Americans Demand Protection for Wild Carnivores; Will Wildlife Agencies Finally Listen?

Camilla Fox

 November 15, 2024 
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Mexican Wolf.. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

The ongoing slaughter of wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains, the return of gray wolves to California, the perilous reintroduction of wolves to Colorado’s Western Slope, and the ongoing debates over removing gray wolves from the Endangered Species List underscore a fundamental divide: the American public overwhelmingly supports protecting wild carnivores, yet many wildlife agencies remain stuck in a bygone era of eradication and control.

A recent national survey conducted by Project Coyote and Colorado State University’s Animal-Human Policy Center highlights this rift between how the public values wildlife versus how policy makers manage wildlife—leaving wolves and other misunderstood species like coyotes, foxes, and bobcats vulnerable to outdated practices that defy public sentiment and scientific understanding.

Wolves, systematically driven from the American landscape through government-sponsored eradication campaigns (often to make room for cattle), were nearly exterminated by the 1970s. Then came the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973, offering wolves and other imperiled species a slim lifeline. Landmark efforts like the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone in the mid-1990s proved the species could rebound when given a chance. Yet, half a century later, wolves and other carnivores are still routinely subjected to unscientific and inhumane treatment.

Despite some policy advances, the grim reality remains: in many states, wolves and other “non-game” carnivores, including coyotes, foxes, and bobcats, face year-round, unregulated killing sprees—even during critical breeding seasons. Unlike deer and elk, which are managed with regulated hunting seasons, wolves and other wild carnivores are often hunted without limit or mercy, subject to “predator whacking” in states like Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho—a grotesque practice that involves using motorized vehicles to run down animals in the wild. Recent legislation in Wyoming aims not to ban this brutality but to codify it into law, exposing the shocking indifference of some lawmakers to animal cruelty.

This unbridled brutality has spurred bipartisan action. The Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons Act, now pending, seeks to end the practice of using motorized vehicles to kill wolves and coyotes on federal lands. The public’s resounding support for these protections is reflected in our survey of U.S. residents on their views toward wildlife killing practices. The results show that over 80% of Americans want limitations on wild carnivore killings, including a ban on purposely running over wild carnivores with vehicles, and 81.7% support a ban on wildlife killing contests. Yet state policies remain shockingly regressive, clinging to practices that prioritize agricultural interests over ecological balance and ethical treatment.

Wyoming’s attempts to enshrine “predator whacking” in law, coupled with federal agencies’ lethal control programs, lay bare the growing disconnect between public opinion and official policy. Recent federal moves to strip wolves of ESA protections further emphasize the need for urgent reform in wildlife management.

In response to growing pressure, some states have restricted the recreational killing of wild carnivores, including ten states who have banned wildlife killing contests. While these steps are critical, they remain insufficient. Systemic reform is essential to prevent future tragedies like the Cody Roberts wolf torture incident and to ensure the ethical treatment of all wildlife.

Our treatment of wolves, coyotes, and other wild carnivores reflects how we value the natural world. As Americans increasingly rally behind wild carnivore protection, wildlife agencies must move beyond the outdated and cruel practices of the past and align our policies with the public’s demand for humane treatment and ecological balance.

Alaska's wildlife is declining. Agencies blame predators. The truth is more complex.

Lois Parshley, Grist
January 11, 2024 

A bear hunts for salmon in Katmai National Park. National Park Service


This story was originally published by Grist. 


As spring arrived in southwestern Alaska, a handful of people from the state Department of Fish and Game rose early and climbed into small airplanes. Pilots flew through alpine valleys, where ribs of electric green growth emerged from a blanket of snow. Their shadows crisscrossed the lowland tundra, where thousands of caribou had gathered to calve. Seen through the windscreen, the vast plains can look endless; Wood-Tikchik State Park’s 1.6 million acres comprise almost a fifth of all state park land in the United States.

As the crew flew, it watched for the humped shape of brown bears lumbering across the hummocks. When someone spotted one, skinny from its hibernation, the crew called in the location to waiting helicopters carrying shooters armed with 12-gauge shotguns.

Over the course of 17 days, the team killed 94 brown bears — including several year-old cubs, who stuck close to their mothers, and 11 newer cubs that were still nursing — five black bears and five wolves. That was nearly four times the number of animals the agency planned to cull. Fish and Game says this reduced the area’s bear population by 74 percent, though no baseline studies to determine their numbers were conducted in the area.

The goal was to help the dwindling number of Mulchatna caribou by reducing the number of predators around their calving grounds. The herd’s population has plummeted, from 200,000 in 1997 to around 12,000 today. But the killings set off a political and scientific storm, with many biologists and advocates saying the operation called into question the core of the agency’s approach to managing wildlife, and may have even violated the state constitution.

The Board of Game, which has regulatory authority over wildlife, insisted that intensive control of predators in Wood-Tikchik was the best way to support the struggling herd. But the caribou, which provide essential food and cultural resources for many Alaska Native communities, are facing multiple threats: A slew of climate-related impacts have hampered their grazing, wildfires have burned the forage they rely on, warmer winters may have increased disease, and thawing permafrost has disrupted their migrations.
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With conditions rapidly changing as the planet warms, wildlife managers nationwide are facing similar biodiversity crises. Rather than do the difficult work of mitigating rising temperatures, state agencies across the country are finding it easier to blame these declines on predation.

“We don’t want to talk about how the tundra is changing, because that’s something we can’t fix,” says Christi Heun, a former research biologist at Alaska Fish and Game.

In Wyoming, where a deadly winter decimated pronghorn and mule deer, the state spent a record $4.2 million killing coyotes and other predators and is considering expanding bear and mountain lion hunts. Wildlife officials in Washington are contemplating killing sea lions and seals to save faltering salmon populations from extinction. In Minnesota, hunters are inaccurately blaming wolves for low deer numbers and calling for authorities to reduce their population. Culls like these are appealing because they are tangible actions — even when evidence suggests the true threat is much more complex. “You’re putting a Band-Aid on the wrong elbow,” says Heun, who now works for the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife.


As the climate crisis intensifies, she and others say, wildlife management strategies need to shift too. “All we can do is just kind of cross our fingers and mitigate the best we can,” she adds. For people whose job is to control natural systems, “that’s a hard pill to swallow.”

***

In January 2022, a flurry of snow fell as the Alaska Board of Game gathered in Wasilla, far from where the Mulchatna caribou pawed through drifts, steam rising from their shaggy backs. Its seven members are appointed by the governor. Though they make important decisions like when hunting seasons open, how long they last, and how many animals hunters can take, they are not required to have a background in biology or natural resources. They also do not have to possess any expertise in the matters they decide. Board members, who did not respond to requests for comment, tend to reflect the politics of the administration in office; currently, under Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy, they are sport hunters, trappers, and guides.



That day, the agenda included a proposal to expand a wolf control program from Wood-Tikchik onto the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge — though that would require federal approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; the government ultimately rejected the proposal.



A wolf carries a piece of prey while walking through a national park in Alaska. National Park Service

The conversation began with two Fish and Game biologists summarizing their research for the board on the herd. Nick Demma explained that, like most ungulates, on average half of Mulchatna’s calves survive. In a study he conducted, many died within two weeks of birth; he mentioned as an aside that their primary predators are brown bears. “But I want to stress that this basic cause of death and mortality rate information is of little use,” he quickly added. Predator and prey dynamics are complex: The calves may have died anyway from injury or disease, and their removal may reduce competition for food and resources, improving the herd’s overall health.

When Demma tried to analyze the existing wolf control program, he found he didn’t have the data he needed to see if removing the canines helped calves survive. In fact, from 2010 to 2021, when Fish and Game was actively shooting wolves, fewer caribou survived. So the researchers turned their attention to other challenges the herd might be facing.

His colleague, Renae Sattler, explained that preliminary data from a three-year study suggested there could be a problem with forage quality or quantity, especially in the summer. This could lower pregnancy rates or increase disease and calf mortality. In the 1990s, the herd had swelled as part of a natural boom-and-bust cycle, leading to overgrazing. The slow-growing lichen the animals rely on takes 20 to 50 years to recover. Compounding that, climate change is altering the tundra ecosystem the animals rely upon. She also found that today, 37 percent of the sampled animals had, or were recently exposed to, brucellosis, which can cause abortions, stillbirths, and injuries. Biologists consider such high levels of disease an outbreak and cause for concern.


Sattler also noted that half of the animals that died in the study’s first year were killed by hunters taking them out of season — meaning the predators killing the most adult caribou were people. For all these reasons, the biologists suggested that the Board of Game reconsider the wolf control program.

Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang, who oversees the agency, immediately questioned their conclusions, and their recommendation. Killing predators, he said during the meeting, “seems like one of the only things that’s within our direct control.” In other words, it was better than doing nothing.

Demma seemed taken aback, and chose his words carefully. “I guess what we are kind of trying to present there is just the information,” he told the board. “It’s — you know — wolves aren’t an important factor right now.” The meeting broke for lunch. When it resumed, the board unanimously voted to continue the wolf program through 2028, and, even more surprisingly, to add brown and black bears over a larger area. The public and Fish and Game biologists didn’t have the typical opportunity to comment on this expansion of predator control.


When he heard what happened, “I just was stunned. I was shocked,” says Joel Bennett, a lawyer and a former member of the Board of Game for 13 years. A hunter himself, Bennett served on the board under four governors and recalls his colleagues having a greater diversity of backgrounds and perspectives. Their votes were always split, even on less contentious issues. The unanimous vote “in itself indicates it’s a stacked deck,” he says. That’s a problem, because “the system only works fairly if there is true representation.”

In August, Bennett and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance filed a lawsuit claiming the agency approved the operation without the necessary “reasoned decision-making,” and without regard for the state’s due process requirements. Bennett also was troubled that the state has tried to keep information about the cull private, including where the bears were killed. He suspects that, to have slain so many animals in just 17 days, the flights might have veered beyond the targeted area. He also wonders if any animals were left wounded. “Why are they hiding so many of the details?” he asked. A public records request reveals that although the board expected the removal of fewer than 20 bears, almost five times that many were culled without any additional consideration.

Alaska’s wildlife is officially a public resource. Provisions in the state constitution mandate game managers provide for “sustained yields,” including for big game animals like bears. That sometimes clashes with the Dunleavy administration’s focus on predator control. In 2020, for example, the board authorized a no-limit wolf trapping season on the Alexander Archipelago, a patchwork of remote islands in southeast Alaska. It resulted in the deaths of all but five of the genetically distinct canines. The Alaska Wildlife Alliance sued, a case Bennett is now arguing before the state Supreme Court. “That was a gross violation of ‘sustained yield’ in anyone’s definition,” he says, adding that even today, there is no limit on trapping wolves there.


Once, shooting bison from moving trains and leaving them to rot was widely accepted. Attitudes have evolved, as have understandings about predators’ importance — recent research suggests their stabilizing presence may play a crucial role in mitigating some of the effects of climate change. Other studies show predators may help prey adapt more quickly to shifting conditions. But Bennett worries that, just as Alaska’s wildlife faces new pressures in a warming world, management priorities are reverting to earlier stances on how to treat animals. “I’ve certainly done my time in the so-called ‘wolf wars,’” Bennett says, “but we’re entering a new era here with other predators.”

***

Even as legal challenges to the board’s decisions move forward, scientific debate over the effectiveness of predator control has flourished. Part of the problem is that game management decisions are rarely studied in the way scientists would design an experiment. “You’ve got a wild system, with free-ranging animals, and weather, and other factors that are constantly changing,” says Tom Paragi, a wildlife biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game. “It’s just not amenable to the classic research design.” Even getting baseline data can take years, and remote areas like Wood-Tikchik, which is accessible only by air or boat, are challenging and expensive places to work.


The sun sets over the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge. Getty Images via Grist

Paragi has for more than a decade monitored the state’s intensive wildlife management programs and believes predator control can be effective. Looking at data collected since 2003, he notes that when Alaska culled wolves in four areas in a bid to bolster moose, caribou, and deer populations, their numbers increased. They also remained low in those areas where wolves were left alone. (His examination of this data has not yet been published or subject to peer review.) Elsewhere in the state, removing 96 percent of black bears in 2003 and 2004, reducing hunting, and killing wolves boosted the number of moose. Heavy snowfall during the next two winters killed many of the calves, and most of the bears returned within six years, but Paragi still considers the efforts a success. By 2009, the moose population had almost doubled.

He’s also not convinced that Demma and Sattler were right when they told board members that predation doesn’t appear to be the most pressing issue for the Mulchatna caribou. He says record salmon runs have likely brought more bears near the park and the calving grounds, and warmer temperatures have fostered the growth of vegetation that provides places to hide as they stalk caribou. As to the suggestion that the herd is suffering from inadequate food supplies, he notes that their birth rate has been high since 2009. That’s often a strong indicator of good nutrition.

But Sattler says, “It isn’t that cut-and-dried.” A female caribou’s body condition, she explains, exists on a spectrum and affects her survival, the size and strength of any calves, and how long she can nurse or how quickly she gets pregnant again. “The impact of nutrition is wide-reaching and complex, and it isn’t captured in pregnancy rates alone.” Understanding how nutrition, brucellosis, and other factors are impacting the herd is complicated, she says.

There are a lot of interacting factors at play on the tundra — and among those trying to determine how best to help the herd. “Part of the frustration on all sides of this is that people have different value systems related to managing wild systems,” Paragi says. To him, last spring’s bear kill wasn’t truly a question of science. “We can present the data, but what you do with the data is ultimately a political decision,” he says.

Sterling Miller, a retired Fish and Game research biologist and former president of the International Association for Bear Research and Management, acknowledges that crafting regulations is left to the politically appointed Board of Game. But Miller says the agency tends to dismiss criticism of its predator control, when there are valid scientific questions about its effectiveness. In 2022, Miller and his colleagues published an analysis, using Fish and Game harvest data, showing that 40 years of killing predators in an area of south-central Alaska didn’t result in more harvests of moose. “Fish and Game has never pointed out any factual or analytical errors in the analyses that I’ve been involved with,” he says. “Instead, they try to undercut our work by saying it’s based on values.”

Miller also was involved in what remains one of the agency’s best examples of predator relocations. In 1979, he and another biologist moved 47 brown bears out of a region in south-central Alaska, which resulted in a “significant” increase in the survival of moose calves the next fall. But Miller says Fish and Game often misquotes that work. In reality, due to a lack of funding, Miller didn’t study the young animals long enough to see if they actually reached adulthood. Similarly, Fish and Game conducted an aerial survey this fall of the Mulchatna herd, finding more calves survived after the bear cullings. But Miller and other biologists say that’s not the best metric to measure the operation’s success: These calves may still perish during their first winter.

The Alaskan government is the only one in the world whose goal is to reduce the number of brown bears, Miller says, despite the absence of baseline studies on how many bears are in this part of the state. It irks him that the state continues to use his research as justification for allowing predator measures like bear baiting. In most parts of Alaska, Miller says, “the liberalization of bear hunting regulations has just been so extreme.”

While last year’s bear killings were particularly egregious, similar cullings have gone largely unnoticed. State data shows over 1,000 wolves and 3,500 brown and black bears have been killed since 2008 alone. In 2016, for example, the federal government shared radio tag information with the state, which used it to kill wolves when they left the safety of the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve — destroying so many packs that it ended a 20-year study on predator-prey relationships. “There weren’t enough survivors to maintain a self-sustaining population,” recounted an investigation by the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The nearby caribou herd still failed to recover.

Multiple employees for Fish and Game, who didn’t want to be named amid fear of repercussions, told Grist that the agency was ignoring basic scientific principles, and that political appointees to the Board were not equipped to judge the effectiveness of these programs.

Even these criticisms of the agency’s science have been subject to politics: This summer, a committee of the American Society of Mammalogists drafted a resolution speaking out about Alaska’s predator control — only for it to be leaked to Fish and Game, which put up enough fuss that it was dropped. Link Olson, the curator of mammals at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, was one of many who supported the group taking a position on the issue. Olson says that even as someone who “actively collect[s] mammal specimens for science,” he is deeply concerned with Alaska’s approach to managing predators.

A month later, 34 retired wildlife managers and biologists wrote an open letter criticizing the bear cull and calling the agency’s management goals for the Mulchatna herd “unrealistic.” Meanwhile, neither Demma nor Sattler, the biologists who cautioned the board, are still studying the herd; Demma now works in a different area of the agency, and Sattler has left the state and taken a new job, for what she says are a variety of reasons.

***

Every fall, millions of people follow a live-streamed view of the biggest bears in Katmai National Park, which sits southeast of Wood-Tikchik. The animals jockey for fish before their hibernation, in an annual bulking up that the National Park Service has turned into a playful competition, giving the bears nicknames like “Chunk,” and, for a particularly large behemoth, 747.

Though marked on maps, animals like 747 don’t know where the comparative safety of the national park ends and where state management begins. This can mean the difference between life and death, as Alaskan and federal agencies have taken very different approaches to predator control: The National Park Service generally prohibits it. This has sparked a years-long federalism battle. Back in 2015, for example, the Board of Game passed a rule allowing brown bear baiting in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, leading the Fish and Wildlife Service to ban it in 2016. The state sued, and in 2020 the Trump administration proposed forcing national wildlife refuges to adopt Alaska’s hunting regulations. Similarly, the National Park Service challenged whether it had to allow practices like using spotlights to blind and shoot hibernating bears in their dens in national park preserves. In 2022, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal agencies have ultimate authority over state laws in refuges; last year, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

How these agencies interact with local communities is markedly different, too. Both Alaska Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have regional advisory groups where residents can weigh in on game regulations, but Alissa Nadine Rogers, a resident of the Yukon- Kuskokwim Delta who sits on each, says that, unlike the federal government, it feels like “the state of Alaska does not recognize subsistence users as a priority.” On paper, the state prioritizes subsistence use, but under its constitution, Alaska can’t distinguish between residents, whereas the federal government can put the needs of local and traditional users first. This has frequently led to separate and overlapping state and federal regulations on public lands in Alaska.

Many people in the region rely on wildlife for a substantial part of their diet. Since the area isn’t connected by roads, groceries must be barged or flown in, making them expensive — a gallon of milk can cost almost $20. In addition to being an important food source, caribou are a traditional part of her Yupik culture, Rogers explains, used for tools and regalia. It’s a real burden for local communities to be told they can’t hunt caribou, which has driven poaching. As state and federal regulations have increased restrictions on hunting, she says residents have difficulty obtaining enough protein to sustain themselves through the winter. “If people don’t understand how it is to live out here, what true perspective do they have?” she asks. “Subsistence users are the ones who bear the burden when it comes to management. And a lot of the time, folks aren’t feeling that their voices are being heard or adequately represented.”

Yet Rogers says state and federal systems can provide an important balance to each other, and she approves of Fish and Game’s predator control efforts. As the former director of natural resources for the Orutsararmiut Native Council, she helped the council write a resolution, later passed by the statewide Alaska Federation of Natives, supporting last spring’s bear and wolf cull. She thinks officials should focus more on climate change but believes culling remains a useful tool. “It gives a vital chance for the [caribou] population and immediately supports growth and recovery,” Rogers says. She also asked Fish and Game to institute a five-year moratorium on all hunting of the herd. “If we go any lower, then we’re pretty much gonna be facing extinction.”

Who gets to make choices about the state’s fish and wildlife resources is a point of increasing tension this year, as a lawsuit unfolds between the state and federal government over who should manage salmon fisheries on the Kuskokwim River, to the west of the Togiak refuge. All five of its salmon returns have faltered for over a decade — making game like caribou even more critical for local communities. (In sharp contrast, to the east of the river, Bristol Bay has seen record recent returns, showing how variable climate impacts can be.) The Alaska Native Federation and the federal government say fishing should be limited to subsistence users, while the state has opened fishing to all state residents.

To ensure Alaska Native communities have a voice in such critical decisions, the Federation called for tribally designated seats on the Board of Game this fall. “We need to have a balanced Board of Game that represents all Alaskans,” says former Governor Tony Knowles. He, too, recommends passing a law to designate seats on the board for different types of wildlife stakeholders, including Alaska Native and rural residents, conservationists, biologists, recreational users, and others. Knowles also proposes an inquiry into Fish and Game’s bear killings, including recommendations on how to better involve the public in these decisions. “We deserve to know how this all happened so it won’t happen again.”

It’s clear to many that business as usual isn’t working. “I have no idea how the state comes up with their management strategy,” says Brice Eningowuk, the tribal administrator for the council of the Traditional Village of Togiak, an Alaska Native village on the outskirts of the Togiak refuge. He says Fish and Game didn’t tell his community about the bear cull, and he expressed skepticism that primarily killing bears would work. “Bears will eat caribou, but that’s not their primary food source,” he says.

Part of the solution is setting more realistic wildlife goals, according to Pat Walsh, whose career as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist involved supervising the caribou program in the Togiak refuge. Recently retired, he says the current goal for the Mulchatna herd size was set 15 years ago, when the population was at 30,000, and is no longer realistic. Reducing that goal could allow targeted subsistence use — which might help ease some of the poaching. Though Fish and Game has killed wolves around the Mulchatna herd for 12 years, he points out the caribou population has steadily dropped. “We recommended the board reassess the ecological situation,” he says, and develop goals “based on the current conditions, not something that occurred in the past.”

Today’s landscape already looks quite different. Alaska has warmed twice as quickly as the global average, faster than any other state. When Rogers was in high school, she tested the permafrost near her house as an experiment. As a freshman, she only had to jam the spade in the ground before she hit ice. By the time she was a senior, it thawed to a depth of 23 inches — and in one location, to 4 feet. Summers have been cold and wet, and winters have brought crippling ice storms, rather than snow. Berry seasons have failed, and the normally firm and springy tundra has “disintegrated into mush,” Rogers says.

Feeling the very ground change beneath her feet highlights how little sway she has over these shifts. “How are you gonna yell at the clouds? ‘Hey, quit raining. Hey, you, quit snowing’?” Rogers asked. “There’s no way you can change something that is completely out of your control. We can only adapt.”

Yet despite how quickly these ecosystems are shifting, the Department of Fish and Game has no climate scientists. In the meantime, the agency is authorized to continue killing bears on the Mulchatna calving grounds every year until 2028. (The board plans to hear an annual report on the state’s intensive management later this month.) As Walsh summarizes wryly, “It’s difficult to address habitat problems. It’s difficult to address disease problems. It’s easy to say, ’Well, let’s go shoot.’”

Management decisions can feel stark in the face of nature’s complexity. The tundra is quite literally made from relationships. The lichen the caribou feed on is a symbiotic partnership between two organisms. Fungus provides its intricately branching structure, absorbing water and minerals from the air, while algae produces its energy, bringing together sunlight and soil, inseparable from the habitat they form. These connections sustain the life that blooms and eats and dies under a curving sweep of sky. It’s a system, in the truest and most obvious sense — one that includes the humans deciding what a population can recover from, and what a society can tolerate.

As another season of snow settles in, the caribou cross the landscape in great, meandering lines. There are thousands of years of migrations behind them and an uncertain future ahead. Like so much in nature, it’s hard to draw a clear threshold. “Everything is going to change,” Rogers says.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.

‘Welcome home, dear ancestor’: after nearly a century, a stolen totem pole returns to the Nisg̱a’a Nation

Story by The Canadian Press • 
This story is a collaboration between The Narwhal and IndigiNews.

Under a protective blanket of low clouds, the Wilps Ni’isjoohl memorial pole returned to Nisg̱a’a territory almost a century after it was stolen in 1929. Imbued with the spirits of ancestors and carved with the crests of names that live on today, the pts’aan (pole) is more than an object — it is an ancestor. Its return to Nisg̱a’a lands was observed with comparable ceremony and protocol for bringing home a loved one who passed.


In Laxg̱alts’ap, a few kilometres from where it once stood in the village of Ank’idaa on the banks of K’alii Aksim Lisims (Nass River), the clouds drifted away and the ancestor breathed Nisg̱a’a air and felt the warmth of the late September sun. An eagle flew slowly across the valley and ravens watched from the surrounding forest as family from Wilps (House) Ni’isjoohl of the G̱anada (raven/frog) clan gathered to celebrate with other citizens of the Nisg̱a’a Nation and guests.

Nisg̱a’a Matriarch Joanna Moody was around 25 years old in 1860 when she commissioned the pole to honour her relative who died defending Nisg̱a’a lands.

“She undertook her leadership at one of the worst times of genocide that we’ve experienced as Nisg̱a’a peoples,” Sigidimnak’ Nox̱s Ts’aawit (Amy Parent) said of her ancestral grandmother. “She also had to undertake her leadership during a time of great grief as she was called upon to erect this memorial pole to honour Ts’waawit, our family member.”

It took around a year for the carver, Oyee, and his assistant, Gwanes, to complete the pole, during which time Joanna Moody housed and fed both, a sign of her wealth and power — derived from the richness of the land and the river that annually brought saak (oolichan) and salmon up from the coast to villages along its banks. Carved from a giant red cedar that Oyee chose from its towering peers in what’s sometimes now called the Nass Valley, the pole depicts several figures, including a raven associated with the G̱anada clan. The hat of the pole is encircled with four rings, commemorating the number of feasts held by the former house chief.

An educator who works in Nisg̱a’a language and cultural revitalization, Nox̱s Ts’aawit is a descendant of Moody, who lived to 115. She said holding four feasts, particularly during that time period, signified the great wealth of the wilps (house.) At every feast, the chief and family give gifts to everyone seated in the feast hall, honouring their role as witnesses. This is true today.

The pole’s creation was rooted in grief and kwhlixhoosa’anskw (respect). But respect was not what it received when it collided with colonization.

In 1929, Canadian anthropologist Marius Barbeau took the pole from the Nisg̱a’a village of Ank’idaa and shipped it to the National Museum of Scotland.

Museum records indicate that Barbeau was commissioned by the institution to purchase the pole for $600. Though these colonial documents show a sale by a Matriarch from the House of Ni’isjoohl, that signature is believed to have been falsified since it contradicts the family’s oral history, according to the Nisg̱a’a.

The family says the pole was stolen by Barbeau with the permission of the Government of Canada during the summertime, when people in the village were away for an annual fishing, hunting and food harvesting season.

“This pts’aan left Ank’idaa and it left under a terrible situation because it was removed without the consent of our community, without the consent of the family,” Apdii Laxha, Andrew Robinson, said. He helped bring the pole home in his role as the former chief administrative officer of the Nisg̱a’a Village of Laxg̱alts’ap. “It encountered horrendous weather and … storms where some of the poles that were wrapped up with it were lost.”

Trafficking totem poles during this era was often done without consent, something that is highlighted in field notes from Barbeau and others involved with taking totem poles — which colonial officials described as “specimens.”

Barbeau had a special affinity for the Nass Valley and for Nisg̱a’a in particular, viewing the carvers from the nation as “on the whole the best in the country,” according to his writings. Though he recognized the significance of the Wilps Ni’isjoohl memorial pole to Nisg̱a’a, having spent time studying their protocols, that didn’t stop him from removing it.

Barbeau’s entire career took place during the Potlatch Ban, a federal law first enacted in 1885 that made potlatching and raising totem poles illegal for 67 years. Barbeau was known for “preserving” the existing northwest coast totem poles during this time — then seen by colonizers as a dying artform — by taking them from Indigenous village sites and distributing them to museums.

“Nearly all the Nass River poles by now have been purchased and removed by the author for various institutions in Canada, the United States, Great Britain and France,” he boasts in the first of his two-volume book Totem Poles, published in 1950.

“The art of totem-pole carving,” he once declared, “now wholly belongs to the past.”

Transporting the towering poles from the remote Nass Valley to museums was no simple task, and often involved cutting them in pieces where they could more easily be floated downriver and later be moved by ship and rail.

When it came to the Wilps Ni’isjoohl memorial pole, the Scottish museum received the pole “in one piece, except for the upper extremity, and certain projecting portions, which have been carved separately and fitted on,” according to a 1931 note from a curator.

It’s now believed by museum staff that the pole was coated with a protective paint so it could be floated down K’alii Aksim Lisims and transported to Edinburgh, where it arrived at the museum in 1930 and remained until its return this September.

The National Museum of Scotland stands in the centre of Edinburgh — a landmark among the many ornate buildings in the city. Nearby looms the historic Edinburgh Castle, housing royal jewels that were recently presented to King Charles III following his coronation.

Prior to returning the pole, the museum’s staff set about readying the space in order for a group from Nisg̱a’a to gather and follow protocol to prepare the pole for its journey home.

Exhibited alongside the pole were various other Indigenous belongings; the museum has an extensive collection from North America, Australia, the Arctic and beyond. But on an August day shortly before the Nisg̱a’a group’s arrival, many of their cases were wrapped in plastic or boarded up for protection, in preparation for the totem pole’s imminent departure.

It was a bright summer day, and bagpipers played outside of the museum, their sound singing out as tourists crowded the streets for the popular annual Fringe Festival. But inside, it was quiet and calm as John Giblin — who oversees the museum’s department of global arts, cultures and design — looked up at the totem pole.

Adjacent to the main hall, the 11-metre pts’aan towered over the gallery as a stunning centrepiece.

Giblin, a courteous man in a well-fitted suit, explained it’s the first totem pole to ever be returned to a First Nation from a United Kingdom museum, calling it an “incredibly significant” moment for both Nisg̱a’a and the National Museum of Scotland.

This return could set a precedent for more returns of cultural items from the United Kingdom and Europe, where other totem poles and many more stolen Indigenous belongings ended up.

A totem pole typically weighs one tonne, and Giblin explained that moving such a large and aged item in one piece is “quite a feat in terms of the logistics.”

“It’s been on display in the museum since 1930,” he said. “The museum’s kind of been built around it in many respects, in different ways. It’s not that easy to actually move the pole out through the museum.”

Giblin said that the museum contracted a company to build scaffolding around the pole and a cradle beneath, “so there is no weight or pressure going on the actual surface of the pole.” Then, it will be gently lowered horizontally and rolled on a trolley through the museum’s underground gallery and outside. The last leg of the journey is by air; the Canadian military organized its flight home.

Saying goodbye to the pole and bringing it to the next phase of its life in Nisg̱a’a homelands, Giblin said, feels right.

“It’s been beneficial for many, many generations of Scottish public and international visitors that have come to see it and learn, but its place now is back home in the Nass Valley,” he said.

“[With] many, many generations of the Nisg̱a’a community who have been separated from it for such a long time.”

When an earlier Nisg̱a’a delegation first asked for the pole’s return in the early 1990s, they were told it was too fragile to be moved. Yet, as Nox̱s Ts’aawit found out, it was later moved to accommodate renovations at the museum.

“That made me very angry,” she said.

“It’s our ancestor, our great-great grandmother,” Sim’oogit Ni’isjoohl (Chief Earl Stevens) said. “We had to get her back on her home soil.”

In 2022, Sim’oogit Ni’isjoohl, Nox̱s Ts’aawit and other Nisg̱a’a leaders went back to Scotland to tell the museum directors they wanted the pole returned.

“We went in with much uncertainty, but with even more determination,” Nox̱s Ts’aawit said. “And I truly believe that we went in with one of the biggest strengths that we have as Nisg̱a’a people. We went in with our hearts and our minds working as one in unity together.”

The Scottish museum, Giblin said, has been putting a larger focus on reconciling the institution’s colonial legacies in recent years — which has included updating displays and labels to address historical biases and updating research behind the scenes. In some cases, those discussions result in returning items in the collection to their original owners.

When the museum eventually agreed to give the pole back to Nisg̱a’a in December 2022, they still had to figure out how to get it safely home.

Andrew Robinson was part of the 2022 delegation. While in Scotland, the group travelled to the University of St. Andrews where Nox̱s Ts’aawit gave a lecture. On their way back to Edinburgh, Sim’oogit Ni’isjoohl said they needed to stop and pause for a moment on Nisg̱a’a lands.

“We stopped at McDonald’s,” Robinson said, laughing. “We’re Nisg̱a’a, it’s part of our territory.”

While they were inside, the building started shaking.

“We heard this big rumble and we were sitting there going, ‘Oh, what’s that?’ We’ve seen these big fighter jets taking off from St Andrews Air Force base and Earl looks at Amy and goes, ‘Wonder if those are Canadian? Maybe we could get the totem pole on that and they could just fly it home,’ ” he said.

“That’s exactly what happened.”

After supporters in Ottawa reached out to the federal government, the Canadian military agreed it would support the rematriation and worked with the Nisg̱a’a delegation to make arrangements.

Less than a year later, the Nisg̱a’a delegation visited Edinburgh again, this time to bring the ancestor home. On August 28, a closed ceremony was carried out to put the pts’aan to sleep in preparation for its journey out of the institution and into the belly of a military plane.

To see the pole off, the Nisg̱a’a leaders gathered with officials from the museum and the Scottish government, and also requested that a group of Scottish children be present to share their culture — reminding them to hold the story for future generations.

“We felt it was important to emphasize to the Scottish people we were interacting with … our shared history of colonization,” Nox̱s Ts’aawit said. “We understand that we have some common experiences with the British and what it means to try to free ourselves from these colonial shackles.”

Scottish people have also historically experienced dispossession at the hands of the English — such as the infamous Stone of Scone, an ancient sandstone artifact that was stolen during the English invasion of Scotland in 1296. The British government returned the stone to Scotland in 1996.

Nox̱s Ts’aawit explained that although these shared histories created a path forward, it wasn’t an easy process, and included some misunderstandings and cultural clashes along the way. However, the two parties have managed to meet in the middle and set a new precedent.

In February, Giblin and the museum’s head of collections Chanté St Clair Inglis travelled to Nisga’a territory to directly experience the culture. Nox̱s Ts’aawit humorously recalled Inglis driving a big Ford pickup truck “on the wrong side of the road” and Giblin participating in a totem pole raising ceremony “in the freezing cold” without proper snow gear.

Bringing Giblin and Inglis to Nisg̱a’a territory bridged a divide in a way that couldn’t be done without a connection to the land and the stewards of that land.

“They saw where we came from, they felt the relationships, they saw our culture and that we weren’t just a totem pole or something behind a piece of glass,” Nox̱s Ts’aawit said. “They saw hundreds of us, thousands of us dancing, and they saw all these different aspects of who we are. And then people started talking to them. And they understood how much it meant to us.”

“There’s always going to be a clash, when we’re engaging with settler colonial institutions and their worldviews,” she added.

To challenge those worldviews and push back against colonial and patriarchal ideas, she said they consciously chose to use the word rematriation. It also just made more sense — Nisg̱a’a society is matrilineal.

After the pole arrived in the town of Terrace, it was driven in a family procession through a winding valley onto Nisg̱a’a lands and to the village of Lax̱g̱altsʼap. The pole was held in a protective box but opened to the air and sun during the public arrival ceremony on Sept. 29. The pole was raised inside the Nisg̱a’a Museum in early October and is available for the public to view until the end of the month.

At the ceremony, two kids jogged after their dad as he walked to get something from their truck.

“You’re a wolf — why are we frogs?” one of the kids asked.

“You follow your mother’s clan, that’s why,” their dad replied.

“The more that we learned about the story and about our ancestral grandmother and her strength and everything that she did in her time, it seemed ill-fitting to call it repatriation,” Nox̱s Ts’aawit explained. “Recognizing that we are a matrilineal society, it’s important for us to return to that and also to look at the complexity of what that means now in a modern era, after the residues of the Indian Act.”

She said reclaiming this identity is part of a healing process.

“It requires all of us — our men, our women, our Two Spirit — working together to create balance by honouring each other’s roles and responsibilities and supporting our children.”

At a feast held by Wilps Ni’isjoohl following the ceremony, Sim’oogit Duuk’ also highlighted the importance of language.

“Artifacts belong to extinct civilizations,” he said. “We are not extinct.”

Eva Clayton, president of Nisg̱a’a Lisims Government who holds the name Sigidimnaḵ’ Yats’, called the moment historic.

“It brings a lot of emotions to our nation, emotions that are filled with happiness, filled with grief, filled with tears,” she said. “We’re so very happy to have our ancestor home. We are on a journey together to show the world what reconciliation in action looks like.”

The pole was returned with an understanding that once it was back on Nisg̱a’a lands, the family would make decisions for its future.

Theresa Schrober, director of the Nisg̱a’a Museum, said this is an important distinction, explaining the museum has over 300 cultural belongings that have been returned by settler institutions — but those returns were conditional.

“The nation was required to construct a … facility to house those belongings,” she said, standing under a pole that was returned from the Royal BC Museum in Victoria after the Nisg̱a’a Museum was built in 2011. “That is very much a reach into the future: ‘we’ll return but we’re not letting go.’ It’s shrouded in a colonial way of thinking about how those belongings need to be conserved, treated, the kind of space they need to be in.”

She said the only condition Scotland included in the final negotiations was the pole had to go to a “like institution.”

“Should the family have made other choices, the museum would have facilitated those other choices,” she said. “That is really critical because I think it’s a learning moment for other institutions, about respecting that the people whose belongings they have should be making the decisions about those belongings’ care and futures, and that they should not be infiltrated with the belief systems of the people that were inappropriately housing them for all that time.”

The rematriation of the Wilps Ni’isjoohl pole from a European institution was preceded by the return of the Xenaksiala/Haisla Gʼpsgolox pole from Sweden in 2006. That, too, had conditions attached initially.

The pole was to be returned only if the nation could house it in a climate-controlled building — something that didn’t exist, nor did the funding to build one. After the family of Gʼpsgolox offered to carve a replica pole for the Stockholm museum, the Swedish negotiators eventually conceded the original. After spending six years in Kitimaat Village, the pole was taken back to the Xenaksiala village of Misk’usa, where it was first raised and where it is slowly returning to the land.

Finally home, the Wilps Ni’isjoohl memorial pole was draped with cedar boughs, welcomed and honoured by its kin. The family decided the pole would live at the Hli Goothl Wilp-Adokshl Nisg̱a’a (Heart of Nisg̱a’a House Crests, also known as the Nisg̱a’a Museum) where it will stand in soil gathered from Ank’idaa.

Sim’oogit Luudisdoos walked slowly forward to stand next to the pts’aan as he shared a song and said a prayer.

“We’re gathered here on such a special occasion to bring healing to our people,” he said, his clear voice wavering with emotion. “This is one of our ancestors that has been brought home and all our ancestors are here today.”

“Great spirits, grandmothers, grandfathers: so grateful for bringing us together in a good way with a good open heart and open mind. Guide us well.”

The day after the ceremony and feast celebrating the pole’s return, community members gathered on a street outside a house in Laxg̱alts’ap to honour a family member who had passed away. When someone dies, the house holds a settlement feast and, roughly one year later, the headstone that was created for them is taken to the graveyard and a stone moving feast is held.

To accommodate the return of the ancestor, stone movings and feasts had been postponed. Now, with many of the same Simgigat (Chiefs) and Sigidimhaanaḵ’ (Matriarchs) who spoke at the ceremony standing in the cold outside the house, proper protocol was observed. One by one, each Sim’oogit walked up to the headstone and spoke softly in the Nisg̱a’a language as kids, aunties and uncles, cousins and friends listened.

Later, standing in a temporary tent set up to protect the pole before it’s raised in the museum, Nox̱s Ts’aawit spoke about the deep connections between the ancestor and the Nisg̱a’a today.

“Many of the crests on here represent particular names in our house,” she said, gently resting her hand on the pole. “Those names are tied to pieces of land that are within what we call our ango’oskw, our house territory. In each generation, these names are passed down so the names never die, the people do and the people get replaced. We are living descendants of these names that are carved in this pole.”

For the Nisg̱a’a, she said, bringing the ancestor home is the first part of a long journey.

“In the spiritual realm, I don’t know what that’s going to mean,” Nox̱s Ts’aawit said. “I think it’s going to mean a gift in terms of our healing. I think there will be a transformation. But I don’t know what that’s going to feel like until we go through it.”

Until then, she’s relieved the pole made it safely home.

“Welcome home, dear ancestor. It’s been a journey.”

During the reporting of this story, The Narwhal’s Matt Simmons and photographer, Marty Clemens, made a mistake that resulted in a breach of protocol. Protocol specifies no one but family members of Wilps (House) Ni’isjoohl is allowed to touch the ancestor. While taking photos of the ancestor from above, the ladder Marty was standing on gave out and he fell, touching the pole. We are working with Nox̱s Ts’aawit and Wilps Ni’isjoohl to make things right. For transparency and teaching, we wrote about what happened and why it’s important for journalists to decolonize their work.

Cara McKenna and Matt Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Narwhal

HUMAN'S ARE THE WORSE DANGER
EU chief warns wolf packs 'real danger' in Europe 

SPECIESISM

By AFP

September 4, 2023

A wolf  photographed in Kuhmo in northeastern Finland - 

Copyright Lehtikuva/AFP/File Jussi Nukari

Dave CLARK

Brussels launched a review Monday of laws protecting wolves from hunters and farmers, as EU chief Ursula von der Leyen argued that packs threaten livestock and perhaps even people.

Wolves were once hunted to near extinction in Europe, but in the 1950s countries began granting them protected status. Now populations are growing in several regions.

"The concentration of wolf packs in some European regions has become a real danger for livestock and potentially also for humans," von der Leyen said.

The president of the European Commission has personal experience of the alleged threat posed by wolves.

In September last year, a wolf crept into a paddock on the family's rural property in northern Germany and killed her beloved elderly pony Dolly.

Conservationists, however, have hailed the return of healthier wolf populations to Europe's mountains and forests, seeing the large predator as part of the natural food chain.

Under the EU Habitat Directive, first adopted in 1992, the wolf enjoys protected status.

But local and national exceptions to the law are possible, and von der Leyen urged "authorities to take action where necessary", adding: "Indeed, current EU legislation already enables them to do so."

Her statement urged local communities, scientists and officials to submit data on wolf numbers and their impact to a European Commission email address by September 22.

Using this information, the commission will then decide how to modify wolf protection laws "to introduce, where necessary, further flexibility".

The European Commission's announcement received angry comments from animal lovers on social media, many pointing out there have been no fatal attacks on humans by wolves in Europe for decades.

– 'Brave and clear' –

But major European member state governments are thinking along the same lines as Brussels — as are some political parties keen to court rural voters angered by environmental protection laws.

German environment minister Steffi Lemke plans to put forward proposals to make it easier to shoot wolves that have attacked livestock.

"The shooting of wolves after their attacks must be made possible more swiftly and unbureaucratically," Lemke told Welt daily, adding that she will present her plans at the end of September.

"It is a tragedy for every livestock farmer and a great burden for those affected when dozens of sheep that have been ripped apart are lying on the pasture," said the Green Party politician.

French agriculture minister Marc Fesneau thanked von der Leyen for taking a "brave and clear" stance on the issue, urging European authorities to "advance with pragmatism".

While the rules had been introduced to protect an endangered species, he said, "now it is the farmers and their business that are in danger".

DC/FG

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned Monday of the "real danger" of wolf packs in the European Union, announcing a possible revision of the protection status for the animal.

"The concentration of wolf packs in some European regions has become a real danger to livestock and, potentially, to humans," the German official said in a statement.

For the Commission, "the return of wolves to parts of the EU where they have been absent for a long time leads to increasing conflicts with local farming and hunting communities, especially when measures to prevent attacks on livestock are not fully implemented".

The Commission calls on "local communities, scientists and all interested parties to submit, by 22 September, updated data on wolf populations and their impacts".

The question of the number of wolves present in different European countries is at the heart of lively debates – and a real battle of figures – between breeders and environmental protection associations.

"On the basis of the data collected, the Commission will decide on a proposal to amend, where appropriate, the protection status of wolves in the EU and to update the legal framework, in order to introduce, where necessary, more flexibility, in the light of the evolution of this species," the EU executive added, adding that this would "complement the current possibilities offered by EU legislation".

Under the EU's 1992 Habitats Directive, most wolf populations in Europe enjoy strict protection, with derogation possibilities. This regime implements the requirements of the Berne International Convention.

"I call on local and national authorities to take appropriate action. Indeed, current EU legislation already allows them to do so," von der Leyen said.

Ms von der Leyen herself had a bad experience with the wolf: in September 2022, one of them broke into an enclosure on her von der Leyen family's property in northern Germany and killed her old pony, Dolly.

EU reviews wolf's protected status, Germany considers culls

Wolves are currently highly protected under both German and EU law. 

Populations have grown rapidly over the last decade, with farmers pointing to the threat the EU's 19,000 wolves pose to livestock.

Wolves were systematically eradicated in much of Western Europe and only returned to Germany two decades ago after migrating westward from Poland.

 Jonas Ekstromer/STF/picture alliance

The European Commission on Monday launched a study in order to review the protected conservation status of wolves in the EU.

Wolves are currently highly protected under both German and EU law.

There are 1,200 wolves in Germany, according to official figures from 2021-2022. Experts estimate there are up to 19,000 wolves in countries across the EU, with numbers having grown by 25% over the last decade.

Wolves had long been extinct in much of Western Europe after having been systematically eradicated, and only returned to Germany two decades ago after migrating westward from Poland.

While environmental activists and others have lauded the increase in wolf populations as an example of successful conservation and oppose new culls, farmers have complained of the threat the predators pose to livestock.



Wolves 'real danger for livestock, humans' — von der Leyen

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement that wolf numbers have "become a real danger for livestock and potentially also for humans” in some parts of Europe.

She urged "local and national authorities to take action where necessary," adding that current laws already allow for this possibility.

"Where there is a clear danger, local authorities are allowed to permit hunting," she said. "I think this is an absolute right."

The commission has asked scientists, local communities and other interested parties to submit data on wolf populations and their impacts by September 22.

Von der Leyen's own pet pony was killed by a wolf last year in the northwestern German state of Lower Saxony, an incident which was widely reported on in German media.

Meanwhile, German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke of the Greens said she supports rules that make it easier to shoot wolves to protect livestock.

"Shooting wolves after they have killed has to happen faster and with less bureaucracy," she told the Die Welt daily on Monday.

"When dozens of sheep are killed and lie dead on the meadow, it is a tragedy for every livestock farmer and a very great burden for those affected," she said.

"[Farmers] need more support and security," the minister stressed.

Lemke aims to present new plans by the end of September. However, these could be difficult to implement due to the fact that wolf management corresponds to powers held by the state governments.

Farmers, conservationists disagree on wolf control measures

The head of the German Farmers' Association, Bernhard Krüsken, called Lemke's propsal a "smokescreen" in comments to the German Press Agency (dpa).

He said that that farmers want "real wolf management" and for the species' protected status to be removed, which would then allow culls.

However, German environmental groups have argued against hunting wolves.

"For the number of grazing animals killed, it is not the number of wolves that is decisive, but the number of unprotected grazing herds," Uwe Friedel, wolf expert at the BUND conservation group said.

Marie Neuwald, wolf and grazing specialist at the Nabu conservation group, asserted that even smaller numbers of wolves could pose a threat to livestock.

"Hunting does not lead to wolves keeping more distance to grazing animals," she said. Instead, she advocated for financial support for farmers to implement herd protection measures.

sdi/jcg (dpa, AP)

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