STUDENT LED RESTORATION PLAN FOR SALMON RIVER ESTUARY

A student led restoration plan for the Salmon River Estuary with assistance from the Sitka Center for Art & Ecology (www.sitkacenter.org), the ?Salmon Drift Watershed Council (www.salmondriftwatershedcouncil.org), the US Forest Service, local residents, non-governmental groups, ?tribes and state agencies ?is scheduled ?for the summer of 2006 and will provide information to update the existing ?management plan (Final EIS 1976) as well as provide guidance for a number ?of large-scale ?restoration projects including removal of the remaining dikes and restoration ?of the hydrology in the Pixie Land, Tamara Quays, and Salmon Creek areas.

?Visit this site for more details: http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/siuslaw/projects/restoration/salmonriver/index.shtml An advisory board is currently being formed to guide the student team in the restoration planning effort. The board is open to any interested ?community member -- the only requirement is committing to attend all four meetings ?in the summer (June 29 - Aug 11, every other Thursday-location yet to be determined). ?We are also currently in the process of selecting the team of students for the intensive eight week project over the summer of 2006 to develop a restoration plan for the Salmon River Estuary. The student team will look at the lower Salmon River watersheds to understand how the uplands effect the estuary as well as the general condition of the estuary

If you have any questions or would like to find out how you can participate please contact us.

Katie Brehm
Outreach Coordinator/Research Team Leader
Sitka Center for Art & Ecology/Salmon Drift Watershed Council
ccc (at) sitkacenter.org
office: (541) 994-2433
main: (541) 994-5485

Karen Bennett
Siuslaw National Forest Salmon ?River Project Lead
kabennett (at) fs.fed.us

Paul Katen
Salmon Drift Watershed Council President
pckaten (at) charter.net

SAVE IDAHO WOLVES IN CLEARWATER NATIONAL FOREST

here are the instructions for how you can submit comments to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) regarding their proposal to kill up to 75% of the wolf population that lives in the Clearwater National Forest. The Idaho wolf population is likely to be the source population for wolves dispersing into Oregon, Washington, California and Nevada. By assuring continued protections for this population we are moving closer to restoring wolves to the rest of the western United States.

During the first week of January, the Bush administration turned over responsibility for wolf management to the state of Idaho. This was done despite the fact that wolves remained listed under the federal Endangered Species Act and it was done through improper means. Defenders of Wildlife is not opposed to the states getting "practice" in wolf management prior to federal delisting -- with responsible federal oversight and a good state wolf plan in place, that's actually a good idea. But Idaho's state wolf plan is very troubling in its vagueness and its focus on wolf control rather than conservation, and the way management authority was turned over to Idaho violates several federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act, the Administrative Procedures Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. Last week, Defenders and six other groups notified the Department of the Interior that we will file a lawsuit if this situation is not rectified.

A significant concern is that the state of Idaho's state wolf management plan is inadequate to conserve wolves and, as if to prove our concern correct, the state's first action upon assuming management authority was to announce a plan to kill 75% of the wolves within the Clearwater National Forest's Lolo district for the next five years, to attempt to boost elk populations.

Scientists have long maintained that elk numbers in this region are low because of poor habitat conditions, which should be addressed, yet Idaho Fish and Game has chosen to use wolves as a scapegoat rather than admitting their elk population objectives are unrealistic under current habitat conditions.

Idaho Fish and Game's proposal to kill wolves in the Clearwater is based on an inadequate study, relying on an astonishingly low sample size of 8 cow elk found to have been killed by wolves. The study was not properly replicated, and the small sample of elk studied fails to meet the most minimum statistical standards for drawing valid scientific conclusions. Perhaps this is not unexpected when the Idaho State legislature has repeatedly called for the elimination of wolves "by any means necessary," and the head of an Idaho anti-wolf coalition has vowed to "get rid of these wolves, one way or another."

Idaho's plan to kill up to 75% of the wolves in the Clearwater is online now at http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/cms/wildlife/wolves/wolf_control.cfm

PLEASE SUBMIT WRITTEN COMMENTS TO IDAHO DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND GAME (IDFG) BY THE FEB. 17th DEADLINE AND ENCOURAGE YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS TO WRITE AS WELL

Public comments will be accepted at the following locations:

Mail : Attention: Steve Huffaker, Director, Idaho
Department of Fish and Game
IDFG Wolf Comments
P.O. Box 25
Boise ID 83707

Email: wolfcomments@idfg.idaho.gov

SUGGESTED TALKING POINTS:

• The decline in elk has existed since long before wolves were reintroduced;
• Idaho Fish and Game provides no evidence that wolves are a primary factor in elk population decline; at such low population numbers, any factor could result in the failure of this elk herd to rebound;
• Poor habitat conditions make it impossible for the state to currently meet their unrealistic elk population goals;
• Eight radio-collared cow elk killed by wolves out of a total sample of 25 dead elk is too small a sample to draw any statistical conclusions;
• Similar declines in elk numbers or in elk reproduction have occurred in places without wolves;
• There is indeed a strong connection between wolves and elk in Idaho, but research statewide clearly shows that greater numbers of elk support more wolves, not that lots of wolves depress elk numbers;
• Elsewhere in the northern Rockies, impacts of wolves on elk have been found to be less important than climate, range conditions, and even human harvest; and
• Conducting a study to develop sufficient data to draw sound conclusions as to how elk die is a good idea, but this inadequate study provides no basis to conclude that wolves are responsible for this elk population decline.

PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO EXPRESS YOUR VIEWS IN YOUR OWN WORDS ~V REMEMBER, PEOPLE WHO ARE OPPOSED TO WOLVES NEARLY ALWAYS TAKE THE TIME TO WRITE HANDWRITTEN LETTERS IN THEIR OWN WORDS AND THIS HAS GREAT IMPACT ON AGENCY PERSONNEL, LEGISLATORS AND COMMISSIONERS WHEN IT COMES TIME FOR THEM TO MAKE DECISIONS. IT IS IMPORTANT FOR THEM TO SEE THAT PEOPLE WHO SUPPORT WOLVES ALSO CARE ENOUGH TO TAKE THE TIME TO WRITE PERSONALIZED LETTERS.

WHAT ELSE YOU CAN DO:

If you know people that live in Idaho please encourage them to attend one of the 2 upcoming public hearings. The first hearing will be held on February 2nd at the DoubleTree Hotel Riverside in Garden City/Boise (2900 Chinden Blvd), and the second is on February 7th at the Fish and Game Regional Office, 3316 16th St., in Lewiston. Both meetings run from 5 to 9 p.m. Individuals and groups may register to testify and will have three minutes to provide their comments. Please advise them to bring a short, one-page bullet- pointed written summary of their testimony to give to the Commission when they speak.

IN CONCLUSION Thank you for staying involved in protecting wolves in the western states. Stay tuned for future updates

For the wolves and all the wild ones, Amaroq Weiss Defenders of Wildlife

SPEAK OUT TO STOP THE HUNTING OF THE LAST WILD HERD OF BUFFALO IN AMERICA

Wild Buffalo

Citizens across the country are urged to join friends at BFC, the Animal Welfare Institute, the Humane Society of the United States and other wild bison advocates to rattle the cages of two parties responsible for the slaughter of America's last wild buffalo:? Yellowstone National Park and the Church Universal & Triumphant.? Make their phones ring off the hook TODAY in the name of the last wild buffalo!

1. YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK SUPERINTENDENT SUZANNE LEWIS # 307-344-2002 (if you can't get through, use 307-344-2012) Tell her that the National Park Service is mandated to protect bison, not slaughter them for the sake of livestock interests.? Tell her that Yellowstone's participation in the slaughter of the last wild buffalo is shameful and unacceptable.? Tell her that the Park should work to secure critical habitat for wild buffalo outside of Park boundaries.? Just speak from your heart for the buffalo and tell her how you feel.

2. CHURCH UNIVERSAL & TRIUMPHANT (CUT), KATE GORDON, PRESIDENT # 800-245-5445 Tell CUT to finalize the agreement that was started in 1999 and to coexist with wild buffalo.? Remind CUT that they took millions from the American people and that money was exchanged for land to be used by wildlife, including wild buffalo.

Why these calls are critical: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/media/bisonhunt/bisonhuntvideo/stephens0106.mov

Let's raise our voices together today in defense of the last wild buffalo!? Thank you for participating in national call-in day!? Please spread the word to save this special herd.? For more information visit http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/actionalerts.html.

-EXCERPTED FROM BUFFALO FIELD CAMPAIGN RECENT NEWSLETTER----------------------------- * Update from the Field

Last Friday, Yellowstone National Park sent the last of the 672 captured wild buffalo to slaughter.? The trap - located inside the boundaries of Yellowstone - is empty.? Unfortunately, that's just for now.?? In contrast to the empty trap, the Corwin Springs bison quarantine facility is at full capacity with 100 wild baby buffalo that will never be with their family members again, will be used in a scientific experiment, and half of which will be slaughtered.? All in the name of the Holy Cow.

On Tuesday, BFC volunteers traveled to Bozeman, MT to attend the Greater Yellowstone Interagency Brucellosis Committee (GYIBC) meeting.? GYIBC representatives are the architects and executioners of the current buffalo slaughter and the ongoing threat to the viability of wildlife in the region. These bureaucrats operate as if the public voice were only a nuisance to be ignored as they carry out their draconian plans.??? Our voices were not ignored on Tuesday.?? Buffalo and elk (elk are now suffering test-and-slaughter programs, too) advocates filled the chairs before the Committee's table.? When the time for public comments came, we spoke in defense of the wild.? We pointed out that brucellosis is a cattle-borne disease and the focus should be on cattle, on the disease, and not on our native wildlife.? Josh showed BFC's video footage from the day the DOL ran the buffalo through the ice on Hebgen Lake, demonstrating just a fraction of what their management scheme looks like in reality.? Silence filled the room.? The footage is that powerful, the truth is that profound, the management scheme that cruel and ugly.

During the meeting, GYIBC representatives from the National Park Service (NPS) proudly revealed that they have been cooperating, protecting livestock interests with their recent capture, slaughter and quarantine of 672 wild Yellowstone buffalo. They said though the trap is empty, there are at least 700 buffalo moving north, underway with their natural migration, heading towards the Park's boundary - towards lands owned by the Church Universal & Triumphant (CUT). With numerous hazing operations underway, they confess capture will begin again soon.  And so will slaughter.

The NPS engages in wild buffalo slaughter for the sake of a handful of privately-owned cows across Yellowstone's northern boundary in Montana.? These cows graze and ruin Yellowstone's rich northern range in the Gardiner Basin, critical winter habitat for wild buffalo, elk, pronghorn, and also a significant migration corridor for these and many other wildlife species. Portions of the wild Yellowstone River - the longest undammed river in the contiguous United States - is being trampled and defiled by the CUT ranch cows. The buffalo are being slaughtered for them. Wild rivers and wild buffalo, it seems, share a common threat.

Please be sure to join us today - and until the slaughter stops - in calling the Park Service and CUT (info above) to urge more habitat for wild buffalo and an end to their slaughter. As Margaret Mead's famous quote reads:? "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

For the Wild, ~Stephany

------------------------------ * No More Baby Buffalo in Quarantine! Send Comments!

One hundred wild baby buffalo have been hazed, captured, separated from their mothers and herd members and sent to prison in the Corwin Springs quarantine facility.? Here they will be raised like livestock, confined and fed hay, used in a government experiment to "create a disease-free herd" of buffalo.? More than half will be slaughtered.

The government has plans to expand their quarantine facility which would enable more wild buffalo calves to suffer the same fate.? It's a joint state-federal plan designed by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) and USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).? These agencies are currently accepting comments from you through February 13. Please take action for the wild buffalo calves and express your opposition to this nefarious plan. More information, talking points, and contact information can be found at http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/actionalerts.html#bisonquarantine . You can also contact Josh at bfc-advocate@wildrockies.org with questions.? Please send him a copy of your comments!

Visit our video gallery to see what bison quarantine looks like: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/media/bisonvideogallery.html

The BFC would like to thank PlanetMind Internetworks for hosting our web site on their solar powered server.? 25,000 visitors turned to http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org? in January to learn about the plight of the Yellowstone buffalo and BFC's efforts to bring them lasting protection.? To learn more about Planetmind, please visit: http://www.planetmind.net

Media & Outreach Buffalo Field Campaign P.O. Box 957 West Yellowstone, MT? 59758 406-646-0070 bfc-media@wildrockies.org http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org BFC is the only group working in the field every day to defend the last wild herd of buffalo in America. STOP THE HUNT!? Call Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer: Phone #:? 406-444-3111