Mourning an Alpha Female
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/mourning-an-alpha-female/December 10, 2012,
Mourning an Alpha Female
By NATE SCHWEBER
As I reported on Sunday in The Times, Yellowstone National Park’s best-known wolf was shot and killed last week outside the park’s borders. A large gray alpha female known as 832F, she had been fitted by researchers with a GPS collar that allowed them to track her movements.
The wolf wowed scientists and tourists alike with her size and a strength so great that she could “take down animals on her own,” said Daniel Stahler, a park wildlife biologist.
She also led the pack in Yellowstone’s northeastern Lamar Valley, an area rich in bison and elk that has a road offering vantage points for wildlife watchers equipped with cameras and spotting scopes. The Lamar Canyon pack could be counted on to roam the valley near dawn and dusk, allowing scientists and tourists to observe wolf behavior at a level of detail rarely seen outside National Geographic specials.
(Wolf 832F, named thus by the park biologists who collared her, has also been known to wolf watchers as 06 — oh-six — because 2006 was her birth year.)
Marc Cooke, a member of the advocacy group Wolves of the Rockies, said he was moved by the way that 832F had cared for her pups, bringing them food and snarling ferociously at any animals that posed a threat to them.
“She was an amazing mother,” Mr. Cooke said. “When I heard she died, I felt like I lost a family member.”
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021946313
Another collared, and very famous Yellowstone wolf killed in Wyoming’s hunt
http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2012/12/07/yet-another-collared-and-very-famous-yellowstone-wolf-killed-in-wyomings-hunt/
Briefly noted wildlife news stories. Dec. 5, 2012..
Yet another collared, and very famous Yellowstone wolf killed in Wyoming’s hunt.
By Ken Cole On December 7, 2012 ·
Wolf “06?, the alpha female of the Yellowstone’s Lamar Canyon Pack has been shot in Wyoming by a hunter.
Wolf “06? was probably the most famous wolf in Yellowstone and had been viewed by thousands of Park visitors. She was also part of the ongoing study of wolves that has been conducted in Yellowstone since the time they were reintroduced in 1995. So far there have been 8 collared Yellowstone wolves killed this year and an unknown number of uncollared Yellowstone wolves have likely been killed as well.
The ongoing study of wolves and their interactions with other species is responsible for the huge amount of information gained since the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone and Central Idaho. The number of collared wolves lost to the hunt in the surrounding parts of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming could only be described as crippling to understanding the role that wolves play in the ecosystem. The wolves in Yellowstone also draw millions of tourist dollars to the area each year.
Several conservation groups have petitioned to ask that a buffer zone be created around Yellowstone National Park so that wolves that primarily use Yellowstone National Park have some level of protection when they move out of its boundaries.
A Conservation Icon in the Crosshairs
http://www.defendersblog.org/2012/12/conservation-icon-in-the-crosshairs/
It's just unfair. Hunters and outfitters are picking off the wolves of Yellowstone National Park. Call upon officials to create a buffer zone to protect them: http://wg.convio.net/site/MessageViewer?em_id=10181.0
Reform the Federal Wildlife-Killing Program
Urge Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to reform Wildlife Services from the federal government's top wildlife killers to a program that can truly resolve wildlife conflicts.
http://secure.defenders.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=2443&fb_action_ids=4602717198872&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582
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http://www.wolfcenter.org/pdf/Benerfits-Wolves.pdf
= new reply since forum marked as read
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Senseless seasons on animals doesn’t justify hunting
http://stillwatergazette.com/2012/11/02/senseless-seasons-on-animals-doesnt-justify-hunting/
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I now live in semi-wilderness not far from the St. Croix River. I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s on the North Hill in Stillwater in a familial culture where hunting and trapping was an annual tradition. One learned the trade early on, imbued with the belief that one had to learn to hunt and kill as a sacred right of masculine passage. Returning home with the slain was proof of your skill, and a trophy kill a badge of personal honor and achievement.
I stopped hunting and trapping long ago. For years, I was ambivalent about speaking out because I accepted the cultural and psychological influences motivating those who grew up considering unnecessary killing a sport. I’ve come to recognize how superficial, shallow, fleeting and self-destructive is this violent indulgence.
I’ve come 180 degrees. For me, it is the senseless open seasons on wolves, bears, and in Wisconsin, even mourning doves.
The hunting of deer, upland birds and waterfowl once seemed justified to put food on the family table. Today, the cost of a box of ammunition exceeds the price of meat at the grocery store. In my area, one could easily survive indefinitely on fresh road kill.
Statistically, wolves and bears present no significant threat to people, domestic animals or human habitat if reasonable precautions are taken to discourage their incursions into our domain. The idea of hunting mourning doves is obscenely ludicrous.
What I’ve witnessed in the 12 years at the small Northwoods lake where I live is a dramatic decline of lower -end food chain wildlife, birds and the creatures that sustain the natural infrastructure — dam building, weed control and water quality, erosion mitigation, fish reproduction, small mammal and amphibian shoreline character. This comes from trapping, over hunting and mindless pollution. We now see accounts of dogs killed by increasingly sophisticated traps planted in the woods. This is insane.
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a rant with info that I just posted...
A couple years ago on Mother's Day, when this pack was first getting established at Slough Creek, YNP, I watched this amazing alpha protect her pups in their den from a grizzly sow with two cubs. This activity went on for over an hour and a half. It was way far away from where park visitors could gather but you could see without binos. She was trying to encourage the sow with cubs to move away from the den area by nipping at her feet and howling. The sow would charge the wolf and the cubs would scuttle up behind the sow every time she gained some ground... or lost it. Eventually the wolf won out and the sow with cubs moved on. It was an awesome show of mothers defending their space and access to food and security, all on a Mother's Day. She really stood out because she was nearly all white.
According to Dr. Doug Smith, YNP's wolf project head, she was the real leader of the pack, she could take down an elk all by herself. He was on NPR this morning. It's sad that this situation is the way it is, and the killing is all supposed to be for the sake of getting wolf haters to be more accepting by allowing them to kill them. A sick sort of pretzel logic.
I, and many others, have been fighting for the wolves for a very long time and we get little national attention and a lot of grief including death threats and a host of other unpleasant interactions because we have made a stand.
Please read my post and take action, I have provided contact and other info for your convenience. This is about a public trust issue, these wolves belong to all of us but once they are lured out of the park, they end up dead.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021966489
Thanks for this post, we need all the attention we can get on this issue!
animals shall be here long after we've destroyed ourselves, I hope. To kill an animal such as this is just evil. Damn that fucking 'hunter'. Bastard. 
I donate, but the killings break my heart. Just wanted to give a 
for my favorite animals.
I hate hunters. I'd like it if hunters had to meet their quarry on even footing. Then we'd see how brave they are. Most of them would lose control of their bladders before fainting from fright.
The thought of this glorious creature's head on the wall of some power tripping micropenis makes me want to vomit.
