Wolf Matters has been busy this past week doing presentations at the University of Calgary as well as having a presence at the University of Calgary and SAIT gathering petition signatures and educating the public about the issues facing wolves in Alberta! Thank you to Kirsten Rose for being the driving force behind these events!!

A big thank you goes out to LUSH Cosmetics in Dadeland Mall, Florida!!
Thanks to our partnership with LUSH, they have chosen Wolf Matters to be one of a few selected charities to be featured North America wide! This is our first out of country (and out of province) LUSH photo of Wolf Matters being promoted outside of Alberta! We are thrilled!!

Hopefully, many people from around North America will see what wolves in Alberta are up against and how we want to help them!! Global support is much appreciated!! Thank you LUSH!

A huge thank you to our Wolf Matters volunteers who took time out of their schedule to set up a table at the University of Calgary today to gather petition signatures, provide information about WM and the issues, and answer questions from the public! Thank you ladies so much! Every signature helps!

We have received so many photos from LUSH stores around Alberta promoting the Wolf Matters petition campaign for the month of January. We are always so grateful for this partnership and thought we would share some of these amazing photos!

One of our WM board members was lucky enough to talk to a reporter about the issues facing Alberta wolves and subsequently, there was a small article released in Metro News. It is important to also write the media with your concerns as it is a good medium to get the issues and cause known and it keeps people aware of the issues. The article is as follows:

Group campaigns for changes to Alberta wolf policy

By: Brodie Thomas Metro, Published on Thu Jan 14 2016
The image of the big bad wolf is nothing more than a fairy tale according to a group of concerned citizens who are trying to change government policy on wolves.

Tamara Barnes, the organizer behind wolfmatters.org, said she and other volunteers believe the province’s attempt to manage wolf populations is too heavy-handed, and say it’s time to update the provincial management plan on the animals.

“There’s no word of conservation in (the management plan) at all. Our aim is to get that changed as well as get a few things banned,” said Barnes.

She said members of the group include former government employees and biologists that specialize in wolves.

Her group wants to see the use of strychnine to cull wolves outlawed.

In the case of the Little Smoky caribou herd, Barnes believes wolves are being used as a scapegoat to account for population declines in the herd when logging and oil industry operations are to blame.

Matt Besko, head of wildlife management policy for Alberta Environment and Parks, said industrial changes to the landscape do make it easier for wolves to hunt caribou, such as the Little Smoky herd.

He said there are long term plans to better manage industrial footprints on the landscapes, but in the short term he said action needs to be taken against predators or we will risk losing the caribou altogether.

Besko said wolf populations are healthy and they know this, in part, because they’re expanding their territory.



To see the actual article, click HERE

One of our great wolf advocates has recently written up a law article regarding a very important decision in the United States from their Federal Court. It involves USDA Wildlife Services which is a notorious federal agency that is the hired hand for the ranchers to kill all predators on US public land.

The decision would have important implications for Canada if we had any legislation closely resembling NEPA which we do not have. It shows how the legal system can bring rogue operators like Wildlife Services into compliance with the law.

A big thank you to LUSH Chinook Centre for sharing their Wolf Matters petition display! If you haven't signed our legal paper petition yet, please go to any LUSH store this January and sign the petition. Thank you!

We are very upset by this announcement on the Alberta Trapping Regulations website.

We thought the GoA would make decisions based on science and that the countless documents that we have sent in regarding trapping and snares would be read - clearly Minister Phillips has not read them, or perhaps she does not care - but we do. We have written to her office about this announcement and encourage you do to do the same.

Please write her a polite yet direct letter expressing your thoughts here:

[email protected]

And write to Premier Notley here:

[email protected] & [email protected]







If the NDP cannot govern based upon science and modern-day human regard for the protection of our wildlife, then they haven't learned any lessons from the last Federal election.Trapping is a tradition that's no longer relevant in today's world of population density & habitat loss.

We have created a new t-shirt design in hopes of raising a few more funds for upcoming projects in the new year!

Please consider buying a shirt to help us out AND to spread the message and cause! Thanks! Buy one HERE!

~ WM team