Fwd: [FoA] Protect Idaho's Wolves

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Please don’t buy potatoes

grown in Idaho until this state’s violence against wolves stops.

 

Contact: Gov.

Butch Otter or call Gov. Otter at 208-334-2100 to sound off.

 

 

Governor, respecting

wolves and hating them isn't the same.

 

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Gov. Otter prepares

to buy wolf tag and hunt this fall

August 20, 2009

 

The

Ohio Statesman.com

By Rocky Barker

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter endorsed the

220-wolf limit set by the Idaho

Fish and Game Commission and repeated his vow to go wolf hunting this

fall.

The commission set the number lower

than Idaho hunters and lawmakers

had been pushing for in a effort to avoid an injunction that would stop

the season by U.S. District Judge Donald

Molloy. Defenders of Wildlife said after the decision it would ask

Molloy to stop the hunt while he decides on the lawsuit it and other

groups have filed asking to put wolves in Idaho and Montana back on the

Endangered Species list. (cont.)

 

“I understand the commission’s conservative and

thoughtful action that they took because obviously we want to

demonstrate we can manage them,†Otter said. “We also want to find out

if we can manage them with our hunter community.â€

 

 

Otter made national news in January

of 2007 when he told a group of

Idaho hunters on the Capitol steps, “I’m prepared to bid for the first

ticket to shoot a wolf myself.†He said Wednesday in an interview he

planned to buy an $11.75 tag along with thousands of Idaho hunters.

Otter said he shares the concerns of

hunters that wolves are

reducing elk populations in the state but he urged them to hold their

anxieties in check.

“I believe that the fact we’re going

to have a hunting season is

important,†Otter said. “We’re going to be given a chance in this

hunting season to demonstrate that we can be responsible and the feds

are not going to have to come in and manage.â€

Otter urged wolf advocates to

remember how far the wolf population

has come and the promises they made to westerners when they pushing

reintroduction in the early 1990s. The original goal set in 1994 was 10

packs in each of three states or about 120 wolves.

“We exceeded their proposed numbers

and they were the ones that set

those numbers, we didn’t,†Otter said. “In fact our number in 94 was

zero.â€

Now wolves exceed 1,000 in Idaho

alone and they have migrated as far

away as Colorado as well as to all of the states surrounding Idaho.

Otter plans to hunt elk and deer in

the Lime Creek drainage near his

Pine cabin and around the Lemhi County hunting camp of his friend,

Department of Administration director, Mike Gwartney.

“They’ve spotted a lot of wolves so

I suspect that as we go headed

out for elk camp we’ll make sure that everyone that wants one has a

wolf tag,†Otter said.

Otter said for many hunters, wolves

will be respected as a trophy,

which is what the state designates them. That respect will grow over

time.

“I think everybody respects them,â€

Otter said. “You can still hate them and respect their cunning and

their place in nature.

“I’m not real fond of rattlesnakes

but I understand their place in the system.â€

For the full interview read

Thursday’s Idaho Statesman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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