Endangered Species Day
The third Friday of every May has been declared Endangered Species Day. It is a day to educate yourselves and your children about what animals and plant life are on the list and what simple actions you can take at home to help make a positive change for endangered species and other wildlife and fauna all around you.
One of the animals listed, the Grey Wolf, has technically been “delisted” several weeks ago. This, in my opinion, is a travesty. They need the protection from our government because it is now open season on hunting these wise and beautiful creatures who help to keep the balance of the forest and the health of the herd of other species such as elk.
I have a deep, personal connection with the grey wolf. One summer, when living on a ranch in the mountains of CO, (the same location where I met my husband and got married), I had the chance to live with and bond with a 3 year old grey wolf named Cloud that was the pet of one of my housemates. The wolf and I bonded immediately and he soon started following me around everywhere and even wanted to sleep in my room at night instead of with his dad. This did not go over well with my housemate but he worked a lot and different hours than me so I soon became Cloud’s surrogate mom.
This wolf was so smart, loving and playful and really acted as my protector, too. One day, Cloud and I went for a hike down to the creek nearby which was about 1,000′ lower in elevation so I could harvest some plants that grew there to make medicine. I got caught up in the plant world, kept wandering and wildcrafting and when I was finally done we started hiking back up and I realized, I was lost deep in the forest! I had lost the small animal-made trail we followed down. It was late afternoon, it would be getting to be dusk soon and I was worried because of the bears and mountain lions that also lived in the forest and I had seen them on occasion on the ranch property before. I started running up the mountain since I was more than an hour away from home.
Cloud wasn’t worried, he was happy being out on our adventure running with me like one of his pack and I kept saying to him, “we need to go home, where’s home?” He was the one to eventually lead me back towards the ranch, running off in one direction and stopping to look back at me as if to tell me “this way”, with his sense of direction being much better than mine!
My housemate and Cloud eventually moved out of state, I offered to adopt Cloud and my housemate said no way. I was very sad over them leaving but what a gift I got in spending so much quality time with such a magnificent animal. I will never forget him.
The northern rocky mountain states such as Montana, Wyoming and Idaho have it out for the grey wolf. The plan is for killing off 39% of the 732 total wolves that live in the wild. Many are the collared, reintroduced to the wild adults and are highly tracked and studied since wolves were exterminated to extinction in the wild.
Earthjustice and 11 other conservation groups* filed a federal court lawsuit challenging the federal government’s decision to remove the northern rockies gray wolf population from the list of endangered species. They also filed a request for a preliminary injunction in order to reinstate Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves until the court issues a final decision on the merits of this case.
The injunction states:
“We maintain that wolves should not have been stripped of federal protections so soon because they are not yet recovered in the Northern Rockies region and the state management plans currently in place are woefully inadequate, not based on current science, and do not ensure the long term survival of the Northern Rockies gray wolf.”
“Since delisting, a spate of wolf killings by a variety of methods—pursuing wolves long distances with snowmobiles, shooting wolves from the roadside, and lying in wait for wolves at state-run elk feedgrounds—demonstrates the need now, as much as ever, to protect wolves under the Endangered Species Act.”
In Native American teachings, the wolf represents the supreme guardian, the teachers, the wisdom keepers. They are loyal, family oriented, playful, loving, wise beings. They kill to survive and feed their children as other carnivores do. They don’t take more than they need and keep the sick, old and frail animals they prey on from suffering a long, strung out death of illness or starvation.
I hope you can take action and give some support – even just signing an online petition to help protect this amazing animal from cruel, senseless murder.
*Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, The Humane Society of the United States, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Western Watersheds Project, and Wildlands Project.
May 16 2008 12:10 pm | Mel and activism and animal rights and government and nature and news and pets and society and special events and spirituality
