Portland, Oregon — On Sunday, Dec. 12, Oregon activists will howl in outrage over Alaska’s refusal to stop gunning down wolves.
Advocates will gather from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Pioneer Courthouse Square at Southwest Broadway & Yamhill, as Friends of Animals (FoA) and In Defense of Animals (IDA) host one of the more than 46 new Howl-Ins for cities across North America.
At a Howl-In, a recording of wolf howls fills the air while volunteers collect signatures on post cards — cards which will later be sent to Frank Murkowski. Each card is a pledge to boycott travel to Alaska until the wolf-killing ends.
At the same time as the Portland Howl-In, a television station will air FoA’s 60-second video on the Alaska Boycott campaign. The video will air from Friday, December 10 through Monday, December 13, during the 6:00 news broadcast on Portland’s NBC affiliate station. The video is also available for download on the FoA Web site at www.friendsofanimals.org.
The video represents the flight of one pilot-hunt team in Alaska. These teams are encouraged, through an official permit system, to take off for the habitat of wolves, swoop low to the ground, and chase and kill wolves. These teams have killed over 150 wolves since this permit scheme started up.
Although we oppose all killing methods, we note that this method of killing wolves had not been used since the late 1980s and is normally illegal in Alaska. But in spite of votes in which Alaskans opted to end same-day use of aircraft for public wolf hunting and trapping, the killing permits have Governor Frank Murkowski’s approval.
Last year, outraged when the state instituted this wolf-killing scheme, over 200,000 people pledged to boycott Alaska’s $2 billion-a-year tourism industry. But this winter, Alaska’s aerial wolf shooting has started up again, with a current target of up to 580 wolves.
Nathan Searles, of Friends of Animals in Portland, observed: “Holiday shoppers will be out this weekend, and we will motivate them to take a stand for these wolves.”