Oliver Starr

Bottle feeding a tiny 🌞🐺#SunnyWolf, spring 2023.

The Guardian. As the mature male in our multi-generational family group, @iqniq1 takes his security duties seriously.

The Tribal Heritage and American Bison, Grizzly Bear, and Wolf Restoration and Coexistence Act has been introduced to both chambers of Congress! We stand in solidarity with tribal leaders as they champion this vital initiative to protect wildlife.

Photographers and videographers, join us in advocating for an end to wildlife killing contests. Sign our petition and join our #CaptureCoexistence community: tinyurl.com/mue4m83f 📷 Sara Ann Callaway, #CaptureCoexistence Contributor

By a narrow 6-4 vote, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission implemented several new regulations regarding recently reintroduced gray wolves, notably permitting the use of night vision techn for both hazing & killing wolves amidst their ongoing recovery. 📷 NPS | Jay Elhard

I love this! Can’t wait for the book to come out !

Join us to demand justice for this wolf and all wild wolves. Together, we will show #Wyoming, and the rest of the country, that we will not allow #wolves, #coyotes or any wild animals, to be legally tortured. tinyurl.com/5n82muf8 📷 Franz Camenzind

Write your U.S. senators and ask them to co-sponsor and pass the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act. #KeepItWild wildernesswatch.salsalabs.org/nrepa_senate/i…

Beautiful wolves at golden hour youtube.com/shorts/7eUKTo2… via @YouTube

My thoughts on how CPW may have already botched this wolf release . 🧵 I have grave concerns about how CPW Is handling this Wolf reintroduction. First, they gave away strong protections and any incentive ranchers might have for doing aggressive non-lethal with 10j.

Though small in absolute numbers, #wolves have an outsized impact. A keystone species, they keep nature in balance and ecosystems healthy. The slaughter taking place in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming is an affront to nature and an abrogation of state stewardship responsibilities.

🚨Want to experience wolf research and monitoring in Slovakia ? 🐺Join the Carpathian Wolf Watch on their White Wilderness 2024 trips and learn about tracking, wildlife monitoring and large carnivore ecology🐾 For more info or to register go to: slovakwildlife.org/en/activities/…

The reason the US has more mass shootings than the rest of the world combined is because people like this have guns.

Idaho has just launched an unconscionable campaign to pay an aerial killer to gun down wolves that have not caused any problems. We must make our voices heard this is a wildlife atrocity. youtube.com/shorts/-BssIk_…

Snow #wolf! ⁦@Aqutaq⁩ enjoying the winter of 2019.

This is unacceptable! Red wolves are the most endangered canids on earth, and one of the only places they exist is #Galveston island, yet the 🤬🤬🤬 City Council plans to pave over their only home! Help me stop them!

@PalmerReport @BlueStormComin1 Yippee! It’s on like donkey kong now. Bye Felicia!

@VoyaWolfProject Wow. What a simplistic excuse for a dialog on science. What about the fact that damaging wolf family groups by hunting destabilizes them, resulting in increased livestock predation? Or that CWD is spreading unchecked and only wolves seem to slow the disease?

So should or shouldn’t we hunt wolves? We recently stated that all the scientific evidence we are aware of indicates that hunting wolves will not help increase deer fawn survival in any significant way. But does such a conclusion really tell us we shouldn't hunt wolves? One of most problematic issues in the debate over wolf management (i.e., pro vs. anti-hunting/trapping) is the conflation of science with values. Ultimately, whether we should or should not hunt wolves is not a scientific question but rather a question about values. And the conflation of science and values is clearly illustrated by the fact that individuals and groups who are both for and against wolf hunting/trapping both say the science supports their perspective and values. How can that possibly be? The reality is that the science supports neither perspective. Although science can help inform and help shape values, science cannot tell us what we ought to do. For instance, science can help us understand how wolf populations function and what might happen to wolf populations under various management scenarios but it cannot tell us whether we should hunt or protect wolves. The science, for example, is pretty clear that we could kill a certain percentage of wolves in Minnesota without negatively impacting population size year over year. Indeed, wolf populations can be quite resilient to even high-levels of hunting/trapping at times. The science is also pretty clear that wolf populations regulate themselves based on resource availability (e.g. prey). If wolf populations exceed available resources, then populations decline until they reach a level that is sustainable with available resources and vice versa. The science could also tell us that if we killed a substantial percent of the wolves in the state, then the overall wolf population in the state would likely decrease to a certain number of wolves. These examples all illustrate what the science could tell us about various management scenarios. But in none of these instances does science tell us which scenario is the best or what we should do. And this is where values come in because values inform what we think ought to happen. If one values hunting and trapping and thinks of wildlife as renewable resources, then that person would likely support recreational wolf hunting/trapping. On the flip side, if one thinks hunting/killing any animal is wrong or that there is really no need to kill animals that regulate their own populations, then that person would be against wolf hunting. Back to the billboard: Our objective in assessing the billboard was to examine the evidence regarding the factual claims made by the billboard (wolves eat >54,000 fawns) and the reason the group put up the billboard (hunting wolves would save fawns). In this instance, this chapter of the Minnesota Deer Hunter's Association made a scientific statement about managing wolves which was inaccurate and not supported by the evidence. Unsurprisingly, our critique of the billboard led some to conclude we are a biased anti-hunting organization that is secretly trying to protect wolves and thus our critique is biased/slanted, and we cherry-picked data. However, our assessment of the billboard was not a statement for or against deer hunting or wolf management/hunting of wolves. Nor was it a statement against the folks in this chapter. A few years back, we gave a presentation to the chapter of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association that put up the billboard. They were very welcoming, asked great questions, and were very interested in learning more about our research. They even provided a $2,500 donation to our project to support our work (which, ironically, caused some wolf/wildlife advocates to really come at us because we were now in bed with the hunters). All this to say, our experience with these folks has been largely positive. Ok, this is getting really long so we are going to wrap it up here. In conclusion, wolves and other wildlife are held in the public trust and management should therefore reflect what the public/society as a whole values. As such, what we (as individuals on our project) value in regards to wolf management is no more important than anyone reading this—whether you are a wolf advocate or favor wolf hunting. Given this, we try our absolute best to stick to what can be determined/understood objectively and scientifically, and leave the larger, more complicated discussions about wolves and society’s values to others.

Since 1985, 422 dogs have died pursuing wolves. That's 422 preventable dog fights costing WI taxpayers $992,000. Not all livestock depredations are preventable, but 100% of hound deaths are; just ban hounding. @SenatorBaldwin #supportsdogfighting or she wouldn't support this bill