Black bear cub. Photo: Sam Parks.
A secretive and little-known federal agency that uses your tax dollars to trap, snare, poison, and aerial gun our nation’s iconic wildlife to “manage” them wants you to greenlight multiple new proposals that would allow even more bloodshed.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services—the federal animal damage control agency—released three environmental analysis documents of its latest plans in Montana, Washington, and Oregon, in which the agency aims to kill more of the West’s iconic carnivores. That’s more mountain lions, black bears, coyotes, and other wildlife that will die needlessly and suffer senselessly.
We can’t let them carry out these brutal plans, ignoring the best available science and compassion to appease the wishes of the agriculture and ranching industries. To stop this war on wildlife we need you to raise your voice and spread the word. The only reason this agency has a “license to kill” is that not enough people even know of their existence. Wildlife Services operates in darkness and our job is to shine a spotlight on their brutal practices and demand they adopt an ethic of coexistence by using non-lethal tools.
Wildlife Services routinely uses cruel and indiscriminate killing tools such as sodium cyanide bombs to carry out its barbaric mission—and much of their work occurs on America’s public lands to benefit the livestock industry. Times have changed, but this agency has not.
We urgently need your voice to tell Wildlife Services that the cruel, indiscriminate killing of wildlife is unethical, ineffective, and out-of-step with the beliefs of the vast majority of the American public.
State by state and county by county WildEarth Guardians has been working to demand Wildlife Services adopt a new ethic of coexistence. Over the last five years, litigation by Guardians and partners against Wildlife Services has resulted in settlement agreements and legal victories in Idaho, Wyoming, California, Nevada, Oregon, Montana, and Washington, all curbing the program’s slaughter of native wildlife and making the program accountable for its activities. We intend to win this war and end cruelty on public lands. But we can’t do that without you.
Will you join Guardians in the fight to change the killing culture of Wildlife Services by taking a moment to be a voice for coexistence and urge Wildlife Services to stop using brutal methods? Please go to our landing page where you can find talking points, deadlines, and links to the regulations.gov portal to make these important comments. Deadlines are from February 15 through February 22, depending on the state.
Making a difference for lions, bears, coyotes, and many other species starts with you, so take action as soon as possible to demand that Wildlife Services use non-lethal methods for wildlife management.
The post It’s Time to End the War on wildlife appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
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