Proceeds Going To . . .
Full catalog of the auction items is coming later tonight, but for now, I have the name of a fund!
I wanted to let you all know exactly where your money will be going, should you bid on the auctions:
The Bailey Wildlife Foundation Proactive Carnivore Conservation Fund works to prevent conflict between humans and predators. I encourage you to go and read about it. What they have done is amazing, and it's the kind of real effort that gets real results. They go way further than laws and letter writing. They get out there and work their asses off.
Ms. Gina Schrader, Carnivore Coordinator, informs me that this is the fund DOW is drawing from most heavily in their efforts to save the wolves in Idaho. She's indicated that anyone who wishes to earmark funds for wolves in Idaho would do well to donate straight to that fund.
Through the Fund, Defenders intervenes to prevent predators from being unneccesarily killed due to conflicts with humans, and they are working to increase carnivore range by increasing tolerance of carnivores through education and study, as well as abating sources of conflict such as livestock loss.
Animals cannot expand into an area where they are not wanted, and an animal that is continually running afoul of humans will not ever be wanted.
Through the Bailey Fund, DOW shares the costs of needed improvements with farmers and ranchers. They help supply parks and national forests with the tools they need to monitor and contain wild carnivores nonlethally. They study the environmental impact of predators, and educate the public about the value of these animals.
Since its inception in the late '90s, the Bailey Fund has helped Defenders purchase and train dogs to guard flocks, put human volunteers in the field to keep wolves away from vulnerable livestock, supply shepherds with needed supplies and equipment to allow them to sleep in the field with their sheep, and pioneer new innovations in nonlethal fladry line fencing to discourage wolf predation. That's just what they have done in Idaho. And it has worked. Among the Idaho ranches willing to work with Defenders last year, there were no wolf-related livestock fatalities.
Let me say that again:
No wolf-related livestock fatalities among the ranchers who have chosen to live with wolves, instead of eliminating them.
If Defenders can continue to carry out this work, keeping negative human/wolf interactions to a minimum, the persecution will end, the prejudice fade, and the wolf will return.
The Bailey Fund works in many states, benefiting animals as diverse as bears and jaguars. Wolves, however, are its primary beneficiary right now, and Defenders is drawing heavily on the Bailey Fund to help avert disaster as the newly flourishing wolf population and the human population in Idaho learn to coexist.
Everything I put up for auction yesterday already has a few bids. I thank you for that. I thank you because it's going to help these wolves. It brings hope to my heart to see that something like safe and effective fladry fencing costs as little as $2,000. The cash we raise with these auctions can make a very real difference.
No livestock fatalities. Ranchers willing to work with the wolves denning on the next hillside over, instead of killing them. Activists stringing fence wire instead of picketing. This works. And if it works on one ranch, it can work on all ranches.
When I cut that check, I will be thinking of everyone who bid, everyone who made something with their hands, or gave something of their own over for this. Thank you for being a part of that.
On the short list of things the world should never be without, good folks like you are right on the top of it.
Along with gingerbread and wolves.
I wanted to let you all know exactly where your money will be going, should you bid on the auctions:
The Bailey Wildlife Foundation Proactive Carnivore Conservation Fund works to prevent conflict between humans and predators. I encourage you to go and read about it. What they have done is amazing, and it's the kind of real effort that gets real results. They go way further than laws and letter writing. They get out there and work their asses off.
Ms. Gina Schrader, Carnivore Coordinator, informs me that this is the fund DOW is drawing from most heavily in their efforts to save the wolves in Idaho. She's indicated that anyone who wishes to earmark funds for wolves in Idaho would do well to donate straight to that fund.
Through the Fund, Defenders intervenes to prevent predators from being unneccesarily killed due to conflicts with humans, and they are working to increase carnivore range by increasing tolerance of carnivores through education and study, as well as abating sources of conflict such as livestock loss.
Animals cannot expand into an area where they are not wanted, and an animal that is continually running afoul of humans will not ever be wanted.
Through the Bailey Fund, DOW shares the costs of needed improvements with farmers and ranchers. They help supply parks and national forests with the tools they need to monitor and contain wild carnivores nonlethally. They study the environmental impact of predators, and educate the public about the value of these animals.
Since its inception in the late '90s, the Bailey Fund has helped Defenders purchase and train dogs to guard flocks, put human volunteers in the field to keep wolves away from vulnerable livestock, supply shepherds with needed supplies and equipment to allow them to sleep in the field with their sheep, and pioneer new innovations in nonlethal fladry line fencing to discourage wolf predation. That's just what they have done in Idaho. And it has worked. Among the Idaho ranches willing to work with Defenders last year, there were no wolf-related livestock fatalities.
Let me say that again:
No wolf-related livestock fatalities among the ranchers who have chosen to live with wolves, instead of eliminating them.
If Defenders can continue to carry out this work, keeping negative human/wolf interactions to a minimum, the persecution will end, the prejudice fade, and the wolf will return.
The Bailey Fund works in many states, benefiting animals as diverse as bears and jaguars. Wolves, however, are its primary beneficiary right now, and Defenders is drawing heavily on the Bailey Fund to help avert disaster as the newly flourishing wolf population and the human population in Idaho learn to coexist.
Everything I put up for auction yesterday already has a few bids. I thank you for that. I thank you because it's going to help these wolves. It brings hope to my heart to see that something like safe and effective fladry fencing costs as little as $2,000. The cash we raise with these auctions can make a very real difference.
No livestock fatalities. Ranchers willing to work with the wolves denning on the next hillside over, instead of killing them. Activists stringing fence wire instead of picketing. This works. And if it works on one ranch, it can work on all ranches.
When I cut that check, I will be thinking of everyone who bid, everyone who made something with their hands, or gave something of their own over for this. Thank you for being a part of that.
On the short list of things the world should never be without, good folks like you are right on the top of it.
Along with gingerbread and wolves.