I never found out why the animal was off exhibit – the sign said the female was under veterinary care.

The Museum is also home to a black bear, lemurs, a butterfly house, and several other interactive / indoor exhibits.

The entrance fee was $12.50 for adults. There is a cafe on site and you are allowed to bring your own snacks and drinks. Several rest areas along the outdoor trail.

Maybe when it cools off here I will try to visit again.

For more information visit the Museum of Life and Science website at http://www.ncmls.org

If you were planning on hunting gray wolf in Idaho or Montana this year, you will now have to risk doing so illegally or find some other way to amuse yourself.

A federal judge last week relisted the gray wolf as an endangered species in Montana and Idaho.

A federal judge last week put the gray wolf back on the Endangered Species list. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, sitting in Missoula, MT, said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service erred when it delisted the gray wolf in the two states.

Malloy said that delisting the wolf must be a decision based on biological factors, not political ones, and must include the entire Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf population, not just selected parts.

In 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service turned over wolf management to wildlife officials in Montana and Idaho, but they kept the animal on the endangered list in the neighboring state of Wyoming. Federal officials did not like a plan, approved by Wyoming legislators, to classify wolves outside of Yellowstone National Park as predators that could be shot.

The show seems to be on the side of the wild animals and points out the ignorance of the humans involved. Biologist explain the behaviors and reasons for any attacks. Critical thinking is definitely a must for this show.

But I can’t recommend the show – it is full of ignorance, fear and scare tactics.

The recent appearance of wolves near Cache Valley has provoked dismay from some, but a broad survey shows most Utahans have a positive view of the predators, with urban residents expressing the most enthusiasm.

Questionnaires distributed across the state in 2003 found that 74 percent of respondents felt favorably toward wolves, and researcher Robert Schmidt said he doubts that has changed much.

TWISP, Wash. — The mother wolf of the state’s first confirmed pack of wolves in 70 years is missing.

The Wenatchee World reports that biologists don’t know where the alpha female wolf has gone and they fear that, at worst, someone killed her. Although there’s also the possibility that the radio collar biologists equipped her with has stopped working. Her radio collar stopped transmitting a signal on May 12.

Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Scott Fitkin says the collars are supposed to work for four years.

The wolf pack, which numbers at least seven, settled in the Okanogan National Forest area, near Twisp in north central Washington. Their presence was confirmed in 2008. Two wolves were collared.

Fitkin says the collar on the alpha male of the pack is still working.

Information from: The Wenatchee World, http://www.wenatcheeworld.com

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) – Gov. Bill Richardson has temporarily banned trapping in on the New Mexico side of an area where Mexican gray wolves have been reintroduced into the wild along the New Mexico-Arizona border.

Richardson ordered the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish to prohibit trapping for six months while it studies what risk traps and snares pose to wolves.

A federal effort to reintroduce the endangered subspecies of the gray wolf into the Southwest began in 1998.

Biologists had predicted a self-sustaining wild population of 100 wolves by now, but the latest count at the end of 2009 found 42.

The program has been plagued by illegal shootings, complaints from ranchers who have lost cattle to wolves and environmentalists who criticize the way the federal government has managed the program.

Jul. 27, 2010 (United Press International) — A Texas couple’s account of their wolf hunt in British Columbia has angered Canadian conservationists.

(second story with image here)

Lynne and Eddie Hopkins said they bagged five wolves and two coyotes in February during a hunt with Wicked River Outfitters, Postmedia News reported Tuesday. The couple, members of the Dallas Safari Club, won the hunting trip, which costs $4,000 U.S., in a club auction.

The couple described the hunt in Camp Talk, the club’s magazine. Eddie Hopkins said the guide used a snowmobile on a frozen lake to cut off a black wolf, the color he wanted to bag.

Under British Columbia’s “fair chase” policy, hunters are not supposed to use bait or motorized vehicles to “herd” wolves.

Dennis Beattie, owner of Wild River, said his company obeys the policy.

“On this hunt, they were cut off from going to the bank, you drive between them and the bank, and then you do your hunting,” he said. “They’re not chasing these animals. That’s totally against the law and it’s against our rules of ethics.”

Ian McAllister of Pacific Wild said that if what happened is legal the law should be changed.

“Most British Columbians would be as sickened as I am by this so-called sport,” said Joe Foy of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. “That article was some kind of sick eco-porn for those that like to hurt living creatures for the fun of it.”
(Source: UPI )

SALT LAKE CITY — Recent attacks on Utah sheep and cattle herds show the kinds of conflicts that could arise if the wolf population increases in the Beehive State, a state official said.

Utah’s mountains aren’t secluded enough to prevent conflicts if wolves return in large numbers, Department of Agriculture and Food Commissioner Leonard Blackham said.

Mike Linnell, Utah director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, said a ranch herder in southern Idaho killed a wolf that earlier had attacked livestock in northern Utah’s Cache County. A report that the wolf was shot in Utah was incorrect.

Linnell also said wildlife agents trapped and destroyed a wolf in Rich County in northern Utah on Saturday. It had preyed on calves in the area.

Dennis Wright of Coalville said he found two calf carcasses about two weeks ago in Summit County. He said state wildlife agents confirmed that the predator was a wolf.

“People don’t understand how they kill,” Wright said. “They’ll hamstring an animal. They’ll cut both hamstrings on an animal.”

Blackham said it likely traveled from Idaho or Wyoming.

“They haven’t caught that one, but they’re working on it,” Blackham said. “It’s probably moved on by now because it hasn’t repeated itself within the last week to 10 days.”

Wolves should be allowed to be in some wilderness areas, said Norman Bishop, a member of the board of directors of the Wolf Recovery Foundation.

“There are certainly places where nobody likes wolves, like livestock ranges,” Bishop said. “But on wilderness areas and areas where there (is) little conflict, they are a tremendous boon to the ecosystem.”

There have been periodic wolf sightings in Utah for years. In September 2002, wolves killed 15 sheep and lambs near Hardware Ranch in Cache County.

It’s not clear how many wolves there are in the state. A 2002 report estimated that Utah could one day support 700 wolves statewide.

In Utah, ranchers are permitted to shoot menacing wolves only in an area north of Interstate 80 and east of Interstate 84 to the Wyoming and Idaho lines.