news - October 2024
FOR RANCHERS IN COSTA RICA, JAGUARS AND PUMAS BECOME UNEXPECTED ALLIES [MONGABAY - OCTOBER 3, 2024]
A NEW WOLF PACK, IRATE RANCHERS, AND THE ASTONISHING COMEBACK OF CALIFORNIA’S MOST CELEBRATED PREDATOR [SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - OCTOBER 13, 2024]
A NEW WOLF PACK, IRATE RANCHERS, AND THE ASTONISHING COMEBACK OF CALIFORNIA’S MOST CELEBRATED PREDATOR [SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - OCTOBER 13, 2024]
Commentary by Tom Skeele, CCC
Posted on October 15, 2024
This story is yet another example of how promoting coexistence with predators, or all wildlife for that matter, remains a critical, cutting-edge strategy in the global wildlife conservation community. And here is the backstory on why I enjoy reading about such efforts.
In 1991, when I co-founded Predator Conservation Alliance (PCA), the question was “if” some of the larger carnivores would be able to fulfill their critical role in the natural world of the U.S. Northern Rockies. For wolves, it was a question of if we were going to allow for their return to all corners of the five-state region. For grizzly bears, the question was not only if they would survive where they existed, but would they be allowed to thrive throughout the region.
During the next decade or so, PCA joined with many advocacy organizations to secure the reestablishment of wolves and expansion of grizzly bears in the region. This success led to a shift in how we viewed the long-term viability of these species in the region. No longer was it a question of “if” they would be on the land. Increasingly, the question was “how” were we going to live, or
coexistence, with these animals now that they were on the land.
This shift inspired PCA to launch a “Coexisting with Predators” program, where we addressed four existing or emerging types of human-carnivore conflict: [1] Livestock: grazing and other agricultural pursuits; [2] Residential: reducing residential attractants at the “urban-wildlands interface”; [3] Human Safety: living and recreating in predator country; and [4] Hunting: competition and conflicts between hunters and predators.
While leading the design and implementation of this new program, I was also a co-founder of Predator Friendly, Inc. – a coalition of sheep producers, conservationists, wildlife ecologists, and clothing manufacturers developing a “green market” certification program for woolgrowers using non-lethal predator control practices. As I mentioned in another recent post, this project was one of the initial efforts that led to what is now a worldwide "wildlife friendly" movement.
Fast forward to today and it is very encouraging to see how coexisting with wildlife has become a leading focus of the global conservation community. Enough so that within the rewilding movement, many advocates – including The Rewilding Institute, with whom I work part time – have expanded the original “three C’s” of rewilding (cores, connectivity, carnivores) to include a fourth “C” – coexistence.
All this leads me to want to share this article about the work being done by Panthera, Costa Rican conservation authorities, and ranchers in Costa Rica.
Photo Credit: from Mongabay article.
A NEW WOLF PACK, IRATE RANCHERS, AND THE ASTONISHING COMEBACK OF CALIFORNIA’S MOST CELEBRATED PREDATOR [SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - OCTOBER 13, 2024]
A NEW WOLF PACK, IRATE RANCHERS, AND THE ASTONISHING COMEBACK OF CALIFORNIA’S MOST CELEBRATED PREDATOR [SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - OCTOBER 13, 2024]
A NEW WOLF PACK, IRATE RANCHERS, AND THE ASTONISHING COMEBACK OF CALIFORNIA’S MOST CELEBRATED PREDATOR [SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - OCTOBER 13, 2024]
Commentary by Tom Skeele, CCC
Posted on October 14, 2024
It's challenging to call the wolf's return to northeastern California a government conspiracy when the critters came back on their own.
More accurately and appropriately, you can call their return a great example of natural rewilding. Wolves belong in California us much as we humans do, both species are native to the area.
Photo Credit: Kent Laudon California Department of Fish and Wildlife. From the article, the image is of a wolf pup from the Lassen Pack’s first litter in 2017 photographed by a trail camera in Lassen County.
'THAT'S A BLOODBATH': HOW A FEDERAL PROGRAM KILLS WILDLIFE FOR PRIVATE INTERESTS [NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO - OCTOBER 10, 2024]
A NEW WOLF PACK, IRATE RANCHERS, AND THE ASTONISHING COMEBACK OF CALIFORNIA’S MOST CELEBRATED PREDATOR [SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - OCTOBER 13, 2024]
'THAT'S A BLOODBATH': HOW A FEDERAL PROGRAM KILLS WILDLIFE FOR PRIVATE INTERESTS [NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO - OCTOBER 10, 2024]
Commentary by Tom Skeele, CCC
Posted on October 12, 2024
Thanks, NPR, for covering this federal program. As many of you know, I started my wildlife conservation career focused on this issue (circa 1991-1999) and it is sad, but not surprising, that “Wildlife Services” – a moniker that epitomizes the concept of greenwashing – carries on as such. It speaks to how the livestock industry still runs roughshod over the open range and politics of the western states.
Back in the day when my group published its own annual report on what was then called Animal Damage Control (we affectionately referred to is as “All the Dead Critters”), we summarized the federal program this way: public money is being spent to kill publicly owned wildlife, often on public lands, for the benefit of a small percentage of private livestock producers who are neither required to change their management practices to reduce livestock/predator conflicts nor directly pay for this government “service.”
Based on the information NPR provided in this story, some things haven’t changed.
One of the things that hasn’t changed about this agency is its use of non-native animal kill figures – mostly birds – to water down the relative percentage of native wildlife it kills. I can understand efforts to control these birds for two reasons: [1] they are mostly non-native and [2] most of these birds are killed at airports to keep we humans safe in the air (a “service” that benefits most Americans).
However, let’s label Wildlife Services referencing its invasive animal kill figures for what it is: a red herring meant to distract us from the agency’s historic and still primary raison d’etre: to kill predators – primarily coyotes, foxes, bobcats, badgers, bears and cougars – in the western seventeen states for the benefit of a relatively few ranchers.
The recalcitrant nature of Wildlife Services ultimately led me to pursue other strategies for protecting native predators. I was a co-founder of Predator Friendly Inc., a coalition of sheep producers, conservationists, wildlife ecologists, and clothing entrepreneurs attempting to open markets for wool products produced without killing predators. This project was one of the initial efforts that led to what is now a worldwide "wildlife friendly" movement.
Wildlife Services, and the federal government more broadly, would do well to use our tax dollars promoting this type of non-lethal strategy and solution, rather than killing literally tens of thousands of our public wildlife in the west each year.
Finally, thanks to those of you who continue to work on reforming (or ending) the federal predator control program. You are making progress and I (along with many others) appreciate and value your efforts.
Photo Credit: from the National Public Radio article; shows a gray wolf in a trap laid by a Wildlife Services employee; image obtained from the USDA via the Freedom of Information Act.
ENDANGERED OCELOT APPEARS ON TRAIL CAMERA IN NEW ARIZONA LOCATION [CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY PRESS RELEASE]
CALIFORNIA ENACTS UNPRECEDENTED RESTRICTIONS ON RAT POISONS IN BID TO PROTECT WILDLIFE [LOS ANGELES TIMES - OCTOBER 1, 2024]
'THAT'S A BLOODBATH': HOW A FEDERAL PROGRAM KILLS WILDLIFE FOR PRIVATE INTERESTS [NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO - OCTOBER 10, 2024]
Posted on October 3, 2024
"TUCSON, Ariz. — The Center for Biological Diversity released stunning new video footage today of a rare wild ocelot in a Sky Island mountain range in Arizona, within the ancestral homelands of the Tohono O’odham Nation.... The footage, captured on a trail camera on July 24, 2024, is from a location where ocelots have not recently been detected."
Photo Credit: From the press release.
CALIFORNIA ENACTS UNPRECEDENTED RESTRICTIONS ON RAT POISONS IN BID TO PROTECT WILDLIFE [LOS ANGELES TIMES - OCTOBER 1, 2024]
CALIFORNIA ENACTS UNPRECEDENTED RESTRICTIONS ON RAT POISONS IN BID TO PROTECT WILDLIFE [LOS ANGELES TIMES - OCTOBER 1, 2024]
CALIFORNIA ENACTS UNPRECEDENTED RESTRICTIONS ON RAT POISONS IN BID TO PROTECT WILDLIFE [LOS ANGELES TIMES - OCTOBER 1, 2024]
Posted on October 3, 2024
"California has become the first state in the nation to restrict use of all blood-thinning rat poisons due to their unintended effect on mountain lions, birds of prey and other animals."
"A 2023 California Department of Fish and Wildlife report found that roughly 88% of raptors and 90% of pumas tested were exposed to the poisons."
Photo Credit: from Los Angeles Times article.