WILDLIFE
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:
The National Parks Board of South
Africa announced May 10 that, “To maintain
for as long as possible the option of translocat-
ing family groups of elephants,” only 300 will
be killed this year instead of 600 as biologists rec-
ommended. “The breeding herds will mainly be
culled in areas where the greatest damage has been
done to trees,” the NPB added. “Of special con-
cern is the declining baobob population,” in
Kruger National Park, which has about 8,000 ele-
phants in an area the size of Israel. The elephants,
including 70 bulls, are to be shot from helicopters.
Tranquilizer darts will no longer be used before-
hand because this appears to increase rather than
decrease the stress to the elephants, who afterward
are immobile but fully conscious.
Vietnam announced April 23 that it is
establishing 87 national parks and reservations to
preserve an estimated 170 plant species and 60 ani-
mal species who may be threatened by the quest
for traditional medicines. Fifty years ago,
Vietnam was 75% forested; cut back by logging
and warfare, forest now covers only 23%.
The Biodiversity Legal Foundation on
April 17 sued Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit for
allegedly violating the Endangered Species Act by
failing to rule within 90 days on the BLF’s request
that wolverines be added to the Endangered
Species List. Wolverines are now scarce and per-
haps threatened throughout their known range,
and have been extirpated from much habitat by
trappers, who hate them for their habit of eating
trapped animals, spoiling the pelts.
Hunted out in 1866, elk returned to
Wisconsin on May 4 when a herd of 25 trucked
from Michigan’s Lower Peninsula were released
into the Chequamegon National Forest. The
release site is on top of a huge underground
extreme low-frequency radio grid, used by the
Navy to communicate with submarines.
The San Gabriel Mountain bighorn
sheep population in Angeles National Forest,
California, has plunged from as many as 700 circa
1971 to just 60 as of this March. Theories as to
why range from faulty aerial survey work to puma
predation to poaching to habitat damage caused by
brushfires. The sheep are thriving at other loca-
tions.
Wolves
One of the 14 wolves released
in Yellowstone National Park in
January vanished circa April 29; his
radio collar, apparently removed by
human hands, was found outside the
park, near Red Lodge, Montana. The
missing wolf is believed to be the father
of a litter of seven pups born to a relocat-
ed female––on a rancher’s land ––circa
May 5. Defenders of Wildife has offered
the rancher $5,000 if the wolves are left
alone for the rest of 1995, and has posted
a reward of $5,000 for information lead-
ing to the conviction of anyone who may
have killed the missing wolf.
Friends of Animals on May 1
asked Bruce Babbitt to halt Animal
Damage Control program killing of
wolves in Minnesota, unless ranchers
have take precautions against predation
such as maintaing fences and removing
carcasses; to ban killing pups; to avoid
orphaning pups; to cease killing whole
packs without evidence that packs rather
than individuals are responsible for
attacks on wildlife; and to ban “inhumane
treatment of wolves,” including catching
them with leghold traps and neck snares.
While leghold traps were used to catch the
wolves released in Yellowstone, such
live-trapping requires much closer moni-
toring than either ADC or fur trappers are
wont to do, to respond to any injuries
caused by the trap itself; to prevent self-
injury through attempted wring-off; and
to prevent harm from shock and exposure.
