being an activist has been, and continues to be, a wonderful, gratifying experience.
That would be untruthful though.

The downside is best described here, the author summed it up far better than I could.
Compassion Fatigue.
http://www.ourhenhouse.org/2013/05/how-an-activist-headed-toward-burnout-can-change-course-four-ways-to-cope-with-compassion-fatigue/

My thoughts run a bit more toward bewilderment, and a little anger.
Recently a friend of mine informed me that she and I had been targets of
criticism concerning our activism.
I did not bother to read what was said of us, as I assumed I would then be
tempted to respond. 
Not going to happen.
Been there, done that, and while I can’t change the past, I can choose not
to repeat it.

Working for our gray wolves concerning their protection under the Endangered Species Act
has been the primary thrust of my activism, starting in 2008 when Ken Salazaar delisted them.
I left for a while, and then returned for this round that began in 2011.
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2011/wolves-04-12-2011.html

This go around bit me.
Pinched nerve from too much time typing.
14 hours a day was the norm. The day I realized that 22 hours had passed while
flailing away on the keyboard was the day I knew this had to stop.

So, bit by bit, withdrew from accounts and alliances.
Some folks got pissed at me, had one person on Twitter that I had not met prior tell me that if I “wasn’t FOR the animals, then I was AGAINST them.”
That struck me as one of the most audacious things I’d ever heard.

Much of the activism I see is based on rage.
It is difficult for some personalities to sustain that level of anger, have seen
quite a few activists basically break down, nerves shot, and sink into depression.

How do you help animals by destroying your health?

I’m not advocating that anyone stay in when they need a break.
For another activist to accuse someone of being ineffective, if the person accused needs time to regroup, is simply mean spirited.

My work continues, but it is different now.
I no longer write tweet storms to scream at politicians or government agencies.
No more angry tweets and posts.
Have also learned that the way to shut down an account that deals with something like poaching, is to post a good news article about a country claiming to ban ivory sales.
That was met with cynicism.
So much for working for the collective end result to stop poaching of ivory tusks.

I will always work for the wolves that I have come to know as family, my four legged kindred.
But activism can take many forms.
It’s time for me to work for our wolves through my art.
There are so many passionate, able folks online who will ensure that voices for wolves will continue to be heard, so I can share my story of wolves in the gallery realm now, hoping to engage a different group of people who are not G+, Twitter, or Facebook animal rights activists.
Many people offline have no clue as to what has transpired since the reintroduction of our gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park, and then parts of North America.

My wish is that activists could learn to work together, not divide one another with criticism and slander.

Peace.
Heidi

Reposted from The Timber Wolf Information Network

http://www.timberwolfinformation.org/wy-wyoming-governor-eyes-congressional-fix-on-wolf-delisting/

WY: Wyoming governor eyes congressional fix on wolf delisting

By BEN NEARY, Associated Press

Cheyenne, Wyo. • Congressional action appears to offer Wyoming its best chance at regaining state management of wolves, Gov. Matt Mead said Thursday.

Acting in response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of conservation groups, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson last month stripped Wyoming of wolf management authority and returned wolves to federal protections under the Endangered Species Act. In Utah, wolves remain protected under the act. A state management plan, which allows for two breeding pairs in the state, won’t be used until wolves are delisted in the region.

Jackson agreed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that wolves in the Northern Rockies have recovered and she accepted the agency’s finding that wolves aren’t endangered or threatened within a significant portion of their range.

However, Jackson ruled the Wyoming plan that took effect in 2012 failed to contain legal guarantees that the state would maintain a buffer wolf population above the required minimum of 100 wolves and 10 breeding pairs outside of Yellowstone National Park and the Wind River Indian Reservation.

A survey released by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department early this year said there were at least 306 wolves in at least 43 packs – including more than 23 breeding pairs – in the state at the end of 2013.

Wyoming held wolf hunts in a trophy management zone bordering Yellowstone in 2012 and 2013. Jackson’s order ending state management came on the eve of this year’s scheduled hunt, stopping it.

Jackson ruled she was not satisfied by a last-minute effort by Mead’s administration to try to make the buffer population requirement legally binding as an administrative rule until the state Legislature could take action early next year to codify it in law.

In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Mead said his administration is still considering whether to appeal Jackson’s order. The deadline for filing an appeal is late November.

Mead said Wyoming’s best chance at regaining wolf management authority appears to be seeking congressional action specifying its wolf plan wouldn’t be challenged legally.

Congress in 2011 took unprecedented action to remove federal protections from wolves in Idaho and Montana while specifying there could be no legal challenge to the decision to turn them over to state management.

Mead said all three members of Wyoming’s congressional delegation are willing to push for similar federal action on Wyoming wolves.

“With the election next week, we’ll know better what the congressional makeup’s going to be. Hopefully have a better feel of what the next Congress is going to look like,” Mead said.

Mead said he expects the state’s congressional delegation would push for acceptance of the same wolf management plan that Jackson overturned, although perhaps with additional language making the buffer population a legal requirement.

“Other than that, I think it’s an extraordinarily good plan,” Mead said. “And I think the history and the hunts we’ve had show it’s working and it’s working well — that wolves were being managed very conservatively and that we more than met a necessary buffer.”

Wyoming’s wolf management plan designated wolves as predators that could be shot on sight in most areas. The state classified wolves as trophy animals in a zone bordering Yellowstone National Park and has allowed licensed hunters to kill scores of them in the past two hunting seasons.

Wyoming’s approach to wolf management has drawn heavy criticism from national conservation groups.

Tim Preso lawyer with Earthjustice in Bozeman, Montana, represented a coalition of groups that sued to overturn Wyoming’s wolf plan.

“In general I would say that the Endangered Species Act was passed by Congress to ensure a rich wildlife heritage for the entire nation,” Preso said. “And if local interests get congressional exemptions anytime there’s a significant endangered species issue in their backyards, that goal will be undermined, and the entire nation will be poorer for it.”

Source:
http://www.sltrib.com/news/1772032-155/wolves-wyoming-management-state-wolf-mead

#Wolves

#GrayWolves

#KeepWolvesListed

Reposted from The Wildlife News:

http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2014/11/01/wolf-shows-up-at-grand-canyon-national-park/

Wolf shows up at Grand Canyon National Park

by RALPH MAUGHAN on NOVEMBER 1, 2014 
 ARIZONA, WOLF DISPERSAL, WOLVES
Once again incredible migration ability of wolves shows-

Photographs were first taken Oct. 4, 2014 near the North Rim of the canyon of what was almost certainly a wild Northern Rockies gray wolf.  Since then the animal has been seen and photographed several more times.

The three photos from a longer series that I looked at (received by email) show what is obviously a substantial sized wolf, close up, wearing a radio collar. I am not sure if I am allowed to use the photos, so here is one more of the photo series already published at Chronkite News.  It is obviously not a coyote, too massive to be a Mexican wolf, and pet wolves and wolf hybrids do not wear radio collars. It shows all the characteristics of a wolf. A newer article in azcentral.com shows two more recent photos of the wolf with the radio collar (reported taken on Oct. 27).

The person who took the Oct. 4 photos wrote in the email that was copied to me, “I stopped at the Visitor’s Center, told the kid what we’d seen…he said “there are no wolves in the area, what you saw was a big fluffy coyote.” No joke, he wouldn’t even look at the pictures!”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now looking at these and other photos and is non-committal (some suspect saying “this is not good news for us”). The Service is trying to delist wolves all over the West. They have made lots of claims that the wolf is recovered and that all the decent wolf habitat is occupied.  Michael Robinson, with the Center for Biological Diversity“ said, “I’m absolutely thrilled that a wolf managed to travel so far to reclaim the Grand Canyon as a home for wolves.” “This wolf’s journey starkly highlights the fact that wolf recovery is still in its infancy and that these important and magnificent animals continue to need Endangered Species Act protections.”

Other comments: “In the early 1900s over 30 wolves on the North Kaibab, including Grand Canyon National Park, were killed by government hunters,” said Kim Crumbo, conservation director for Grand Canyon Wildlands Council. “The possibility that a determined wolf could make it to the Canyon region is cause for celebration, and we must insist that every effort be taken to protect this brave wanderer.”  “Wolves like this one at the Grand Canyon and OR-7 demonstrate that, when protected, wolves will naturally recolonize their native habitats, restoring balance to wounded landscapes,” said Drew Kerr, carnivore advocate with WildEarth Guardians. “Without Endangered Species Act protections, however, wolves will likely be relegated to a few National Parks in a tiny portion of their historic range.”

To get to the Grand Canyon from the Northern Rockies, the wolf must have crossed not only many rugged and remote areas, but many highways, roads, livestock grazed lands, and red rock desert.

Please ask that the U.S.Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) immediately initiate a status review of wolves in the Northern Rockies. 

Thank you to Defenders of Wildlife, please join them in calling on FWS to review the status of Idaho’s persecuted wolf population.

https://secure.defenders.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2713

If you really want to help our Gray Wolves in the U.S.A.?

Then please follow and support Defenders of Wildlife

www.defenders.org

@Defenders

Dear Heidi,

You might wonder why, with all the bad wolf news coming from the Northern Rockies lately, I remain optimistic.

I remain optimistic, because not all the news is bad. In Wyoming, this would have been the end of the first week of the wolf hunting season. But thanks to your support, we went to court, and Wyoming’s wolves are back on the endangered species list – where they belong.

I remain optimistic, because not all states are dominated by wolf-haters. Just last week, the California Fish and Game Commission officially added gray wolves to the state endangered species list. That means the welcome mat is out for wolves in some great wolf habitat in the Lower 48!

I remain optimistic, because if you look at the big picture, we’re winning. Just 20 years ago the wolf population of the Northern Rockies was almost zero. Today, there are more than 1,600 wolves roaming the forests, mountains, and valleys of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. And while old hatreds and prejudices die hard, a new generation of Westerners, many of whom are wolf-lovers like you and me, is coming of age.

Most of all I remain optimistic, because of you. Supporters like you are the lifeblood of our work. It’s no exaggeration to say that without you, we wouldn’t be here.

Some things are worth saying as often as possible. Here’s one – Thank You.

We will never give up fighting for the wolves, and we are so proud to have you by our side.

With gratitude,

Jamie Rappaport Clark, Defenders of Wildlife

President

Defenders of Wildlife

10/13/2014

#KEEPWOLVESLISTED

Reposted from Keep Michigan Wolves Protected:

http://keepwolvesprotected.com/media/want-hunt-michigan-wolves-youll-have-wait-until-least-2015

WANT TO HUNT MICHIGAN WOLVES? 
YOU’LL HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL AT LEAST 2015

News: Detroit Free Press Sep 11, 2014
With two proposals concerning wolf hunts on the Nov. 4 ballot, the Natural Resources Commission will not schedule a hunt of gray wolves in the Upper Peninsula this year.

“We do not have the authority to set a wolf hunt now,” said John Matonich, a NRC commissioner during a commission meeting Thursday. “It’s happening too late in the year for 2014, so the NRC will wait until 2015” to set another hunt.

The two proposals are referendums on two laws passed by the Legislature in 2012 and 2013 that authorize the NRC to designate game species and set a wolf hunt. Opponents of the hunt gathered enough signatures twice to try and get the two laws repealed.

On the ballot, supporters of the wolf hunt would vote yes on the two proposals. Opponents would vote no to repeal the law.

The petitions put the laws on hold until after the vote. Even if the laws are upheld in November, there isn’t enough time to set a hunt for 2014, Matonich said.

A third citizen-initiated legislative petition drive, which supports the wolf hunt and supersedes the other two petition ballots, was passed by the Legislature last month, but that law won’t take effect until sometime in March.

The NRC authorized a hunt for 2013 with a goal of killing up to 43 wolves of the population of more than 600 wolves in three sections of the western Upper Peninsula. That hunt resulted in 23 wolves getting killed by hunters.

Opponents of the hunt said people already have the right to kill troublesome wolves who threaten livestock and pets and that an organized hunt isn’t needed.

Supporters say the wolves are beginning to encroach on communities and the herd needs to be thinned.


Keep Wolves Protected is endorsed by a number of organizations and citizens including:
Kalamazoo Humane Society
Pamela Graves, DVM
Detroit Audubon Society
Michigan Animal Shelter Rescue Network
Aaron Payment, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians
Voiceless-MI
Humane Society of Huron Valley
Detroit Zoological Society