Voice for Animals is deeply concerned about the protection of wildlife, whether the animals are in the wild or in captivity. Due to habitat destruction, agriculture, hunting and poaching, industrial activity and development, climate change and pollution the world has lost half of all its wildlife in the last 40 years.
Animals have a right to exist in this world. We are therefore working on a number of issues to stop this tragic destruction of wildlife, including:
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Culling of wolves
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Coyote hunting contests
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Poisoning of Richardson’s ground squirrel (gophers
Killing Wolves in Alberta
The government calls it a cull; we call it a brutal and inhumane slaughter.
There is a problem with woodland caribou in Alberta. Most of the herds have been in steady decline for years, to the point where they are now facing extinction. Despite the decline, the government was slow to ban hunting, and the caribou were only listed as endangered by the federal government under SARA (Species at Risk Act) in 2011. Without a doubt, human development and industrial activity such as oil and gas, forestry and mining are the reasons for the decline—not predation by wolves.
However, instead of putting a moratorium on the destruction of their habitat, both provincial and federal levels of government have decided the best way to save the caribou is to kill the wolves. This so-called “study” consists of killing wolves to save the caribou, and this has been going on for 12 years with 50% or more of the wolf population killed. This deeply flawed and unscientific approach to saving the woodland caribou has been unsuccessful, with no lasting increase in the caribou populations. Instead, this is a last ditch effort by a desperate government that has failed its mandate.
Although there is no humane way of killing wildlife, the methods used by these researchers can only be described as horrific. Criticism has come from many quarters, calling these methods unethical and in contravention of the Canadian Council of Animal Care’s (CCAC) ethical guidelines for humane treatment of animals used in research, as well as for killing many non-target animals.
Methods used to kill wolves are:
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Shooting from a helicopter
Not only is chasing the wolves with a helicopter extremely stressful for the animal but shooting a moving target from the air is error prone and often results in painful injuries and prolonged suffering. -
Strychnine baits
Strychnine is a highly toxic poison that causes great suffering when ingested. An animal can suffer excruciating pain for 1 to 2 hours before dying. In addition to wolves at least 91 ravens, 36 coyotes, 31 red foxes, 4 martens, 3 lynx, 2 weasels and 2 fishers were killed as by-catch. -
Killing of entire packs
It has been described like this:
“Individual wolves drawn from different packs were first located by helicopter, captured by net-gun, fit with a VHF radio-collar, and released. These marked individuals were then used to locate and kill additional pack members by aerial shooting. After all pack members were killed, the radio-collared wolves were shot.” Canadian Wildlife Biology & Management 2015,Volume 4, Number 1.
This is truly an evil way of using the close knit relationships of wolf pack members against itself to eradicate entire families.