Caribou recovery plan near oil sands may target wolves-
Of course the huge pit mines completely wipe out wildlife habitat including that of the rare woodland caribou. Most the the herds in Alberta and part of B.C. have been rated as “unlikely to survive.” Their plan to save the caribou is to kill thousands of wolves.
Story. More than any other, I think these photos tell the tar sands story (my view of what hell must look like). The ruined landscape was once a beautiful boreal forest of conifers, beaver ponds, meadows, and lots of wildlife.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He has been a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and also its President. For many years he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Does it ever stop? Why do wolves always have to be the scapegoat for human failures and greed? This is worse than the phychotic plans in Idaho and Wyoming. Are the people that come up with these plans insane?
When I was younger and visited Alberta, it seemed like this wild and untamed place. As an adult, the more I learn about what goes on in the “Texas of Canada”, the more I think it is no longer either of those things.
You said it, Ralph: Hell. All created so that soccer moms can drive land yachts to pick up the kids so they don’t have to ride the bus (provided at tax-payer expense) back home to their monster house. Or so rednecks can tool around in monster trucks that get less MPG’s than their IQ’s. This country needs a reality check on its energy use and where it gets its petroleum. Raping the resources of other countries or our own is not the answer. We got really good at conserving oil during the embargo in the 70’s. My family still practices those energy saving techniques and we live just fine. What happened to energy conservation as a national priority?