Dear Reader,
This year the Canadian government promised a more humane hunt.
They said “Canada’s seal hunt is humane, sustainable and responsible.” They lied. Thanks to your support, IFAW Hunt Observers have been on the ground and in the air documenting the hunt since it opened on the 28th of March. Only days into the hunt they have captured on camera instances where animals were shot and clearly left to suffer on the ice…in one case for over a minute. They have witnessed live seals being hooked and dragged across the ice.
And in one of the more disturbing moments they watched as a sealer wrote an expletive on the ice while a recently clubbed seal behind him started to move…obviously still alive.
Is this the Canadian government’s idea of a more humane hunt? Observing and documenting the hunt is not easy work.
It means hours of anxiously scanning the gulf region looking for sealing boats – because the Department of Fisheries and Oceans won’t release specific coordinates of where hunting is taking place.
It means watching hours of tape to make sure we document every violation that we captured on film.
But without this footage the world would have no idea of the kind of cruelty really taking place.
Please join with us in expanding the global community of activists needed to end the slaughter.
Visit the seal blog today to read the latest diaries from IFAW monitors at the hunt.
See the latest footage from the scene of the hunt and listen to IFAW monitors describe in their own words the cruelty they are documenting first hand.
And if you can, please consider making a donation to help in the fight to end this cruel and senseless hunt.
Of every dollar spent around the world by IFAW during the past three years, more than 83 cents went directly to animal welfare programs and institutional costs.
Your gift enables IFAW to document the cruelty of the seal hunt, fight for more seal product bans in Europe, conduct vital research to help save seals and works to end the exploitation of animals around the world.
The Canadian government will continue in their attempt to justify the seal hunt – both in Canada and abroad.
But no matter how the truth is distorted, it cannot change the fact that the seal hunt is terribly cruel and unneccesary. Your support is today is more critical than ever.
Thank you for standing with IFAW and with the seals.
Sincerely, Fred O’Regan President and CEO
P.S. Go to www.stopthesealhunt.org today for the latest news from the ice and to take action for the seals.
Hoppy: The Story of Wolf 253
Wolf 253 was one of the first casualties as the federal government stripped Endangered Species protections for gray wolves in the northern Rockies. But this particular wolf was unique.
He was known by the nicknames of "Limpy" or "Hoppy," depending on who you talk to; the name comes from an old injury that left him crippled for life. His official designation was Wolf 253, part of the wolf population brought back from the verge of extinction in the Northern Rockies, and one of 1,500 gray wolves that lost federal protections in March when the federal government "delisted" wolves from the Endangered Species Act.
And on March 28, he was shot dead.
Hoppy wasn’t just any old wolf. His distinctive gait, walking on three legs, made him one of the more easily recognized wolves in Yellowstone. Among his pack, too, he was unique: he was taller than Wolf 21, his father and the alpha male of the Druid pack that roamed the open fields in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley.
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| Wolf 253 (also known as "Hoppy" or "Limpy") one of 1,500 gray wolves that lost federal protections in March when the federal government "delisted" wolves from the Endangered Species Act |
| Photo courtesy Steve Justad |
Wolf-watchers in the northern Rockies say Hoppy grew up charging after elk at the same speed as the rest of his pack, despite the injury that hobbled him as a pup. He played an important role in the Druid pack, tending to pups and defending the pack’s main den from bears.
As a young male, Hoppy left the safety and security of the Druid pack and struck out on his own. He trotted south out of Yellowstone Park, and traveled across southern Wyoming until he crossed the Utah border. A trapper chasing coyotes in the mountains 20 miles from Salt Lake City caught Hoppy in one of his traps. It was November, 2002, and the first confirmed wolf sighting in Utah in 70 years.
Once, hundreds of thousands of wolves roamed the great expanse of the northern Rockies. Decimated by decades of unregulated slaughter and persecution, gray wolves were pushed to the brink of extinction. In 1973, gray wolves became one of the first animals to appear on the Endangered Species list. With the help of legal protections afforded by the Endangered Species Act, wolves in the northern Rockies had begun making a comeback when Hoppy arrived.
The wolf trapper called the US Fish and Wildlife, who sent a man down from Wyoming to fetch Hoppy. The injured wolf was loaded in the back of a truck and driven to the far northern stretches of Grand Teton National Park, where he was released back into the wild two days later.
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| On a journey to the west end of the Lamar Valley, Hoppy found a coyote to chase at sunset. And despite his crippled leg, Hoppy could run very, very well. |
| Photo courtesy Steve Justad |
"He was a hell of a wolf," recalls one veteran wolf-watcher. "After he was released with a hurt foot from the coyote trap, he crossed the territories of probably four hostile wolf packs in order to rejoin his old pack in Yellowstone Park."
No one witnessed Hoppy’s reunion with the Druid pack; it happened under cover of darkness. But the next morning, when one avid wolf-watcher and local photographer spotted Hoppy back with his former pack, he was stunned.
"He was in bad shape," recalled the photographer. "Must’ve been down to two and a half legs."
Survival is a strong instinct, and so is the natural inclination of wolves to live in close-knit families and packs. Hoppy was welcomed back to the Druid pack, and resumed the life he’d known years before.
Eventually, Hoppy left the safety of Yellowstone and headed south again. He spent a year near an elk refuge near Jackson, then moved on toward Pinedale, feeding on elk, an occasional deer, and probably a smattering of jackrabbits and mice.
Hoppy must have known that elk could be found around man-made feeding grounds, where elk are concentrated and disease is easily transmitted. Hoppy was one of many wolves who preyed on elk grazing the land, helping keep the populations in check and thinning the herds of the sick and weak.
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| Wolf 253 (right, with his injured rear leg) joins two Druid Pack members during mating season in the northern Rockies |
| Photo courtesy Steve Justad |
Hoppy had, however, crossed into Sublette County, where local grocery stores sell bumper stickers that read "Wolves — Government-sponsored terrorists!" Some ranchers and farmers don’t hold much love for wolves, which they see only as predators… despite the fact that many animals are, by their very nature, predators. It’s a brutal fact of nature. It’s how they survive.
In the end, Hoppy’s venture outside the safety of Yellowstone Park’s official boundaries proved fatal. After eight years spent traveling over thousands of miles, he was shot — along with another male and a female wolf — near the elk feeding ground a few miles outside Daniel, Wyoming on March 28. He became one of the first casualties in a resurrected war against wolves that began the day the federal government stripped Endangered Species protections from gray wolves across the northern Rockies.
Hoppy’s death was reported to the state, as required under new Wyoming wolf rules, and word of his killing quickly spread across the Internet. The Salt Lake City Tribune picked up the story, and talked with several people who were fans of the old wolf with the bum leg.
"He died for nothing," lamented Salt Lake City resident Marlene Foard. "If there was a reason to kill him, I could live with that. But there wasn’t."
Another reader wrote in an e-mail, "I think they have no idea what they have done by killing this particular wolf."
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| Despite their legendary prowess as predators, sometimes wolves just wanna have fun! And yet, sadly, our laws were inadequate to protect these magnificent creatures |
| Photo courtesy Steve Justad |
And Franz Camenzind, executive director of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, said people knew wolves had been hanging around the feeding ground, but none had been seen attacking cattle herds or destroying human property. As Camenzind told the Salt Lake City Tribune, Hoppy was "a good wolf. He covered thousands of miles and didn’t cause any trouble."
Come fall, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana expect to approve formal, legalized wolf hunts. Right now, except for a small area just outside Yellowstone in Wyoming, all you need is just a gun and a steady aim to legally shoot a wolf.
But there’s still hope for the rest of the wolves in the northern Rockies. In the past, Earthjustice has opposed several previous versions of Wyoming’s plans to declare wolves enemies of the state, and this time around we’re heading back to court to press for reinstating ESA protection for gray wolves in the region.
Our goal is to get the federal government to come up with a more realistic wolf recovery plan… something that recognizes recent science findings about a species that fought for 30 years to recover from nearly a century of devastating slaughter. The current plan could allow Idaho, Wyoming and Montana to hunt down wolves far and wide, and reduce a population of 1,500 wolves across three states to a mere 300 survivors.
Sadly, Hoppy won’t be among their numbers.
Published on Thursday, February 28, 2008 by ABC News
ACLU: 900,000 Names on US Terror Watch Lists
by Justin Rood
The FBI now keeps a list of over 900,000 names belonging to known or suspected terrorists, the American Civil Liberties Union said today.
If that number is accurate, it would be an all-time high, exponentially more than the 100,000 names on the list several years ago. But the number needs to be taken with a grain of salt: after all, the ACLU doesn’t keep the list, the FBI does, and the bureau doesn’t generally like to talk about it. (Indeed, the FBI has not yet responded to a request for comment for this post.)
But if the ACLU’s figure isn’t accurate, it’s also unlikely to be off by that much. Last September, the ACLU notes, the Department of Justice’s Inspector General reported the FBI watch list was at 700,000 names, and growing at 20,000 names per month.
The ACLU says they “extrapolated” from those figures to determine the list’s current size. ACLU’s Barry Steinhardt added that the group had spoken privately with people familiar with the watch list, who told them the 900,000 figure was not outlandish.
In the past, The FBI has told ABC News that the size of its watch list is classified. Despite that, both the bureau and the DoJ Inspector General have published the total figure in unclassified reports.
There’s no doubt the FBI’s list is growing: just last June, ABC News reported it was at 509,000 names, based on information in an unclassified FBI budget document.
But strangely, the list may be growing not because of swelling legions of foreign terrorists. Instead, it appears the FBI may be adding tens of thousands of names belonging to U.S. persons it suspects of being domestic terrorists — people who have no known ties to international terrorist organizations.
A separate entity, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), keeps a list of all names believed to belong to terrorists linked to international terror groups. That list, which was at 100,000 names in 2003, grew to 465,000 names by last June – but since then has grown only modestly, according to NCTC spokesman Carl Kropf. Today, Kropf said that list stands at roughly 500,000 names. (Unlike the FBI, the NCTC does not maintain that the size of its watch list is classified information.)
The FBI takes that list and adds to it a new collection of names which belong to U.S. persons believed to be domestic terrorists: people who have links to terrorism but not to any international group.
Last June, the NCTC was responsible for putting 465,000 names on the watch list, and the FBI appeared to add an additional 44,000. By September, extrapolating from the DoJ Inspector General’s report, the FBI’s contribution appears to have grown to somewhere north of 200,000 names.
Today – if the ACLU is to be believed – the FBI’s contribution may be as high as 417,000 names. Which would raise a new question: Where are so many domestic terrorists coming from? Or do they simply use more aliases than foreign terrorists?
Update: The FBI responded late Wednesday afternoon. Spokesman Chad Kolton did not dispute the ACLU’s figure, but noted that the watch list contains names, aliases and name variations for individuals. The number of people on the watch list, he said, was around 300,000, and only 5 percent are U.S. persons. Kolton noted that the list is “regularly reviewed for accuracy.” Last year the bureau removed 100,000 records “related to people cleared of any nexus with terrorism,” Kolton said.
© 2007 ABC News
