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16 hours ago
- Politics
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Carter's Hope: After U.S. government killed off Western wolves, a bold experiment brought them back
Mike Phillips, Jim Evanoff, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Director Mollie Beattie, Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Mike Finley and U.S. Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt carry the first crate with a wolf in it to the Crystal Bench Pen in Yellowstone National Park in January 1995. (Photo courtesy of Yellowstone National Park) EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first installment of Howl, a five-part written series and podcast season brought you in partnership between the Idaho Capital Sun, States Newsroom and Boise State Public Radio. The helicopter was flying low above a remote snow-covered mountain ridge outside Hinton, Alberta, Canada, when pilot Clay Wilson jumped the wolves and gave chase. Carter Niemeyer picked the tranquilizer gun off his lap and sighted through the opening where the helicopter's passenger side door had been removed especially for the mission. Less than 50 feet below, a 9-month-old wolf pup broke into a run, bounding through the December snowpack. His coat was the color of coal. Even though the pup wasn't yet a year old, he weighed 83 pounds and had developed a thick coat that would help him endure his first winter in the mountains. The chopper made a pass at the wolf and doubled back, but Niemeyer wasn't close enough to fire a dart loaded with tranquilizer drugs. After essentially killing off all wolves in the U.S. Rocky Mountains by the 1930s, the United States government sent Niemeyer and a small team to Canada just over 30 years ago to sedate, catch, study and reintroduce wolves to the American West, where wolves were a native species. Wilson and Niemeyer had never flown together before this flight took off in December 1994. Niemeyer was an experienced government trapper and wildlife biologist with a United States government agency called Animal Damage Control (which later changed its name to USDA Wildlife Services), but he had never been to Hinton and didn't know his way around Alberta's Northern Rockies. To make matters worse, the local tranquilizer gunners the government hired for the mission hadn't shown up yet. Niemeyer was supposed to be on the ground, carrying wolves out of the snow to a safe spot to land the helicopter after the wolves were darted from the air. 'I was mostly mugging,' Niemeyer said. 'The mugger is the guy who you dump out in snow 20 feet deep. And you roll and crawl and drag yourself through this ungodly deep snow, sometimes where just the little tops of the pine trees were sticking out, because the wolves get darted in there and you can't land (a helicopter). It's too dangerous, between snags and deep snow that could collapse. So the mugger, you've got to get that wolf out of that deep snow situation, down the slope and try and drag them to river ice, somewhere where you've got a footing, where the helicopter can land securely.' An average adult male wolf weighs about 100 pounds. The largest wolf caught for wolf reintroduction in 1995 and 1996 weighed 135 pounds, Niemeyer said. 'And, yeah, talk about a workout,' Niemeyer said. 'Sometimes it was something else.' The reason Niemeyer was in Hinton is because the U.S. government decided to bring back wolves after a decades-long extermination campaign. The controversial plan called for Niemeyer and the reintroduction team to capture gray wolves from Canada and release them in Yellowstone National Park and the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho. And the only way to do so was by hand. But when Niemeyer showed up to Canada searching for wolves to bring back to the Lower 48, he found the local trappers who were supposed to be capturing live wolves for collaring and medical exams had grown distrustful of the American government. Instead of caring for live wolves, the local trappers were killing them. 'The guys were killing them, skinning them and putting them on stretching boards and then I got up there and met them, and we had a confrontation, me and them, and they told me (to) take my truck and get the hell out of town,' Niemeyer said. An already tense situation in Canada came to a head when a local trapper hauled in two dead wolves and threw them at Niemeyer's feet. Standing 6 feet, 6 inches tall and fond of wearing a mustache and a fur trappers hat, Niemeyer wasn't one to back down from a challenge. Since he was a boy following in his father's footsteps, Niemeyer had trapped, skinned or taxidermied just about every predator and varmint in the West. It started with pocket gophers – 10 cents a head. That night he ended up squaring off with a local trapper in a drunken wolf skinning competition inside the man's cabin. It had been about 60 years since the wolves' howl fell silent across the U.S. Rocky Mountains. If wolves were going to make a comeback, things were off to a bad start. Wolves are a keystone species of apex predators that ranged from the Arctic, down through the Rocky Mountains and plains of the United States and into Mexico for thousands of years. There used to be tens of thousands of wolves in the U.S. Rocky Mountains. But thanks to government bounties meant to encourage westward expansion, settlers used trapping and widespread poisoning to kill off virtually every wolf in the American West by the 1930s. Between 1914 and 1926, at least 136 wolves were killed in Yellowstone, including two wolf pups killed in 1926 near a geologic feature named Soda Butte. Yellowstone National Park reports that the last wolf pack in the park was killed in 1926. It wasn't hunters or poachers who killed off the last Yellowstone wolves. It was park rangers. Congress had put up $125,000 to remove wolves and other predators from public lands, and it worked. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game says the last wolf in Idaho was believed to have been killed in the 1930s. Wolves survived in Alaska, Canada and Minnesota but they were functionally extinct in the Western U.S. Then things began to change for wolves in 1974, slowly at first. Four subspecies of gray wolves, including the gray wolf of the Northern Rocky Mountains, were listed under the Endangered Species Act, which had just been signed into law the year before by President Richard Nixon. Dozens of conservation groups, nonprofit organizations, biologists, veterinarians and members of the public pushed to save and restore wolves. Meanwhile ranchers, hunters, politicians across Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and countless residents of small rural communities pushed just as hard in the opposite direction. By 1980, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery plan recommended reintroducing wolves to Central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. As the federal government set wolf reintroduction in motion, hunters and ranchers vehemently opposed the plan. They warned of conflicts between humans, wolves and livestock. 'Howl' is the largest investment in time and resources we've put toward one project at the Idaho Capital Sun. If you find value in what we do, you can support work like this with a one-time or recurring donation at To read the weekly installments of 'Howl,' released every Wednesday morning, sign up for our free email newsletter, To join us for our free live panel discussion 'Wolves in the West — 30 Years of Reintroduction and the New Threats Wolves Face Today' on June 17 at the Special Event Center in Boise State University's Student Union Building, register online. Ranchers said the loss of livestock like sheep and cattle would threaten to wipe out generations-old family businesses. They were already struggling with the thinnest of margins and facing uncertainties like drought. They didn't need wolves eating their livestock. 'We have family stories from my grandfather and great grandfather about the first generation of wolves and how they warned us about keeping them away from our livestock, and how important it was to not have livestock interactions with wolves,' said Jay Smith, owner of J Lazy S Angus Ranch in Carmen, Idaho. 'So we have that long, long family history of knowledge on top of our own.' Smith is a fourth-generation rancher. His ancestors first bought a ranch on Carmen Creek in 1924. His own ranch is located a few ridges over from Corn Creek in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness – the original site of wolf reintroduction in Idaho in 1995. Smith calls the area 'wolf ground zero.' From the ranch, Smith can gaze across the valley and see the Diamond Moose grazing allotment. It was one of the first – and remains one of the most consistent – sites of conflict between wolves and livestock, Smith said. 'There's no rhyme or reason,' Smith said. 'You know, in 30 years, we never know what to expect. One year we'll lose 20 head of cattle, and one year we'll lose zero. And we just never quite know how to explain or how to do better, or how to mitigate that risk.' Ranchers weren't the only ones worried about wolf reintroduction. Hunters warned the return of wolves would lead to the decimation of elk herds, which would threaten a way of life for generations of passionate hunters. A series of heated wolf reintroduction public meetings played out in cities and small towns across Idaho, Wyoming and Montana in the 1990s. Yellowstone National Park staff reported that over about 2.5 years, the team developing the environmental impact state conducted more than 130 meetings and considered more than 160,000 public comments, which came in from all 50 states and 40 foreign countries. Upcoming Howl schedule Wednesday, June 11: River of No Return: How the Nez Perce Tribe stepped in to save wolf reintroduction in Idaho. After the Idaho Legislature nearly derailed the entire operation, the tribe faced racist questions on whether it was capable of repopulating the Lower 48. Wednesday, June 18: Fixing Yellowstone: How an intact ecosystem set the stage for a wolf queen's long reign. Despite being orphaned and repeatedly challenged for alpha status and ultimately being killed by a rival pack, Wolf 907 leaves a long legacy. Wednesday, June 25: Cattle Battle: How wolves and livestock collide – and how one Idaho project offers solutions. Western ranchers say their livelihood is at stake after wolves were reintroduced into the Lower 48 30 years ago. Wednesday, July 2: Ghost Wolves: While wolves might represent nature's greatest comeback, some longtime advocates say they aren't seeing wolves in the same places they always used to after the Idaho Legislature expanded wolf hunting and trapping in the state. Some scientists have openly questioned how the state tracks and counts wolves, and some original members of the wolf reintroduction team worry 30 years of hard work to bring wolves back could be undone. Several people in the room during those meetings described increasingly tense hearings, where emotion and fear trumped science and reason. 'Working with wolves all the years I did before coming here, you can't underestimate human hatred of wolves,' said Doug Smith, a biologist who led wolf reintroduction and monitoring in Yellowstone for nearly 30 years until he retired in 2022. 'I mean reason, compromise, facts, science doesn't even dent people's attitudes about (wolves).' 'Prior to wolves being listed as an endangered species, they weren't just killed, they were tortured,' Smith continued. 'People cut their lower jaws off and set them free, and they died that way. They would wire their jaws shut. They would take nails or razor blades and put it in hunks of meat… So they'd swallow the razor blades and nails. This is human hatred.' Some wolf meetings ended in screaming matches. But in 1994, former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt authorized the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park and Central Idaho. 'It was a long slog,' Smith said. 'Wolves were listed in 1974, so it was a 20 year process to get wolves back.' After it became clear wolf reintroduction was going to happen, Doug Smith landed his dream job in 1994 – becoming a wolf project biologist at Yellowstone National Park. There were no wolves there yet, but he was there to lay the groundwork for reintroduction. Within two years, Smith was named leader of the Yellowstone Wolf Project. 'If you'd studied wolves at all, or carnivores at all, it was the biggest opportunity in decades to come along,' Smith said. 'I mean, wolves are eradicated from Yellowstone by the government. The government decides to restore them. It's the largest intact temperate zone ecosystem in the world, and the government's going to undertake wolf reintroduction – as controversial a thing as you can get.' Babbitt's authorization to reintroduce wolves didn't ease the tension. A few weeks before wolf reintroduction, Suzanne Asha Stone and a team of researchers were surveying the land where the wolves would be reintroduced in Idaho's Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. Stone is the co-founder of the International Wildlife Coexistence Network. At the time, she was an intern working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a member of the wolf reintroduction team. After landing a small plane on a wilderness airstrip, the researchers received a report of a wolf sighting in an area called Bear Valley, just outside of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. 'Dr. (Steven) Fritz was teaching me how to howl for wolves,' Stone said. 'That's how we used to look for wolves before there were more of the digital type recordings that you would play for them. You just go out and do some howling. And so he was teaching me how to do that. And it was my first time to go solo.' 'We were on a Forest Service road out in the backcountry on the national forest and I got to my second howl, and we had rifle bullets just zing right over the top of our heads,' Stone said. Nobody was hurt, and Stone still doesn't know if the shooters knew people were in the area. But the episode served as a wakeup call, a visceral reminder of how deep wolf hatred ran for some. I got to my second howl, and we had rifle bullets just zing right over the top of our heads. – Suzanne Asha Stone, member of wolf reintroduction team By the time Stone and the reintroduction team arrived in Salmon to prepare to reintroduce wolves in Idaho, Stone was concerned for the team's safety and worried about the potential for violence. Members of the reintroduction team began to travel with an armed guard. 'We'd already received death threats in town from people's signs,' Stone said. 'They were handwritten. And it said, 'kill all the wolves and all the people who brought them here.'' Babbitt's signature cleared the way for Carter Niemeyer and the reintroduction team to head to Hinton in November 1994. And that brings us back to that alcohol-fueled wolf-skinning competition. Niemeyer, refusing to blink, won the competition with the local trappers and earned their respect. That's when the capture and reintroduction mission finally got off the ground. With his credibility firmly established, Niemeyer got in touch with Clay Wilson, a helicopter pilot out of Cranbrook, British Columbia. Niemeyer and Wilson hoped to search for wolves by air, dart them with tranquilizers fired from the helicopter and then fit the wolves with radio collars. Once the captured wolves were temporarily released again, the radio collars would help the reintroduction team track the wolves to the location of the larger pack. But the gunners hired for the operation hadn't arrived yet. Wilson decided to take a test flight and invited Niemeyer. Niemeyer was a seasoned hunter and government trapper who had experience using sedative drugs like telazol and ketamine. But he did not know the area or have any leads on local wolves. 'When the pilots got there they go, 'So do we have anybody who knows how to gun that could go ride with us to go dart a wolf?'' Niemeyer said. 'And I was the only one.' The team took two helicopters up. Wilson and Niemeyer eventually spotted a group of three or four wolves, including that 9-month-old male pup with the thick black winter coat. After several passes, Wilson flew in low and Niemeyer finally fired at the running pup. The dart struck the wolf on one its front paws – just barely. Wilson landed the helicopter, and Niemeyer sprang after the young wolf. The wolf was only partially sedated, still staggering and thrashing through the snow. After a mad dash, Niemeyer got close enough to slip a catchpole over the wolf and administer another round of drugs to sedate it. It was a moment he will never forget: Niemeyer had just darted and captured the first wolf for reintroduction in America. 'I named it Carter's Hope, because it was the first wolf we caught up in Canada by darting,' Niemeyer said. 'And I was just being silly and called it Carter's Hope. Hoping that this was the beginning of a successful project, which it turned out to be.' Once the wolves were darted and captured, they were sent to Idaho and Yellowstone National Park, where they underwent medical examinations, were given vaccinations and tested for disease. During exams, the wolves were given numbered radio collars that allowed biologists or park rangers to track the wolf's location. Idaho elementary school students decorated collars for each of the wolves bound for Central Idaho. Each collar has a different number and Carter's Hope, who was bound for Yellowstone, received collar number 15. (Niemeyer said the collars don't have any negative effects on the wolves who wear them.) After his capture, Carter's Hope was flown to Montana and then driven to Yellowstone National Park in January 1995. As the horse trailers carrying Carter's Hope and the other wolves entered Yellowstone's North Entrance at Gardiner, Montana, and passed under the iconic Roosevelt Arch, crowds of people lining the side of the road cheered and waved. Carter's Hope became one of the original members of the Soda Butte Pack, one of the first three packs of wild wolves to live in Yellowstone in nearly 70 years. Initially, the Yellowstone wolves were kept in one-acre acclimation pens, set back from the park's roads, as part of a so-called soft release. 'We were on the receiving team, so our job was to take care of the wolves in the pens for 10 weeks. That meant visiting them twice a week, every week, to feed them, check on them, and then release them,' Smith said. Yellowstone staffers used horse-drawn sleds to haul animal carcasses to the pens to feed the wolves. But outside of the temporary acclimation pens where the new wolves were first held upon reintroduction, Yellowstone National Park is wild landscape with no fences – the park boundary is an invisible line. After the wolves were released from Yellowstone's acclimation pens in March 1995, Carter's Hope didn't stay within the boundaries of Yellowstone, where rangers patrolled and poaching was almost unheard of. Wolves were still listed as an endangered species in 1995, but protecting them in the vast tracts of national forest and ranchland outside of the park would be a challenge. After Carter's Hope and the Soda Butte Pack left the park in April 1995, Niemeyer and Smith worried the wolves could be at risk of poaching anytime they strayed beyond Yellowstone's invisible boundaries. CONTACT US 'We've learned through decades of wolf research that making it illegal to kill wolves doesn't stop people from killing them,' Smith said in an interview in the Yellowstone backcountry. 'Wolves are one of those cultural lightning rods that a ton of society doesn't care about what the rules are. They hate wolves so much they're going to shoot them. And you know, a country like this that I'm looking out upon is broken country. It's forested. The wolves have got a chance to get away from human killing. (But) ringing the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is a sea of humanity, and it's open country. And what I mean by open county is no place to hide. People jump on four wheelers. People jump in pickup trucks, and they'll run them down… Yeah, they run them down with snowmobiles, or four wheelers. Or they get close enough where they can take a rifle shot on them when there's no place to hide. And there's no place to hide all around the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.' Aside from poaching, Smith and Niemeyer worried about wildlife control officers killing wolves if the wolves killed livestock outside of the park. It turns out, it was only a matter of time. The first report came in December 1995 – wolves killed a dog in Fishtail, Montana. By spring and early summer 1996, wolves had killed sheep on a ranch about 30 miles north of Yellowstone's border. This time, Niemeyer was able to capture Carter's Hope and bring the wolf back to a Yellowstone acclimation pen for two more months. While Carter's Hope was in the pen, a young visitor took notice. Wolf 26, a female wolf pup from the Nez Perce Pack, began hanging around the pen. Wolf 26 was one of the wolves brought to Yellowstone from Canada during the second year of reintroduction, in 1996, Yellowstone National Park records show. After inching closer and closer, Wolf 26 and Carter's Hope touched noses through the fence in the pen, Niemeyer wrote in his memoir, 'Wolfer.' No longer a part of the Soda Butte Pack, Carter's Hope paired off with Wolf 26 after he was re-released from the pen on Sept. 27, 1996. Along with humans, wolves are among the few mammals that form long-term pair bonds – often remaining together for life, raising pups jointly and sharing food. Carter's Hope and Wolf 26 stayed together and traveled throughout the southern portions of Yellowstone National Park through the end of 1996, Yellowstone records show. Eventually the two wolves left Yellowstone, heading south to Wyoming, where Wolf 26 had five pups. The new pack was named the Washakie Pack. Carter's Hope had become an alpha wolf and made history. 'He did successfully acclimate to being a wild wolf and got away from livestock, and he became the first breeding male wolf to establish a pack in the state of Wyoming,' Niemeyer said. But two years after Carter's Hope arrived in Yellowstone, ranchers reported more calves were killed near the Washakie Pack's territory. This time, Niemeyer couldn't save the wolf. Carter's Hope was shot and killed by a USDA Wildlife Services officer in October 1997 for killing livestock outside of Yellowstone National Park, according to the Yellowstone Wolf Project's 1998 annual report. Although wolves were still an endangered species, animal control officers tracked and killed Carter's Hope under rules established to reduce conflict with ranchers. Niemeyer still thinks killing Carter's Hope was unnecessary. 'I was upset, and I was saddened,' Niemeyer said. 'I was disappointed.' But he also realized the place Carter's Hope holds in history. Carter's Hope was one of the 66 wolves captured in Canada released in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in 1995 and 1996. 'He made it a couple, three years, but he did have pups, and that's a nice thing with wolves – they're prolific animals, and some of his progeny lived to see another day,' Niemeyer said. Today, just over 30 years later, there are an estimated 2,800 wolves in the Western United States. Almost all of them descended from Carter's Hope and the other 65 other wolves that a small team of biologists, veterinarians, trappers, pilots and conservationists reintroduced to America. Today, 30 years removed from reintroduction, Niemeyer, Stone and Smith say wolves are in danger once more. Wolves were removed from the Endangered Species List in 2011. Now, Niemeyer, Smith and Stone worry about increased hunting and trapping and new government programs enacted in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming that are intended to reduce the wolf population. 'I am worried about the future, because the most important thing for wolf restoration is human attitudes, and human attitudes have not changed about wolves,' Smith said. 'One of my favorite sound bites when I started working in Yellowstone 30 years ago was, 'I hope in 30 years, some of the controversy has died down, and people have gotten used to the ideas that wolves aren't that bad.' And that hasn't happened at all. They are still hated as much as they were 30 years ago. They're still a political football. They're still controversial.' Journalists Clark Corbin and Heath Druzin reported and wrote Howl over the course of 14 months, trekking deep into the backcountry in some of the most remote places in the Lower 48 chasing the story of America's wildest and most controversial wildlife comeback story – wolf reintroduction. New installments of the written series will be published in the Idaho Capital Sun each Wednesday through July 2. The Howl podcast is available free everywhere that podcasts are available. Coming next week: Part 2: Find out how members of the Nez Perce Tribe stepped up to lead wolf reintroduction 30 years ago when the Idaho Legislature rejected the plan for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to lead wolf reintroduction. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The US government killed nearly 2 million wild animals last year. Why?
An obscure arm of the federal government killed almost 2 million wild animals last year using a variety of methods, including firearms, poisons, and traps that ensnare an animal's neck, feet, or entire body. Carried out by the US Department of Agriculture's euphemistically named Wildlife Services department, the 2024 body count included over 2,000 green iguanas, almost 1,700 red-tailed hawks, and 614 armadillos, according to recently published data. The sub-agency even unintentionally killed one golden eagle, a species protected by federal law. Wildlife Services kills animals for a wide variety of reasons when they pose an inconvenience or danger to humans. Some of the deaths, as disturbing as they may be, have a kind of logic, like killing animals (even native ones) to protect endangered or threatened species, or eradicating birds at airports that might strike airplanes (though there are growing efforts to rehome, rather than kill, these birds). But four species alone — coyotes, European starlings, feral hogs, and pigeons — accounted for over 75 percent of the carnage, and they have something important in common. They all come into conflict with animal agriculture, and one of the primary purposes of Wildlife Services is to kill animals on behalf of the meat and dairy industries. 'We were the hired gun of the livestock industry,' Carter Niemeyer, who worked in Wildlife Services and related programs from 1975 to 2006, told me last year. Niemeyer specialized in killing and trapping predators like coyotes and wolves who were suspected of preying on cattle and sheep out on pasture. Beef ranching takes up so much land — more than one-third of the continental US — that it's not uncommon for wild animals to make their way onto the fields where cattle graze, which is one reason why livestock producers are such a big client for Wildlife Services. Over 100 million acres are also dedicated to growing feed crops for cows, pigs, and chickens, such as corn and soy, a treasure for wild animals looking for food. Many are killed as a result. This grim state of affairs reflects a little-understood consequence of animal agriculture: Over many decades, massive swathes of wildlife habitat in the US (and around the world) have been cleared for or degraded by meat production. And when wildlife pose any threat to that production, they might be shot or poisoned by the US government. Starlings, who like to dine on livestock feed, are often poisoned with Starlicide, a toxic chemical developed jointly by pet food giant Purina Mills and the USDA that slowly and painfully kills the birds over the course of hours by damaging their heart and kidneys. Wildlife Services killed over 1.2 million of them last year. Many wild birds are also killed to prevent them from eating fish from fish farms or spreading disease at the operations. The killing of coyotes, wolves, and other major predators has long been the most controversial part of the Wildlife Services' program, as the animals, known as 'keystone species,' play a critical role in their ecosystems. Conservation groups, wildlife researchers, and some former agency employees say the threat these animals pose to grazing livestock is overblown. Ranchers have an incentive to claim that their animals were killed by wolves because the USDA financially compensates them for those losses. And within Wildlife Services, some former employees have complained, there's a culture of deferring to ranchers. The USDA did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Niemeyer has described the instinct to blame livestock deaths on coyotes and wolves as 'hysteria.' The roots of such hysteria trace back to America's early European settlers, who believed (wrongly) that the eradication of wolves was necessary for livestock production, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison environmental science professor Adrian Treves. The story isn't all bad. Despite its still-high kill count, it's worth noting that Wildlife Services nonviolently scares away far more animals than it kills, and it has managed to reduce its annual killings over the last 15 years (though the total kill count remains as high as it was in the early 2000s). The agency in recent years has been investing more in nonlethal methods to keep wildlife away from livestock and their feed, like guard dogs, electric fencing, audio/visual deterrents, bird repellent research, and fladry — tying flags along fences, which can scare off some predators. But advocates and experts say these efforts are far from enough: 'I am cynical' about the possibility of change, Treves told me last year. The bottom line: While urban and suburban sprawl are often invoked as some of the gravest threats to wild animals and their habitats, it's really agricultural sprawl — built to accommodate our high levels of meat and dairy consumption — and the government force deployed to protect it that most threaten America's wildlife.
Vox
02-05-2025
- General
- Vox
The US government killed nearly 2 million wild animals last year. Why?
is a senior reporter for Vox's Future Perfect section, with a focus on animal welfare and the future of meat. An obscure arm of the federal government killed almost 2 million wild animals last year using a variety of methods, including firearms, poisons, and traps that ensnare an animal's neck, feet, or entire body. Carried out by the US Department of Agriculture's euphemistically named Wildlife Services department, the 2024 body count included over 2,000 green iguanas, almost 1,700 red-tailed hawks, and 614 armadillos, according to recently published data. The sub-agency even unintentionally killed one golden eagle, a species protected by federal law. Wildlife Services kills animals for a wide variety of reasons when they pose an inconvenience or danger to humans. Some of the deaths, as disturbing as they may be, have a kind of logic, like killing animals (even native ones) to protect endangered or threatened species, or eradicating birds at airports that might strike airplanes (though there are growing efforts to rehome, rather than kill, these birds). But four species alone — coyotes, European starlings, feral hogs, and pigeons — accounted for over 75 percent of the carnage, and they have something important in common. They all come into conflict with animal agriculture, and one of the primary purposes of Wildlife Services is to kill animals on behalf of the meat and dairy industries. 'We were the hired gun of the livestock industry,' Carter Niemeyer, who worked in Wildlife Services and related programs from 1975 to 2006, told me last year. Niemeyer specialized in killing and trapping predators like coyotes and wolves who were suspected of preying on cattle and sheep out on pasture. Beef ranching takes up so much land — more than one-third of the continental US — that it's not uncommon for wild animals to make their way onto the fields where cattle graze, which is one reason why livestock producers are such a big client for Wildlife Services. Over 100 million acres are also dedicated to growing feed crops for cows, pigs, and chickens, such as corn and soy, a treasure for wild animals looking for food. Many are killed as a result. This grim state of affairs reflects a little-understood consequence of animal agriculture: Over many decades, massive swathes of wildlife habitat in the US (and around the world) have been cleared for or degraded by meat production. And when wildlife pose any threat to that production, they might be shot or poisoned by the US government. Starlings, who like to dine on livestock feed, are often poisoned with Starlicide, a toxic chemical developed jointly by pet food giant Purina Mills and the USDA that slowly and painfully kills the birds over the course of hours by damaging their heart and kidneys. Wildlife Services killed over 1.2 million of them last year. Many wild birds are also killed to prevent them from eating fish from fish farms or spreading disease at the operations. A cormorant caught in a trap set by Wildlife Services. USDA The killing of coyotes, wolves, and other major predators has long been the most controversial part of the Wildlife Services' program, as the animals, known as 'keystone species,' play a critical role in their ecosystems. Conservation groups, wildlife researchers, and some former agency employees say the threat these animals pose to grazing livestock is overblown. Ranchers have an incentive to claim that their animals were killed by wolves because the USDA financially compensates them for those losses. And within Wildlife Services, some former employees have complained, there's a culture of deferring to ranchers. The USDA did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Niemeyer has described the instinct to blame livestock deaths on coyotes and wolves as 'hysteria.' The roots of such hysteria trace back to America's early European settlers, who believed (wrongly) that the eradication of wolves was necessary for livestock production, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison environmental science professor Adrian Treves. The story isn't all bad. Despite its still-high kill count, it's worth noting that Wildlife Services nonviolently scares away far more animals than it kills, and it has managed to reduce its annual killings over the last 15 years (though the total kill count remains as high as it was in the early 2000s). The agency in recent years has been investing more in nonlethal methods to keep wildlife away from livestock and their feed, like guard dogs, electric fencing, audio/visual deterrents, bird repellent research, and fladry — tying flags along fences, which can scare off some predators. But advocates and experts say these efforts are far from enough: 'I am cynical' about the possibility of change, Treves told me last year. The bottom line: While urban and suburban sprawl are often invoked as some of the gravest threats to wild animals and their habitats, it's really agricultural sprawl — built to accommodate our high levels of meat and dairy consumption — and the government force deployed to protect it that most threaten America's wildlife.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
17 ‘crucial' AmeriCorps programs in Mass. on the chopping block amid DOGE cuts
One week ago, AmeriCorps Cape Cod held its annual Earth Day clean-up event in Barnstable County. Over 900 pounds of trash were collected that day as the nine AmeriCorps members worked side by side with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and over 200 volunteers — all in an effort to keep the county's water clean — according to Program Manager Misty Niemeyer. Now, the clean-up day — and the nine members of AmeriCorps Cape Cod — are at risk of never returning due to the program's grant being terminated, Niemeyer said. 'All these programs are driven by our members,' Niemeyer told MassLive. On April 25, AmeriCorps announced an abrupt end to $400 million in grants for its programs throughout the country — ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Established in 1993, the federal agency gives Americans opportunities to engage in volunteer work to address critical needs throughout the country. Of the $400 million terminated, $8 million would have gone to programs in Massachusetts, including AmeriCorps Cape Cod, according to Lindsay Rooney, the director of operations and external affairs for the Massachusetts Service Alliance (MSA). The $8 million was terminated without notice — a move that has already resulted in detrimental impact, according to Rooney. 'AmeriCorps members who have dedicated a year of their life to serving our Commonwealth are finding their lives turned upside overnight and this will leave communities across the state without the crucial services provided by these critical programs,' Rooney wrote. MSA is a state service commission that awards grants to local nonprofits and agencies. The service commission also manages funding from AmeriCorps. The alliance received an email from the federal government on April 25 that called for a halt in distributing grants, Rooney confirmed to MassLive. Of Massachusetts's 31 AmeriCorps programs for the 2024-2025 year, 17 are at risk of being shuttered due to these cuts, Rooney wrote in an email to MassLive. The institutions where AmeriCorps programs are at risk of ending are as follows: AmeriCorps Cape Cod Boys & Girls Club of Metro South Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity City of Lawrence DIAL/SELF (features two separate AmeriCorps programs) Framingham State University Greenagers LUK Mass. Promise Fellows Perkins School for the Blind Social Capital Inc. Student Conservation Association Teach Western Mass TerraCorps United Way of Massachusetts Bay Walker Inc. If these programs shutter, more than 200 AmeriCorps members would abruptly end their services, Rooney said. 'Many of these members have been serving the last eight months or more tutoring struggling students, providing a safe environment for youth in afterschool programs, supporting the mental health needs of our young people, and responding to recent storms and other disasters,' Rooney wrote. The services provided by AmeriCorps members, such as education, construction and land management, are now at risk of ceasing. The members of AmeriCorps Cape Cod, for example, offer natural resource management, disaster response, environmental education and community engagement to all of Barnstable County, Niemeyer told MassLive. Projects done by members include removing marine debris from the ocean and conducting prescribed burns to prevent wildfires. AmeriCorps Cape Cod serves 15 towns and has been doing so since 1999. With the federal government now terminating grants, Niemeyer is trying to gather support from local and federally elected officials to keep the program afloat. 'I don't know what's going to happen with the proposed (grants) that have been submitted that are supposed to be awarded this summer,' she said. 'But it doesn't look promising. Greenagers, an organization in South Egremont that engages teens and young adults with environmental conservation work, is also trying to raise support to save its AmeriCorps program. The program's six members visit middle and high schools in the area to teach students about environmental education, according to Elia Del Molino, Greenangers's conservation program director and deputy director. The team also fixes and builds hiking trails to improve the region's habitat and wildlife, Del Molino said. Greenangers had been wanting to host an AmeriCorps program for a long time. Now, the organization faces a stark possibility of the program ending. If the program were to shutter, with no one left to manage the wildlife, the forests in the region could see more invasive species and trails that were made to be accessible could become unsafe to walk. 'We're talking about widespread impacts across the county, in all of Western Mass.,' Del Molino said. 'Because we are not out there, because these trail crews aren't running, people aren't going to be able to access these natural spaces that they know and they love.' The termination of programs also means the members won't be paid. Del Molino said the members earn about $18 an hour for their work on the programs. Additionally, they would have received an educational award at the end of their 1,700 hours of service. 'We have six AmeriCorps members and their world got turned upside down,' Del Molino said. 'They felt like they had stable employments with Greenagers and all of a sudden, that's been thrown up in the air and they don't know where it's going to land.' Greenagers even had plans to expand the number of AmeriCorps members from six to 20, but those plans fell apart after the announcement of the grant terminations. 'It's too early to say what level of support the community is going to be able to offer us in this situation,' Del Molino said. 'I would love for them (AmeriCorps) to reverse the decision, to cancel the terminations but that doesn't seem to be likely.' Even so, Del Molino said that these programs are worth fighting for and deserve as much support as possible. 'We need to rally behind around programs, non-profits like ours and do the very best we can on a day-to-day basis to ensure the community is served as it needs to be served,' Del Molino said. 'And to make sure individuals that are affected by these unlawful, unjust cuts are also served as best they can.' In response to the grant terminations, more than 20 attorneys general and two governors filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Trump administration. One of the attorney generals who signed onto the lawsuit was Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell. 'AmeriCorps is the epitome of service and civic engagement, offering more than 1,100 Massachusetts residents meaningful opportunities to serve in various fields including public health, education, disaster relief and more,' Campbell said in a press release on Tuesday. 'I am proud to join my colleagues in pushing back on the Trump Administration's unlawful efforts to dismantle this service program.' The lawsuit challenges the grant cuts and argues that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) illegally gutted the agency that was created by Congress, according to the Associated Press. In April, AmeriCorps placed almost all of its staff at the federal level on administrative leave at the behest of the DOGE, according to the New York Times. Jake Murray, the Chief External Affairs Officer and Executive Director of Walker Solutions told MassLive on Thursday that he supported the lawsuit against the Trump administration. Walker Inc., the nonprofit Murray works for, had its three-year AmeriCorps program grant used for a wellness program eliminated. Members of the program served as wellness coaches, working with children in schools and youth centers, according to Murray. The nonprofit organization provides programming in the fields of child welfare, special education and behavioral health for children, according to its website. 'We think it's arbitrary,' Murray said of the grant cuts. 'At least fund the programs for the rest of the year.' Ride to Remember to honor Springfield's Sarno with cancer charity donation at pig roast 'Willing to capitulate': Cracks emerge in Harvard's resistance to Trump over DEI Armed intruder broke into '90s rocker's home after she sold her Tesla Despite low ratings, voters say Trump handles presidency better than Harris Mass. police watchdog revokes 5 officers' certifications: 'Not fit for duty' Read the original article on MassLive.
Malay Mail
29-04-2025
- Business
- Malay Mail
At the 137th Canton Fair: Suofeiya Expands Global Reach with Innovative Design & Quality Intelligent Manufacturing
2025 Overseas Franchise Summit Successfully Held GUANGZHOU, CHINA Media OutReach Newswire - 29 April 2025 - Amidst a profound reshuffling of the global manufacturing landscape, China's manufacturing is marching towards "intelligent manufacturing in China" driven by innovation and intelligence, leading the world's industrial transformation. As the barometer of China's foreign trade, the 137Canton Fair has attracted extensive attention from around the world. Numerous Chinese brands have showcased their advantages in innovative technology, premium quality and favorable cost, demonstrating China's status and influence in the global industrial April 23, the 2Phase of the 137Canton Fair officially kicked off. It is the first time that the Canton Fair focuses on "Quality Home". For the global visitors and buyers, it provides a one-stop home product purchasing platform. For the exhibitors, it offers an opportunity to fully display the innovative achievements of China's building materials industry in environmental protection and intelligent technology,improving the brands' competitiveness in the international market. As the leading brand in the customized home furnishing industry, Suofeiya demonstrated a brand-new one-stop living space solution featuring "Quality & Intelligent Manufacturing" with its 2025 new series on site. During the Fair, Suofeiya's booth saw a continuous surge in visitors and buyers, highlighting its brand awareness and product competitiveness in the global 2025 global debut of Alpha Pro Series, Fayven Master Series and Riemann Series impresses visitors and buyers with aesthetic design and cutting-edge process. Inspired by Niemeyer curves, the Riemann Series creates a minimalist kitchen with metal lacquer doors and wing craved arc handles, integrating an intelligent island with streamlined lighting; Capturing the trendy quiet luxury style, the Alpha Pro bathroom vanity adopts PP skin-feel material that is both stain-resistant and durable, and a suite-style design that optimizes storage; Maintaining the Italian minimalism style, the Fayven Master wine cabinet is a masterpiece of complicated processes, including a harmonious blend of various materials, the same-color wrapping process of back-to-back crescent handles, and invisible zoned design. Behind this series of complex processes lies Suofeiya's powerful digital Industry 4.0 system and flexible manufacturing capabilities. Supported by a globally leading intelligent production system, Suofeiya achieves efficient, accurate, and stable delivery, continuously creating an ideal paradigm for global high-end has always been at the forefront of intelligence and digitalization, becoming a focus of the industry and attracting media attention. In a recentinterview, Hao Jiang, Senior General Manager of Suofeiya Cabinet Manufacturing Center, said that, as early as 2016, Suofeiya successfully built Asia's first flexible manufacturing production line for whole-home customization and set up 8 production bases globally. Currently, Suofeiya's intelligent factory in Jiashan, Zhejiang, has completed the 5th iteration of the Industry 4.0, which means the entire procedure, involving design, production and installation, has been fully digitalized. With strong intelligent manufacturing capabilities and a comprehensive supply chain system, Suofeiya has successfully overcome the core challenges of high labor costs, low production efficiency, long supply cycles, and unstable product quality in the customized home furnishings the leading brand in the global customized home furnishing industry, Suofeiya has always adhered to the customer-centric approach, continuously improving its global service system. So far, Suofeiya has completed and delivered over 15,000 projects in more than 70 countries and regions, winning widespread praise with high-quality products and one-stop this year's Canton Fair, Suofeiya gained high recognition from the industry and media with its outstanding intelligent whole-house solutions and strong global delivery capabilities, further strengthening its leadership in the custom cabinetry sector. Relying on a world-leading intelligent manufacturing system, Suofeiya demonstrated strong advantages in production efficiency and delivery capacity. Chen Wei, Vice President of Suofeiya Home Collection Co.,Ltd, said in an interview withthat China's home furnishing industry has now entered the global top tier in intelligent manufacturing. As an early mover in digital transformation, Suofeiya has built several smart factories in China meeting Industry 4.0 standards, giving it a clear edge in global competition——Suofeiya's production efficiency is 125% higher than comparable German production lines, and its robotic panel sorting accuracy is nearly 100%. Experts have rated its intelligent application level as internationally advanced and the 137Canton Fair, Suofeiya won high recognition from the industry and media for its excellent smart whole-home solutions and strong global delivery capabilities, further consolidating its leading position in the whole-home customization field. Ann An, Director of the Overseas Business Division, said in an interview withthat the Canton Fair sets up the "Quality Home" for the first time this year. Suofeiya provides overseas buyers with a new experience of one-stop all-category purchasing through its full-category, intelligent, and systematic whole-home customization solutions. This significantly improves purchasing efficiency and fully demonstrates the new advantages of Chinese home furnishing brands in the field of advanced technology and intelligent 25th witnessed the success of the 2025 Overseas Franchise Summit & Evening Banquet. The summit gathered many key potential customers to discuss Suofeiya's global strategy, share overseas market development trends and industry insights, focusing on industry pain points and seeking cooperation opportunities to jointly draw a new blueprint for global Wang, President of Suofeiya Home Collection Co.,Ltd, pointed out in his speech that in the next five years, Suofeiya will increase investment and continue to accelerate its global layout to promote high-quality development of overseas businesses. Over the past three years, the scale and sales volume of the overseas business division have both grown by more than 50% annually. As for delivery capabilities, Suofeiya has strengthened its design, production technology, logistics, and other service systems to ensure the smooth delivery and completion of each project, committing to efficient delivery and worry-free Pan, Vice President of Suofeiya Home Collection Co.,Ltd, introduced Suofeiya's operation in China, emphasizing the company's core competitiveness comes from "optimal product strength, leading manufacturing capability, and excellent innovation power." With continuous investment in R&D and innovation, combined with world-leading production equipment and a mature operational system in China, Suofeiya believes that cooperating with partners from all over the world is the key to exploring overseas market and achieving long-term Jia, Project Director of the Overseas Business Division, combined practical experience of overseas projects to systematically analyze common industry pain points, comprehensively explaining the significant advantages of Suofeiya's strong supply chain system and one-stop solution in project implementation. Cloris Xiao, Franchise Manager of the Overseas Business Division, provided a detailed interpretation of the overseas franchise the summit, the guests have also been invited to visit the 4,500㎡exhibition hall where display all categories such as wardrobes, cabinets, whole cases, home products, and vanities. The guests spoke highly of Suofeiya's cutting-edge design concepts, innovative processes, and materials, as well as its one-stop whole-home solution. The global layout and future prospects of China's home furnishing industry were also met with high recognition and expectations at the to the future, Suofeiya will continue to fully tap into the potential of the overseas market, step up efforts to explore overseas business models, and strengthen project delivery and service capabilities. More importantly, Suofeiya will empower the high-quality development of global home furnishing industry guided by the "Quality & Intelligent Manufacturing" strategy, creating a new chapter for a better life with global Email: [email protected] WhatsApp: +8619966202249; +8618098179372Facebook / Instagram / LinkedIn: Suofeiya HomeHashtag: #Suofeiya The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
