A wolf in Yellowstone National Park shaking off some excess water after crossing one of the many rivers, creeks or waterways in the park. Wolves can swim distances of up to 8 miles aided by small webs between their toes - if the need arises.
Photo: John McFaul

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/15702015-us-wolves-deliberately-being-driven-to-extinction-comment-now-to-save-them-photos/blogs
As the US holds its breath during the budget showdown, another tragedy is taking place: A barely-recovering endangered species being deliberately driven back towards extinction, all for political gain.
Is that the legacy we want to leave as Americans?
It's obvious the intent now is to exterminate wolves across the United States, all to appease greedy special interests, welfare ranchers and so-called 'sportsmen' - although no true, ethical hunter I know endorses any of the highly questionable, morally reprehensible methods being used now, including poison, traps, snares, baiting (sometimes with the corpses of beloved pups or family members), hounding and the gassing or crushing of PUPPIES in their dens.
In a short time, this important top-tier carnivore, one who shapes and invigorates the ecosystems in which he reigns, has gone from iconic, beloved, Federally protected species, (although still struggling to recover from human attempts to eradicate him from the face of the Earth), to being treated like vermin.
Unlike vermin, however, wolves reproduce neither as quickly nor as effectively as, say, rats, nor have they been able to withstand our zeal to eradicate them. Hence, unlike rats, American wolves were on the verge of extinction then, virtually extirpated from the continental US, and even now, after decades of effort to restore them, have barely regained even a fraction of their former range.
Also, unlike 'vermin', they are crucial and beneficial top-down modelers of the wilderness systems they inhabit; Systems which not only co-evolved WITH and DUE TO wolves as a primary driving agent, but only thrive in full vigor and diversity when wolves remain in place to fulfill their age-old role as nature's original, supreme game managers.
Genetic viability of wolves was already being questioned before the unbridled killing resumed two years ago.
Now, we have placed the future of wolves even more gravely at risk. This time, it will be worse for them because wolves are losing what little genetic diversity they had. This time we are unraveling decades of restoration work and investment.
Please don't send America back to the dark, ignorant and brutal era of assuming it is our place to dominate and control every facet of Nature. Science, religion and fundamental philosophy have learned too much to justify such an anthropocentric and foolishly self-defeating mistake.
Wolves, along with elephants, apes, cetaceans (whale and dolphins), many birds such as parrots and ravens, as well as (perhaps surprising) animals such as prairie dogs, with their complex social systems and communication (language) have been proven to think, feel and bond with friends and family, just like humans do.
They have all been been proven to be inextricably bound with, and influential on, the places they live, effecting not just other animals, but plant communities, watersheds, soil structure and more.
In other words, everything was working beautifully and correctly long before humans entered the scene, and humans risk catastrophe when we dare to meddle with systems complex beyond our comprehension.
We think it's OK, our prerogative, even our responsibility, to 'tame' and 'manage' the grand Creation.
Yet - Again and again, it backfires on us.
More, there are the ethical considerations. Like with all those 'pesky' or inconvenient species that humans loves to hate.
Slaughtering them, any of them, is crass, but especially, in this case, when we go out of our way to find truly innocent wolves (minding their own business out in the wilderness where they evolved and where they belong), with the intent of massacring entire packs (in reality, close-knit families) for 'sport', it becomes increasingly unconscionable.
It makes the way Americans treat wildlife no better than the way dolphins and whales are currently slaughtered in other countries.
Do we want to be like that?
Some (erroneously) claim wolves interfere with their livelihood. Well, some people have always had to find someone or something else to blame for their bad fortunes. If not wolves, it's the weather. If not weather, the government. If not government - Well, you get the idea.
That's the crux of this entire issue. Slaughtering every creature on Earth that someone can (mistakenly, fearfully,angrily, wrongly) scapegoat, every perceived and paranoid phobia that something 'out there' is going to make life hard for us, personally and as a society, will leave us with an empty, lonely and ultimately dead planet.
And, I dare say, a lonely and empty people.
And, it won't solve our underlying problems.
Killing wolves will not make the government stop repressing you or make your income go up or save your marriage.
Killing all the wolves, all the coyotes, all the whales, all the otters, all the prairie dogs, all the badgers and eagles and snakes and sharks and foxes and bobcats and mountain lions and African lions and elephants - You get the idea - Killing all those and more will not make human life more prosperous, more meaningful, easy or safe.
It will make life on Earth emptier, more difficult, pervasively dull, shallow, and precarious.
Instead, Nature, humans and the planet will ultimately thrive well into the future, complete with Her full compliment of species, if we learn to respect, appreciate and cooperate with the great, intricately interconnected and glorious tapestry of life we were GRACED with. And our salvation, both personally and as a civilization, will be realized if and when we can learn to live in true harmony, with tolerance, appreciation and respect for all our fellow life forms.
Especially our intrinsic, emotionally igniting, dynamically wild and awe-inspiring wolves.
Imagine that: The Earth, complete and vibrant, teeming with wonder and life, with wild, free-roaming wolves expertly fulfilling their historic, custodial roles of caretakers of our precious countryside.
Comment period for an expanded and deadlier wolf season is ending soon. Here are some talking points:
Strongly OPPOSE removing further protections from Gray Wolves in the US, SUPPORT maintaining and increasing protections for Mexican Wolves as well as reinstating further protections for all wolves in the US.
Not only are wolves far from fully recovered, with large portions of appropriate habitat still unoccupied, but the current, bloodthirsty and unethical killing spree is just the tip of the iceberg of what wolves would face if remaining protections are removed. The political climate of this country is not conducive to protecting wolves or many other integral and irreplaceable species, even though science and reason indicate that the world needs robust biological diversity, top-tier predators and large areas of unabashed, unexploited and uncompromised wilderness and open spaces. The vast majority of voters support continuing wolf recovery and wish to see thriving populations of free-roaming wolves exist in available wolf habitat.
Let the US lead the way of enlightened and far-seeing thinking when it comes to stewardship of our precious, living Earth, rather than catering to small-minded and unsustainable planet-sabotaging actions with long term (or forever) consequences.
We are not equipped to see all the ramifications of our actions, especially when it comes to removing any of the complex, interwoven, interconnected and interdependent threads of the tapestry of life.
USFWS press release on extended comment period and hearings here
Leave your comment against removing further protections from wolves, here:http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=FWS-HQ-ES-2013-0073
Another place to leave your input. Sign this letter (just one of many ways to speak out for wolves): http://www.howlingforwolves.org/letter
Additional links to follow to leave your comments against the further de-listing of wolves:
Make official comment against wolf delisting here.
Have a flair for art? Join the Street-Art for Wolves protest against the US wolf hunts and help stop the genocide of this iconic apex species.

Cathy Taibbi is based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America, and is an Anchor for Allvoices.

You can tell wolves are friendly ,when they roll over and show their bellies. When they want to play, they put their paws down and wag their tail. When they want to fight, they show their fangs and start growling. When they want to stop they put their ears back and lay down. They can really be quite goofy at times!
Photo: Monty Sloan

Wolves actually have a low hunting success rate. To catch enough food, wolves must hunt often and test many animals before finding one that they can actually catch and kill. They are highly vulnerable to skull injury, even death, from kicking prey.

Rarely do two wolves pass each other without playfully rubbing shoulders together or exchanging a brief lick. So often you will see two wolves relaxing together, curled up beside each other, the head of one draped over the neck of the other in a gesture that is both assertive and affectionate. Wolves have incredibly strong family bonds. We could learn a lot from wolves ...

The social hierarchy of a pack is what maintains order, dictating who makes decisions, who mates with whom, who eats first, and who eats last. This order is constantly reinforced by displays of dominance and submission. It looks as though a bit of that play of dominance and submissiveness is taking place right here ...

This is one of my favorite songs about wolves. From my wonderful friend and sister-in-spirit,

http://vimeo.com/72885567 Louise du Toit! It is called " Howl Across America"

Speech by Oliver Starr at The National Wolf Rally in Washington 2013

 As the oldest grandson of a well known Colorado cattle man, people often ask me how I came to love wolves. I blame it on my mother. When I was about f...our years old she read the following words to me: "my birthday, my birthday, my birthday!! a striped box with holes! I hope it's a wolf! And within the pages of Jan Wahl's amazing children's book called "A Wolf of My Own", wolves took ahold of my soul and in the 41 Years since I heard those words I have not been able to shake their grip. My mom should have known better than to read me a story where a kid got a wolf. Unlike the child in the book that actually got a puppy and only dreamed it was a wolf, I became obsessed with having a wolf of my own and then as i grew up, with seeing wolves restored to the wild landscape that has been theirs since long before man ever set foot upon this continent. It hasn't been an easy journey. Many of you have probably been called a "wolf lover" and it's likely that the person referring to you this way meant it as an insult. Today I'm proud to call myself a wolf lover, but to a cattleman, having a grandson that loved wolves was nearly as bad as having a grandson that was a vegetarian! When I was still a child, I'm sure my grandfather wondered what was wrong with me. How could a member of his family have a soft spot for something so awful. Today I wonder how anyone with a soul could knowingly and needlessly destroy something so beautiful, so essential and so rare as a wolf. I wonder how they could fail to see what I do; one of nature's greatest masterpieces, sculpted by sun and sky and rain and cold and by the animals with which they dance in a duet of life and death. I don't blame my grand-dad for his feelings towards wolves. The prevailing sentiment during his lifetime was that wolves were no good. They killed cattle, they killed sheep, they cost us money! By the time my grandfather was in the cattle business, people in this country had been waging war against the wolf for hundreds of years and for hundreds of years before that on the continent we came from. It was simply a way of life, part of our culture. When our forefathers arrived on these shores they brought with them their fear, hatred and misunderstanding of wolves, and so it was that we killed them and killed them and killed them, until there were virtually none left to kill. But since those days we've learned a great deal about nature and the interconnectedness of all living things. Thanks to visionaries like Aldo Leopold, we've learned that a world without wolves is not a deer-hunter's paradise, but a disaster for the hunter and the deer. We've learned that the indiscriminate killing of wolves and their close relatives, coyotes, doesn't improve nature but impoverishes it. We've found new ways to prevent predators from killing livestock and we've been able to prove that coexistence is not only possible, but profitable. It costs less to protect livestock from wolves then it does to keep killing them year after year. Sadly, we've been a lot less successful at changing the old ways of thinking, especially among ranchers and hunters. Ranchers still insist that wolves are a huge threat to their livelihoods while hunters claim that wolves are killing all the game -- two myths that refuse to die in spite of massive evidence that disproves them. While it is true that wolves sometimes kill livestock, ranchers grossly overestimate their impact. In fact wolves are near the bottom of the list when it comes to causes of mortality in sheep and cattle. Injury, disease, exposure and death during birthing all kill many times more livestock than wolves do. Even though much of these losses are preventable, they are considered acceptable, while any loss attributed to a wolf or coyote is grounds for a call to federal wildlife killers that come in and wipe out whatever predators happen to be in the area, whether or not they were actually responsible for the kill. It's also true that wolves kill elk, deer, moose, rabbit, musk oxen, mice, beaver and many other species. Of course they do! That's their role in nature. However the claims of certain wolf-hating hunters that wolves are killing all the game is so ridiculous it's laughable. The very existence of the wolf is predicated upon the fact that they exist in a dynamic balance with the animals they consume. If wolves were to wipe out the species they need to survive, what do these hunters think would happen to the wolf? In some states the anti-wolf rhetoric has gone to even greater extremes, with people saying they fear for their lives and for the safety of their children as they walk to school. And while it is true that on incredibly rare occasions a wolf may have hurt a human, the truth is that when wolves and humans collide wolves always lose. We've killed them by the hundreds of thousands. In fact little red riding hood has a lot more to fear from a hunter than a wolf! Over the years I've talked to many people about wolves and the one thing nearly every wolf hater has in common is that they've never actually met a wolf or taken the time to get to know them as anything other than something to kill. I've spent thousands of hours with wolves and high content wolfdogs and I think it's fair to say I do know them. They're not the monsters of my grandfather's fears, nor are they the cute and fuzzy stuffed animals I had as a child. They are, as former government wolf killer now turned wolf advocate Carter Niemeyer says, "neither as good as we hoped nor as bad as we feared. They're just wolves." In the more than four decades since that fateful day when my mom read me a very wolfy bedtime story, I've been lucky to actually share my life and sometimes even my bed with wolves. But also, and much more importantly, to have seen the incredible success story of our Endangered Species Act and its required and equally successful effort to let the howl of the wolf -- the true wild icon of our country -- echo across the mountains of the Northern Rockies, the peaks of New Mexico and Arizona and throughout the Great Lakes region. With the return of wolf to Yellowstone we have watched in wonder as an incomplete and damaged ecosystem has become healthier, more resilient and more wild. Where a complete suite of the animals that evolved there are once again interacting and shaping each other as evolution intended. It is proof in living form that our wild places need wolves as badly as wolves need a place in the wild. But amidst this triumph that is both uniquely American and a shining example of how evils caused by human hands can also be undone by them, we're about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Wolves are not a recovered species in any sense of the word. Today they occupy less than 5% of their prior range and at only a fraction of their former numbers. The very idea that wolves have recovered sufficiently to have their Endangered Species Act protections removed should make every one of us cringe. How can you say a species is recovered when so much of its former habitat is still missing the breathtaking and mournful howl of its undisputed apex predator? And why should politics take precedence over science in determining the fate of such an important part of the natural world? Over the past few months, many of us have watched in dismay and then horror as the Federal Government has moved forward with it's plan to strip all but the Mexican Gray Wolf of it's endangered species status. We've held our collective breath hoping a new Secretary of the Interior, a purported conservationist and a non-rancher, would reverse this disastrous course and allow the wolf to continue its path to long term survival. Instead we've been deeply disappointed to learn that at every turn politics has subverted science and even the great work of some of this country's foremost wolf researchers has been turned against the wolf even as the scientists themselves have taken a stand against the delisting. And it is for this reason that I've left my pack in the redwoods and traveled across our vast country to speak to you and to demand that wolves be restored to full federal protection and allowed to recolonize their former range. I demand it on behalf of the rivers and the streams, on behalf of the deer, the elk, the beaver and the bison. I demand it on behalf of the forests and the plains, I demand it on behalf of our children and our children's children. We all have a stake in this decision and we all have a right to be heard. And so too do the wolves that can't speak for themselves, but have every right to their own corner of this planet that none of us own but all of us share. In closing I'll let you hear what all of us should have the chance to hear at least once in the wild in our lifetime - the howl of the wolf.

[I had to post this - because I believe it is a speech that everyone that is in animal advocacy of any kind, should hear. Honest words from the son of a cattle rancher.  People can change.]
--Susan Williams PWNW

I am Wolf

I am Wolf! I am beautiful, social, hierarchal and carnivorous. I can love, parent, nurture, play, fight, hunt, track, defend and retreat. I am muscular, dominant, graceful, coordinated and noble. You can hear me howl, growl, whimper and... bark. I am lupine, canine, digitigrade and animal. I am loved, respected, mythologized, maligned, hunted, threatened and endangered.
I have lived on this earth for thousands of years. Now there are those who do not understand me and would like to see me and my kind exterminated - like vermin, they say. This will not happen - this cannot happen.
-Susan Williams PWNW

This Blog from Pro-Wolf North West will be more of a compilation of information that has been garnered from the PWNW Facebook page.  There are so many important articles pertaining to wolves, the environment, the Endangered Species List and other important facets of the always changing wolf and wildlife world - that I thought it would be good to put them all in one place, rather than have to run down the months and years of postings from the page.  It will take some time, as I will be doing this in my spare time.  Pro-Wolf on Facebook is my #1 concern.  I will also explain a bit on how and why Pro-Wolf and Good Wolf are so very close.  I hope that you will check this blog, from time-to-time.  We have come so far together, and have learned so much.  I couldn't have done it with just my knowledge of wolves alone - I needed the support and the knowledge of all of you, my wonderful supporters of PWNW!  You have taught me so much!  I have tried to keep the page educational, inspirational, beautiful and thoughtful.  I have tried not to prey on peoples emotions by posting too many blood-filled images.  We can find those everywhere.  Instead, I have taken your wise words and suggestions and focused on the things that inspire us into action the most - The Wolf!  Need we desire anything more?  Simply stated - no.
So, thank you for taking yet another journey with me.  I am new to this, too.  So it will take some time and many mistakes.  I look forward to your input!  Onward and forward - for the wolve