Stop the Wolf Slaughter in Idaho

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The Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) is about to kill 90% of its state’s approximately 1,500 wolves.

Idaho Governor Brad Little signed the cull into law in an effort to bring populations down to the previously-recommended quota of 150 wolves and 15 packs, “to reduce attacks on livestock and to boost deer and elk herds1.”

This law allows the state to hire private contractors to kill wolves and provides more money for state officials to hire the contractors. It also expands the way wolves can be hunted and killed: hunting, trapping and snaring an unlimited number of wolves on a single hunting tag, using night-vision equipment, chasing down wolves on snowmobiles and ATVs and shooting them from helicopters. If found on private land, newborn pups can also be killed1.

If we have learned anything from history, it’s that the slaughter and extirpation of one species hardly ever leads to a positive outcome.

In November 2020, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) removed the gray wolf from the endangered species list, “despite the enduring precarity of wolf populations throughout much of the country2.”

The result has been a disaster, leaving a species nearing the brink of extinction. According to the most recent USFWS data, there are now only 108 wolves in Washington state, 158 in Oregon, and 15 in California, while wolves are functionally extinct in Nevada, Utah, and Colorado3.

In Wisconsin misguided wolf hunting practices led to outrage across the state.

According to Jodi Habush Sinykin, an environmental attorney, and Donald Waller, an ecologist and conservation biologist4. “Throngs of unlicensed hunters joined those with licenses with packs of dogs, snowmobiles and GPS technology. The wolves stood no chance. This unprecedented hunt took place during the breeding season, killing pregnant females and disrupting family packs at a time critical to pup survival. A full accounting of the hunt’s biological toll is impossible, as the state declined to inspect carcasses.”

In Yellowstone, where wolves were reintroduced after a 70-year absence, everything changed for the better5. Elk stopped standing around like feedlot cattle. They learned to run like the wind again. Streamside willows and other riparian vegetation, previously trampled by the elk, returned as well, and with it, a chorus of birds. All because of wolves.

Idaho’s methods for killing wolves violate longstanding wildlife management practices and hunting ethics. Sign the petition below and demand the Governor of Idaho end the wolf cull.