Please contact us if you'd like us to speak at your school or office, or group!! We love teaching about wolves!
We are incredibly proud of a group of school kids who have set up an educational display and project about wolves at the Mayor's Expo! Wolf Matters representative Teena recently presented to this group of kids at their schools and that inspired them to take on a project about wolves and show it off at the Mayor's Expo in Calgary on June 8th, 2016! We are very proud!! And a big thank you to Teena for all her hard work in helping these wonderful children with their display about Alberta wolves!!
Please contact us if you'd like us to speak at your school or office, or group!! We love teaching about wolves!
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"Dave Kay, commercial wildlife and priority species specialist with Alberta Parks and Environment, said the province is looking at ways to regulate against the use of wolf bounties by municipalities and hunting and trapping groups.
“It might be legal, but socially it’s really not that acceptable and we certainly don’t promote them,” said Kay. “We’ve had some discussions internally about how we can regulate against the use of bounties on wolves.” Trappers and hunters must have a valid Alberta licence, but there is no quota for wolves, so they can kill as many as they wish. There are regulations on hunting and trapping seasons and wolf kills must be registered in many areas, though not all. Under existing provincial regulations, any landowner can shoot a wolf on or within eight kilometres of their land, and any Albertan, without a licence, can shoot a wolf for about nine months of the year on land to which they have right of access. In addition, any person or organization can, for any reason, offer a bounty on any species that can legally be killed in Alberta, which means wolves, cougars and coyotes and a host of other wildlife" A new article has been published about the Bow Valley Wolf Pack becoming conditioned to humans and food/trash left behind. Read the article here: Things are looking bleak for the Bow Valley Wolf Pack in Banff National Park Here are some tips about safely (for them and for us) coexisting with our wildlife (Please share!):
At Your Home:
While Camping, Hiking, Outdoors:
In Your Community:
After waiting a few long months, our Wolf Matters PSA has been finished! Please share far and wide! We hope this PSA reaches more people and moves people enough to want to help the wolf!! Thank you to LUSH Cosmetics and their Charity Pot Program (of which Wolf Matters is a part of), Eva Works Productions (who designed the animation) and to our Wolf Supporters for making this mini movie possible!! Please share! We are incredibly proud of our presenter Teena. As a result of this presentation, these amazing children have grown to know, understand, respect and love the wolf. So much so that they have created a spectacular presentation of their own to be unveiled at the Mayor's Expo 2016 in Calgary. This is what Teena had to say about this incredible project "Essentially they took my presentation of how the wolf effects our ecosystem and the battles they have with humans and they have made a "Tour" through the various parts of the ecosystem and other animals and how it would be all effected if we didn't have the wolf - done through the eyes of the wolf. There are 3 girls whom are the wolves doing the tour and the rest of the kids will be the interactive part of the tour points / stops. They have made themselves wolf paper mache hats, ponds, trees, etc.....it is so awesome. "
If you would like to have a Wolf Matters presentation in your school or community please let us know. These amazing little people will eventually grow up to be adults who respect and love this wonderful planet and the sentient non human animals who share it with us. As many of you may recall, recently one of our contacts sent out an email containing disturbing photos of a wolf with an embedded snare around it's neck - in Alberta near Rocky Mountain House. It was from one of his trail cameras. In response and outrage, many of you asked why the wolf could not be rescued, treated and released again. WM decided to reach out to one of the wildlife rehabilitation centres operating in Alberta and ask. According to our source, wolves cannot be rescued nor are they the only species who are prohibited from rescue, rehabilitation and release in Alberta. Big horn sheep, mountain goats, wolves, coyote, black bears, grizzly bears, and cougars also are banned from rescue rehabilitation and release in Alberta. Our source further states:
Even though the Alberta Wildlife Act and Regulation issues permits authorizing Wildlife rescue rehabilitation and release and does not ban any indigenous wildlife species from rescue rehabilitation and release, the Alberta Environment and Parks, AEP, policy division has decided to ban certain species, like wolves, from rescue. (Travis Ripley Executive Director and Matt Basco Director of Wildlife) No government agency can manage unknown populations of flora and fauna, (there has been no centrally managed unified province wide wildlife surveys of indigenous flora or fauna since 1978) and the government ends up doing really absurd things as a result. One of the ridiculous things the Provincial government has done, since 2010, was to ban ALL wildlife rehabilitation centres from accepting bears, raccoons, skunks, cougar, mountain goat, bighorn sheep, elk, amphibian and bat species. The Province (on the public record) does not have any data to support their decision. The Province (in law) does not have the Mandate to rescue, rehabilitate and release back into the wild orphaned or injured wildlife. No Government Mandate, means no earmarked government funding, which means no construction of facilities nor training for fish & wildlife officers to undertake wildlife rescue, rehabilitation & release. In Law (ALBERTA WILDLIFE ACT AND REGULATION) the only organizations allowed, under government issued Permit, to accept, rear and release indigenous orphaned or injured wild species ARE the 8 Wildlife rehabilitation centres of Alberta....and of them, at least 3, in alphabetical order ( Cochrane Ecological Institute, Medicine River Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, Wildlife rehabilitation society of Edmonton) have the facilities and expertise to look after most of these banned species. AER (when it was AESRD) is on the public record and in the Media, saying they had no record of human wildlife conflict occurrences resulting from wildlife rehabilitation &release. Nor any disease transference. In pretty well all the States in the USA, State authorities work with the wildlife rehabilitation centres to rescue ,rear and rehabilitate their indigenous wildlife, including the species on Alberta's list of banned species. Lacking the Mandate, facilities, funding and skills to rescue, rear & release indigenous wildlife species, the default actions of AEP and F&W is ban rescue of certain species and then the solution they have are to kill them. They kill wolf cubs, injured wolves, coyote cubs, coyotes, bear cubs, bears, mountain goat kids, mountain goats, bighorn lambs, bighorn sheep, raccoons and raccoon kits, skunks, elk calves, cougar kittens, etc. This is wrong. According to the Policy branch (wildlife) of AEP..the government is in a process of consultation with stakeholders. Write and object to the banning of species from rescue rehabilitation & release! You can make a difference. Here is a link to the Alberta Wildlife Act, and Wildlife Regulation: http://www.qp.alberta.ca/documents/Regs/1997_143.pdf We are hearing from many people that Minister Phillips does not feel the need to respond to inquiries from the people who voted for her. It's time to get tough. We encourage you to write to her boss - Premier Rachel Notley and copy, not only Minister Phillips, but also reporters from various media outlets who have reported on bounties and snares in the past. We encourage specific questions to the Premier, as well as letting her know that you are writing to her, as Minister Phillips is not responding. Also ask the Premier when you can expect a reply or if you need to do a FOIP request. We will be posting information on how to do a FOIP request and below have the addresses of reporters who have reported on this topic in the past, as well as some questions that you can ask. We need to get tougher. If everyone who follows this page wrote to the Premier and having failed to get accurate timely responses prepared a FOIP request then we may start to see some action. In addition, keep in mind that Pyramid Productions has just won a high regarded award for their film Unnatural Enemies: The War on Wolves. This is the same award that was awarded to Blackfish and The Cove and we all know how much exposure those films received. The time is now. If you want to see change, then Liking and sharing is just not enough and the GoA seems to feel okay about ignoring Albertans, it is time to get tough and be heard. Do not be ignored.
Some questions to ask - 1) Given the current science on how incredibly cruel and dangerous snares are and the countless scientist who have weighed in on that subject, in addition to the fact that they are not species specific, why are they continuing to be allowed in Alberta? 2) Why are special interest groups allowed to continue with bounties which work to serve their own interests such as the Wyoming Sheep Foundation, allowed to continue? 3) Section 7 of the Wildlife Act of Alberta states that all live wildlife is vested in the Crown. This means they have legal responsibility to manage wildlife in Alberta. This authority comes from our constitution under the Constitution Act, 1982. Provinces have the authority to manage wildlife. In the bounty program in Alberta, this is not a provincial government program & the GoA has consistently stated it is not their program but the municipalities. The GoA has not given authority to the municipalities to conduct this program. It is a wildlife management program & according to constitutional authority, the GoA can not delegate that responsibility of managing wildlife through bounty programs to a lower level (municipalities). Why is it then that the municipalities have simply taken this authority & developed this program & the GoA has taken a blind eye approach to it? 4) Given this statement from 2013, why does the Alberta Government allow a bounty program? 5) What was the total cost of the aerial wolf culling program for the Province of Alberta in caribou habitat in 2015 - 2016? 6) How many wolves were shot and how many were actually killed? 7) Does the Alberta aerial kill program also incorporate the use of the Judas wolf whereby one wolf is collared in order to locate and destroy the entire pack? Feel free to copy anyone else you can think of who may be interested. MARK HUME GLOBE AND MAIL WALLACE SNOWDEN CBC NEWS wallace.snowden@cbc.ca DANIELLE NERMAN CBC NEWS eyeopener@cbc.ca danielle.nerman@cbc.ca DAMIEN WOOD CALGARY SUN - DWOOD@POSTMEDIA.COM BILL MAH EDMONTON JOURNAL - bmah@edmontonjournal.com ALBERTA SPCA - info@albertaspca.org Marcia Love Spruce Grove Examiner mlove@postmedia.com The Hon. Shannon Phillips is the Minister of Environment and Parks: AEP.Minister@gov.ab.ca The Right Hon. Rachel Notley, Alberta's Premier : Premier@gov.ab.ca and your MLA can be found here: https://www.assembly.ab.ca/lao/mla/mla_help.htm Wonderful news! Pyramid Productions documentary "Unnatural Enemies: The War on Wolves" has won a Genesis Award for Best International Television Documentary! Congratulations to Geordie and his team for this compelling documentary that tells the truth about Alberta's wolves - http://www.humanesociety.org/about/events/genesis_awards/2016-winners.html?credit=web_id116031035 One of our contacts sent out an email the other day containing some disturbing photos of a wolf with an embedded snare around it's neck - in Alberta near RMH. It's from one of his trail cameras. He further wrote: "One trapper this winter complained that he had 7 chew out and several others complained of losing 1-4."
Trappers (and the Alberta government) continuously tell us that snares are humane killing devices, causing a quick death with no suffering. Trappers will tell you that their snares never fail, yet we have seen their conversations and photos on the AB trapping forum that tell the exact opposite - chew outs, jelly heads, live wolves found in snares are common. Read more here: http://www.wolfmatters.org/snaring.html Most of the money trappers make in Alberta from snaring wolves is from bounties that are paid out by rural municipalities and some special interest hunting groups with little to no oversight from the provincial government. See more about bounties here: http://www.wolfmatters.org/bounties--killing-contests.html Please write/call those in power that can change things: The Hon. Shannon Phillips is the Minister of Environment and Parks and she has the authority to prohibit the use of snares in wolf trapping, an authority she has chosen to ignore. She can be reached at AEP.Minister@gov.ab.ca The Right Hon. Rachel Notley, Alberta's Premier, can be contacted at Premier@gov.ab.ca and your MLA can be found here: https://www.assembly.ab.ca/lao/mla/mla_help.htm For letter writing tips, please visit our page: http://www.wolfmatters.org/letter-writing--tips.html |
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