Our Letter to Obama to Save the Wolves

Dear Friends,

We are outraged and also deeply saddened that the recently passed budget bill included the rider taking Northern Rocky gray wolves off of the Endangered Species Act, leaving their survival up to those very states that want to see them eradicated.

Please see our letter to President Obama below. If you so choose, please print it out, sign it and fax or mail it to the White House. Even better, please write a letter in your own words.

Thank you, and please continue to support Shadowland Foundation and help us protect those magnificent and loving beings, the wolves.

Gratefully yours,
The Shadowland Pack



President Barack Obama

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Phone: (202) 456-1111
Fax: (202) 456-2461

Dear President Obama,

The rider attached to the newly signed budget bill that takes Northern Rocky gray wolves off of the Endangered Species List is an outrageous travesty. There is no practical or sane reason that anything about wolves, or any other species, should have been included in a bill dealing with the budget. Especially a provision that completely jeopardizes the general welfare and survival of a fellow species, and one that as a keystone species is integral to the overall health of its environment.

When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, from near extinction in the 1990s, trees, songbirds and beavers have also flourished. Turning back the clock on this magnificent and grossly misunderstood animal, in favor of already heavily subsidized ranchers, hunters and developers was immoral and unethical. What does it say to our children and yours that we sacrificed the wolves to a lobbyist and industry agenda? What does it say that we allowed them to be exterminated just when they were beginning to recover? As of now, the Northern Rocky gray wolf population is only 10% of what it once was worldwide. It is only because of recent and intense recovery efforts that the population is sustainable at all. Allowing these states to manage the populations is to give them a death sentence; not in my opinion, they have said this is what they intend. They will be hunted and slaughtered for sport.

Any arguments that wolves are a threat, and have a negative impact upon livestock, elk and business are completely false; perpetrated by those who have had decades of relatively free range to prosper on public land without having to take any responsibility to protect their own property or replenish the land they desecrate. The facts are that wolves, as a natural predator, keep elk, deer and caribou populations in check, preventing them from overgrazing the land. Livestock are much more likely to be killed by coyotes, feral dogs and disease than by any wolf. When livestock are killed by wolves, ranchers are reimbursed with money that is supposed to go towards preventative measures to keep livestock safe from wolves in the first place.

Millions of tax dollars were invested reintroducing the wolves to the Yellowstone National Park. Not only was it a success for the failing ecology, it more than paid off in the millions brought to the region by ecotourism. The economy of the states also flourished and will continue to do so by the addition of wolves to the region. Wolves actually stimulated the economy in those states without any political or partisan stimulus package. According to recent polls, 87% of the public strongly agrees that the gray wolf is a vital and part of America’s wilderness and natural heritage. Who speaks for these citizens who have benefited from the wolves’ presence, certainly not the elected representatives who attached this rider, nor anyone else who voted for it?

Despite your promises to return science to the heart of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), it is under your watch that for the first time ever, Congress has voted to remove endangered status for a species by sneaking it into this budget bill. This was blatantly a back door manipulation and abuse of our legislative process by these devious politicians. Now that it is done, what now? We desperately need some kind of protection in place to keep wildlife safe from special interests before they need the ESA just to survive mankind.

I implore you to do all in your power to ensure the safety of the Northern Rocky gray wolf, and to maintain federal protections for the Great Lakes gray wolf as well as all other endangered species. Reject lobbyists and extremist measures that place profit before preservation and protection, and politics before science on all matters of our natural world. Kindness, Conservation and Stewardship are American Values. Let’s keep it that way.

Sincerely Yours,

Paul, Colette, Gwenn, Shadow, Alaska, Takoda, Keme, Kachina, Cochise, Chenoa, Ogin and Tehya

New Budget Resolution Allows for Western Wolves to be Slaughtered

We may have a government that’s still open, we may have a budget of sorts, but will we have wolves? For, their fate and their ensured survival under the Endangered Species Act, was one of the fatalities of Friday night’s budget “compromise” - included within the Continuing Budget Resolution, was the provision to strip federal protections for wolves in the Northern Rockies, reinstating a 2009 rules that was based on bad science and was declared unlawful by a federal district court.

This marks the first time ever in the history of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that Congress has removed protections for one specific species. In doing so, this provision not only endangers wolves, who are already endangered, but threatens all species protected under the ESA. And once again, a decision that should be based on good, sound science has been decided by politicians and their corporate friends who will profit from the state’s wolf management system’s i.e. killing sprees. Who will be the next?


Mother Nature should ‘manage’ the populations as she has done for millennia, not the hunters and ranchers and realtors, and those who are just misguidedly frightened of the “big bad wolf.”

Our fight for wolves and for our environment continues. Please send a message to Western governors to protect wolves, and please continue to support Shadowland Foundation and other organizations that safeguard our wild and natural world.