[MCN] You can STOP Wolf Bounty bill!

[Connie Poten]

*Legislative Alert~ Help Defeat HB 279!*

*    Bounties for wolf trappers—NO!*



*Jennifer Fielder’s Senate Fish and Game Committee just passed HB 279. It’s
now up to citizens to inform all Montana Senators about the true costs of
this unethical and destructive bill. *



*HB 279 would pay expenses for trappers who kill wolves.*

• *S*ets a precedent. If wolf trappers get all-expenses-paid outings, why
shouldn’t hunters expect payment for killing deer, elk, mountain lions,
etc.?



• *I*s based on a program in Idaho, where private money paid the bounty,
but now the state pays. Once the bill becomes law, private organizations
leave the stage. *Our state tax dollars would subsidize trappers who kill
wolves. *


*• **Pays up to $1,000 for reimbursement.  *Just show receipts. This bill
can cover a new camo outfit, a couple of nights at a deluxe Montana resort,
and the gas to get there.  What’s wrong with that? It’s a great deal for
‘ethical’ trappers—and their friends, which can extend that $1,000 each
quite nicely.



•  *HB 279* *undermines disease control.*

Wolves control disease like CWD. Wolves take sick and weak game
animals.  Wolves
keep game animals on the move, which helps contain the spread of CWD.
Wolves and other predators clean the land of the prions that exist in
carcasses.

Research is leading to the conclusion that humans will likely be
susceptible to CWD.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/columnists/paul-smith/2017/06/28/macaque-study-heightens-concerns-human-susceptibility-cwd/430046001/



•  *Weather, not wolves, accounts for temporary decreased elk populations
in certain areas. *In 1995, when wolves were reintroduced, Montana had
95,000 elk . Today, 176,000 elk in Montana.



• *Montana already has liberal wolf-killing regulations*. Anyone can shoot
wolves claiming threats to them or their livestock on their property.
Licensed hunters and trappers can kill 5 wolves per person.

Increasing this with bounties harms healthy game animal populations. The
relentless tearing down of the essential social structure of wolf packs
only increases instability and leads to juvenile attacks on livestock. A
record 315 wolves were killed this season, 130 by trappers. *We don’t need
to kill more wolves.*



• *Wolves restore habitat* overgrazed and eroded by unchecked ungulate
populations. Yellowstone’s recovery proves wolves bring back plant life,
bring back beavers who create wetlands that bring back all wildlife where
streams were badly eroded ditches.


*Please ask your senator and all senators to vote NO on HB 279, a future
tax burden that is also an ecologically detrimental and unethical anti-wolf
bill. *

*Please write all senators. You can bcc them and write the same letter to
all.*



SENATE

goodwind1.duane at gmail.com

rnewbar at gmail.com

bennettformontana at gmail.com

Mark.Blasdel at mtleg.gov

Kenneth.Bogner at mtleg.gov

Carlie.Boland at mtleg.gov

Dee.Brown at mtleg.gov

Jill.cohenour at mtleg.gov, Jennifer.fielder at mtleg.gov,
steve.hinebauch at mtleg.gov, jason.ellsworth at mtleg.gov, pat.flowers at mtleg.gov,
david.howard at mtleg.gov, tom.jacobson at mtleg.gov, mike.lang at mtleg.gov,
edie.mcclafferty at mtleg.gov, cary.smith at mtleg.gov

mcuffe at interbel.net

Janet.Ellis at mtleg.gov

Jason.Ellsworth at mtleg.gov

johnesp2001 at yahoo.com

Steve.Fitzpatrick at mtleg.gov

Terry.Gauthier at mtleg.gov

Bruce.Gillespie at mtleg.gov

Jen.Gross at mtleg.gov

Brian.Hoven at mtleg.gov

Doug.Kary at mtleg.gov

Bob.Keenan at mtleg.gov

Margie.MacDonald at mtleg.gov

senatormalek at gmail.com

NateForSD48 at gmail.com

Mary.McNally at mtleg.gov

Albert.Olszewski at mtleg.gov

ryanosmundson at gmail.com

mikephillips at montana.net

jp.pomnichowski at mtleg.gov

Keith.Regier at mtleg.gov

Tom.Richmond at mtleg.gov

Scott.Sales at mtleg.gov

dan.salomon at mtleg.gov

Diane.Sands at mtleg.gov

jon.sesso at mtleg.gov

Jason.Small at mtleg.gov

Frank.Smith at mtleg.gov

Russ.Tempel at mtleg.gov

Fred.Thomas at mtleg.gov

VanceSD34 at gmail.com

Gene.Vuckovich at mtleg.gov

webb4mt at hotmail.com

Susan.Webber at mtleg.gov

Jeff.Welborn at mtleg.gov



*THANK YOU FOR SPEAKING OUT AGAINST HB 279! *



Many legislators don’t have time to read bills and depend on the committee
to tell them how to vote. *Jennifer Fielder* is chair of the Senate Fish
and Game Committee, which killed a bill to stop ‘yote whacking, a vicious
‘sport’ of running over coyotes, wolves, any animal in their way, with
snowmobiles and ATVs and then slamming the animals’ bodies against the
machines until they are dead. Even the Safari Club International came out
against this savage cruelty—but not Montana’s Senate Fish and Game
Committee.



It’s essential that we speak out and let our elected officials know *we are
watching, we care and we vote*.





*Thank you for your defense of wildlife in a last refuge, Montana,*



*Your friends at Footloose Montana*










-- 
Constance J. Poten
4175 Rattlesnake Drive
Missoula, MT  59802
406-549-4647

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