Predator Defense

GENERAL SUPPORT AND PUBLIC EDUCATION - Ongoing collaboration, advocacy and outreach with the public, the media, elected officials, state and federal wildlife agency personnel, and environmental/conservation groups to end America's war on wildlife and promote science-based, common sense approaches for people and predators to co-exist. This work includes: Engaging, educating, and galvanizing the public to action on the issues via social media, email, and print communications. Collaborating with researchers, groups, governmental agencies, elected officials and others to improve our ability to reform policies and promote non-lethal predator control solutions. Collaborating with wildlife scientists to share results of their research to a broader audience. Working with journalists on in-depth articles and features. Working with people who have been injured or lost pets to traps and poisons used in wildlife "management." Fielding volumes of calls and emails requesting expertise on predator-related issues. Contributing to documentaries, educational programs, public meetings, and conferences.

PREDATOR PROTECTION - OVERVIEW: Continued to speak out against America's wrongful maligning, persecuting and killing of native predators. In March 2023 we took a stand against House GOP "extinction bills" to strip ESA protections for bears and wolves and preclude judiciary review. In August 2023 we joined with 35 groups formally petitioning the Dept. of the Interior to develop rules to withhold money from state agencies that fund the slaughter of endangered animals, which is especially urgent due to the extinction crisis. WILDLIFE SERVICES: Ongoing work to expose USDA Wildlife Services' barbaric wildlife-killing programs methods as counterproductive measures that ignore the best-available science and unnecessarily kill thousands of coyotes and other wild animals without examining implications and damage. Their program costs far exceed the financial losses of livestock interests and are cruel, nonselective and dangerous to the public and pets. We were featured in article in The Spokesman-Review, 'The hired gun of the livestock industry': Wildlife Services, a federal agency, kills more than 100,000 animals in Washington every year." Fielded calls about Wildlife Services from the media and public. BANNING WILDLIFE TRAPS & POISONS: We celebrated a historic victory in November 2023-the ban of M-44 "cyanide bombs" on the 245 million acres of public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This is a wonderful victory for people, pets and wildlife, who can now recreate on a tenth of America's land mass without risking poisoning or death from these indiscriminate and lethal sodium cyanide-ejecting devices. M-44s have been used by government agents for decades for predator control and have injured people and inhumanely killed thousands of animals each year, including wolves, other wildlife, and countless dogs. In the most famous incident, 14-year-old Canyon Mansfield of Pocatello, ID, was walking his dog on a hill behind his house in March 2017 and saw what he thought was a sprinkler head. When he touched it, he accidentally triggered an M-44 and soon watched his dog die an agonizing death in front of him. Canyon was poisoned and is believed to have only missed death due to wind direction. We've worked with victims like Canyon since 1990, pushing for every possible method to ban these devices. Our primary focus has been facilitating media coverage, urging public outcry, and spurring political action by working with key leaders behind the scenes. The culmination of this work in 2023 involved: (a) initiating and coauthoring an official Administrative Procedures Act (APA) petition to the Dept. of the Interior (DOI), signed by over 70 conservation groups, that urged DOI to ban M-44s on BLM lands; and (b) asking Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) to follow up on the 2022 letter former Rep. Peter DeFazio and 11 members of Congress sent to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, urging a ban on all public lands under DOI jurisdiction. We requested the latter action because we knew DOI had submitted unsolicited testimony for a 2022 Congressional hearing stating they were open to banning M-44s to prevent further tragedies, yet nothing happened. We believed they may just need more nudging from a Congressperson to take action, and that proved true. In November 2023, DOI banned M-44s on all BLM lands. Our work continues to ban these devices on all public lands-federal, state and local. To that end we continued to rally support for federal legislation called "Canyon's Law," which was introduced in both houses of Congress in June 2023. We served as subject matter experts for members of Congress and the media. We were also featured in major articles on M-44s in The Intercept, The Guardian and Associated Press. COYOTES: Published and promoted an updated scientific opinion letter (SOL) by preeminent wildlife ecologist, Dr. Robert Crabtree, on the counter-productive effect killing coyotes has on populations; it leads to hyper-compensation, wherein an increased number of females breed and produce pups. This is his third SOL for us in the last 25 years. Dr. Crabtree is considered one of the foremost experts on coyotes in the country and his letters have played a significant role in hundreds of hearings and testimonies to support the end of coyote-killing and the abolishment of Wildlife Services. In September 2023 we were thrilled to celebrate Oregon becoming ninth state to ban coyote/wildlife-killing contests. BEARS: We have long responded to wildlife calls from the public, primarily involving bears, cougars, coyotes and bobcats. For bear sightings, the questions often stem from bears coming up to bird feeders and garbage cans. Callers don't want to alert state officials, due to valid concerns of bears being killed, and we're able to allay their safety concerns and provide advice. We'll never know the number of bears saved but believe it to be significant.

WOLF PROTECTION - In 2023 we continued our campaign to galvanize public outrage and action to restore federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountain Region where the slaughter of wolves continues unabated, pushing the species to functional extinction. Joined groups announcing Notice of Intent (NOI) to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for their unlawful delay in producing the mandatory 12-month finding on ESA relisting petition and apparent refusal-in-progress to protect (relist) wolves. Continued working with a highly regarded documentary filmmaker on a film that could bring a tipping point of public outcry for wolf protection-similar to what happened with the award-winning films An Inconvenient Truth and Blackfish. The new film examines America's wild spaces through the portal of wolves. It addresses the underlying setup caused by a utilitarian culture of extraction, the travesty of public lands grazing, the unjust "management" of wildlife via slaughter, and the dire need for reform. We've been grateful to be able to deepen the filmmaker's understanding of the wolf issue-through countless phone conversations, via an on-camera interview, and by connecting them to top experts in the field. The film has the potential of reaching a huge audience.