One of my friends returned from a weekend in the Rocky Mountains laden with photos of the beautiful scenery. When one of these photos was of a wolf she had seen on a frozen lake near Banff I couldn’t help but be extremely jealous and amazed. Wolves have always been one of my favourite animals. When I was younger my favourite books were ‘White Fang, ‘Call of the Wild’, and ‘White Wolf’. Wolves always seemed so beautifully mysterious to me and they seem to commonly be associated with the mythical wilderness that exists beyond human contact.
Apart from the feelings of envy, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the tragic situation which exists for the wolves of Canada at the present time. Due to the precariously low numbers of caribou in the north of Alberta, the government have decided that a wolf cull is the solution. Anyone who cares about the mistreatment of animals will find this horrendously upsetting and angering because the deterioration of the caribou is so evidently because of the actions of HUMANS in the north of Alberta. The tar sands have destroyed miles and miles of crucial land which the caribou were once so dependent on. Even though this obvious, the Canadian government have decided that wolves are to blame for the caribous dwindling numbers, despite the fact that wolves have been hunting caribou for thousands of years and their populations haven’t, until now, been anywhere near this low. Another fact which increases my anger and disbelieve at this action is that it is known that caribou are not wolves’ main source of food.
Wolves are being poisoned, shot from helicopters and aggressively hunted. Contractors are being employed to kill whole wolf packs that are seen to be living in areas where livestock or caribou are. It is not only Alberta which is accepting this upsetting slaughter; British Colombia sees 1300 wolves killed each year and throughout Canada and Alaska this slaughter is commonplace.
The prospect of this action terrifies and upsets me. Contacting the governments involved and signing petitions against this barbaric act seem to be the starting point to combat this slaughter. There are also animal activists which are putting pressure on the governments to reconsider their ignorant policy.
http://www.raincoast.org/tag/bc-wolf-cull/
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