Letter to Secretary Sally Jewell to Protest the Delisting of Wolves

To protest UFW's plan to delist all wolves, please print, sign your name and send this letter, or write your own. Thank you for all you do. 

Secretary Sally Jewell

Department of Interior

1849 C Street NW

Washington, DC 20240

CC: Dan Ashe, Director

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

1849 C Street NW

Washington, DC 20240

Dear Secretary Jewell,

The extirpation of wolves and large carnivores from large portions of the landscape is a global phenomenon with broad ecological consequences.  There is a growing body of scientific literature demonstrating that keystone predators play critical roles in maintaining a diversity of other wildlife species and as such the composition and function of ecosystems. Research in Yellowstone National Park, for example, found that reintroduction of wolves caused changes in elk numbers and behavior which then facilitated recovery of streamside vegetation, benefitting beavers, fish and songbirds. In this and other ways, wolves shape North American landscapes.

Since the fate of the Gray Wolf has been turned over to the states in the Pacific Northwest and the Northern Rockies, hunters and trappers have been driven by a ruthless zeal for a new game animal, and have been no less than brutally cruel. Wolves have been tortured in leg hold traps and strangled to death. Even dogs have been released to kill wolves caught in these traps. There are hunters’ reports of imparting “belly shots” so the wolves would suffer more in their final hours of life. There are hunters who brag about their “Shoot, Shovel and Shut-Up” poaching techniques for hiding many illegal kills. This is far from any concept of Wildlife Management. Since the states took over wolf management in the NW, virtually all of the collared wolves in Yellowstone have been killed. Many have been lured out of the sanctity of the park with recordings of pups in distress and the scent of bait, only to walk into a bone-crushing trap or find themselves in the cross hairs of a gun. These states have abused their stewardship of the Gray Wolf, evidenced every day in their photos and posts on public forums.

Little Red Riding Hood is fable, not fact. However, wolves, more than any other North American predator, have been the subjects of extreme prejudice and persecution, which mandates even more protection for them from the federal government, not a complete abdication of the successful Endangered Species Act by the president of the United States and his federal agencies.

The Gray Wolf has barely begun to recover or is absent from significant portions of its former range where substantial suitable habitat remains. The Fish and Wildlife Service’s draft rule fails to consider science identifying extensive suitable habitat in the Pacific Northwest, California, the southern Rocky Mountains and the Northeast. It also fails to consider the importance of these areas to the long-term survival and recovery of wolves, or the importance of wolves to the ecosystems of these regions.

Given the importance of wolves and the fact that they have only just begun to recover in some regions and not at all in others, I strongly urge you to reconsider the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposal to remove protections across most of the United States.

Sincerely,