Summary
Personally, wolves are the coolest creatures ever to walk the Earth. I love them and love to learn about them. I even draw them. It kill's me to see and hear about people who hurt wolves. On this page I will tell you about some of the evil things that people do. If you have any question's I will be more than happy to answer them. If I don't know the answer I will try to do some more research on the matter.
Hunting
Summary
It is now illegal to hunt wolves in most places in the the United States, but that doesn't stop poachers. Wolves have been hunted almost to extinction in many places. The lower 48 states contain almost no wolves. A few species survived and others were reintroduced by scientists. Red Wolves live in the southeastern parts of the United States. They became extinct in the wild once but were reintroduced into the wild after a breeding program was established in 1980 where a few captive red wolves were bread. There are only about 100 red wolves in the wild today. In Canada, over 17,000 wolves have been poisoned.
Colonial Times
Long ago, Indian tribes such as the Cherokee, the Kwakiutl, and the Ahtna. The Cherokee refused to kill a wolf unjustly. They believed bad luck would come from killing a wolf unjustly. They believed the wolf's pack would come to seek revenge. The Kwakiutl would lay the wolf out on a blanket and have portions of its flesh eaten by the perpetrators, who would express regret at the act before burying it. The Ahtna propped the dead wolf in a sitting position in one of there huts. They would then have a shaman place a banquet in front of the wolf.
In some Eskimo tribes, when a wolf was killed, they would pace around their house four times to express regret. They would also restrain from sexual relation's with their wives for four days.
Once the Europeans colonized America, a wolf bounty was established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony on November 9, 1630. Other wolf bounties were placed in Jamestown, Virginia on September 4, 1632. They also opened up in other colonies. People were paid in tobacco, wine, corn, and cash. By 1688, a law had been created that it was required of Native Americans to pay a tribute of 145 wolves for every 725 hunters in a tribe. By this time Native Americans were not paid for wolves. As settlers moved west in search of more land they saw wolves as a greater problem and more and more wolves were being hunted. By 1926, wolves had become extinct in Yellowstone National Park. In the 1920's and 1930's, over 21,000 wolves were killed each year. It would be many years before any bans were put against hunting wolves.
In 1793, the first Canadian wolf bounty was placed in Ontario and Quebec. Wolves had disappeared as far north as Newfoundland by 1913. By the 1950's, people had begun to poison wolves with cyanide. Wolf populations continued to increase and decrease though due to the lower population of humans in Canada. Thus there was more free land for wolves to roam.
Wolf hunting today.
The federal government removed wolves from the endangered species list due to population increase after reintroduction of wolves bread by scientist's. Montana now has an official wolf hunting season that last's one month. Hunters have an annual limit of one wolf per hunter. It is illegal to shoot a wolf with a .22 caliber rifle in Alaska due to the wolf being listed as big-game. In Alaska, the wolf still freely roams over almost all of the land despite the past century of hunting and trapping.
Hunting Methods
People have used a wide variety of hunting methods to hunt wolves. Many of them are incredibly cruel. They range from Aerial Hunting, Hunting with Dogs, Hunting with Eagles, Blind, Calling, Flagging, Knife Traps, and Trapping Pits.
Aerial Hunting was where hunters would shoot wolves from either a plane or helicopter. Aerial Hunting was most popular in the Soviet Union and Alaska. It is now illegal to use the Aerial Hunting method in Alaska. The hunters would use Rocket Guns to scare the wolves into the open and then the wolves would be shot from the rear cockpit or the left side of the plane from about 18-20 meters away. Markers would be thrown out of the plane so that the wolves could be later found and picked up. They would often tie the bodies to the plane.
The ban of Aerial Hunting was passed by Congress in 1972. The federal legislation does permit licensed individuals to hunt wolves from a plane to keep the population under control.
Torture
Wolves are not only shot and killed, but also captured and tortured. Why? Don't ask me, I don't know how people can do such thing's. One place to learn of this is
http://www.heartofthewolf.org/TheOppressed.htm
I would prefer you go to this website to learn of this. There Is much graphic content that I would rather not discuss on this page. I highly suggest that you read this page though.
What we can do to Help!!!
There are many things you can do to help. One of the most simple is to learn and spread knowledge. Simply bring it up in a conversation with your friends or e-mail someone. Here are some other places you can go to help out!!!
http://www.panda.org/how_you_can_help/index.cfm
Another way you can help out is to donate money to the right organizations. You don't have to give a lot, every little bit counts!!!(below is one URL).
https://secure.nwf.org/donationSystem/index.cfm?campaign=1283&species=lynx&cpId=0&clearSession=1&mid=&fid=&email=&impressionSource=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Enwf%2Eorg%2Fendangered%2Fgraywolf%2Ecfm&user_fedId=&user_prefix=&user_suffix=&user_country=&user_firstnam
