Currently viewing the category: "Wildlife Services"

 

Are ranchers stupid? You might think so if you watch their behavior towards predators. For decades ranchers have declared war on coyotes. Despite their best efforts, coyotes not only survive, but thrive. Even with taxpayer subsidies to America’s welfare ranchers in the form of Animal Damage Control agents, and the slaughter of tens of [...]

Continue Reading

The Albequerque Journal is reporting that a USDA Wildlife Services employee is under investigation for the killing of an endangered Mexican gray wolf in the southwest corner of New Mexico. According to the Journal USDA Wildlife Services issued a statement claiming the employee mistakenly identified it as a coyote. A Wildlife Services spokesperson stated [...]

Continue Reading

You know that it’s bad when Fox News writes about the abuses of an agency loved and defended by conservatives.

Animal torture, abuse called a ‘regular practice’ within federal wildlife agency
Fox News

The article talks about the “regular practice” by Wildlife Service’s agents of letting their dogs attack animals that have been [...]

Continue Reading

Project has a successful sixth year-

In Idaho when a wolf kills a lamb or is even suspected of doing so, the solution today is nearly the same as a hundred years ago — kill the wolf and maybe all the wolves you can find in the area with the costs of operation be damned.

[...]

Continue Reading

Graphic photos published to a self-proclaimed USDA Wildlife Services employee’s Facebook page and Twitter account were recently brought to light by wildlife activists.  Some of the photos, placed in a Facebook album called “work” and some from a public Twitter account, depict the employee’s dogs attacking defenseless coyotes, raccoons, and bobcats caught in a leg-hold [...]

Continue Reading

People upset by the actions of the federal wildlife control agency, Wildlife Services in the Dept. of Agriculture, usually don’t get any media attention.  However, for over a year now the Sacramento Bee has had many stories about the Service, and they have done a lot of investigative reporting.

Davis, Caifornia just responded to complaints [...]

Continue Reading

Wildlife Services has high average non-lethal record for all animals, but not for large carnivores-

Lately there has been a lot of media critical of USDA-Wildlife Services; often called by its critics something like “the federal government’s wildlife killers.”  In an effort to mount a defense the Service has pointed out that 80% of its [...]

Continue Reading

In the final installment of the 3-part series, Tom Knudson investigates how the role of USDA Wildlife Services may change in the future. Should the agency be disbanded? Should it be reformed and given different responsibilities like controlling only invasive, non-native species? Should its predator control program be defunded?

There is obviously a problem with [...]

Continue Reading

This installment of Tom Knudson’s series in the Sacremento Bee investigates the efficacy of USDA Wildlife Services’ predator killing program to benefit wildlife. In short, it doesn’t, it generally causing more harm than good and could be having impacts on disease such as the plague due to the increase of rodents after control actions.

In [...]

Continue Reading

Tom Knudson of the Sacremento Bee has been working on this very important and eye opening series about USDA Wildlife Services for several months. I was contacted by him in December last year and we talked about several issues related to WS and their killing.

This first installment of three introduces people to the agency [...]

Continue Reading

Calendar

May 2013
S M T W T F S
« Apr    
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  

A Big Bonehead

(Cartoon by: Matt Wuerker | Date: May. 24, 2012)

Quote

‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."

~ Edward Abbey