Win a 16"x24" Print in my Wolf "Live" Contest

In protest of the ridiculous Fort St. John wolf kill contest that I wrote about last week, I have decided to step out of the box a bit and offer up a 'Wolf LIVE Contest', featuring a grand prize 16" x 24" wolf print out of my collection of more than 1800 wolf images (including a number of 'never-been-seen-before' images of wild wolf pups and entire wolf packs).

Want to win a 16" x 24" print of one of my wolf images? Then read on below!

The contest is simple, quick, and easy.

Here's the deal: I felt I needed to do something to entice all of you to forward emails and submit your comments to the British Columbia government stating your opposition to the Draft Wolf Management Plan as it's currently written, and asking for a number of amendments to it. So please read my blog post below and then email the ministers with your comments (I've given you their email addresses along with a form letter you can use). As long as you make sure to CC me on that email at johnemarriott@gmail.com, you'll automatically be entered. That's it, that's all! (Contest closes Friday, December 7th).

The grand prize winner will be drawn from all of the 'email entries' I receive and will win a 16" x 24" signed lustre wolf print from my collection (including shipping anywhere in Canada, the US, or overseas).  There will also be a secondary prize for one runner-up who will win two 8" x12" prints from my wolf photo collection (this will also include shipping anywhere in Canada, the US, or overseas).

So here are the details:

Write to:

Premier Christy Clark and the Minister of the Environment (Terry Lake), the Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources (Steve Thomson), and the Minister of Tourism (Pat Bell)

Email addresses:

TO: premier@gov.bc.ca
CC: env.minister@gov.bc.ca, steve.thomson.mla@leg.bc.ca, pat.bell.mla@leg.bc.ca, Rob.Fleming.mla@leg.bc.ca, Adrian.Dix.mla@leg.bc.ca, johnemarriott@gmail.com

To the Premier of British Columbia,

I am writing to object to the proposed Draft Management Plan for the Grey Wolf in British Columbia.

I am against this plan for a number of reasons and am forwarding you some recommendations that I feel should be a part of any wolf management plan moving forward in the province of British Columbia.

These recommendations include, first and foremost, the establishment of large parts of the province where wolves are protected from hunting and trapping so that they may develop natural packs and behaviour. These wolves can then be studied to provide benchmarks for scientific research moving forward and can be promoted as areas in which people can watch wolves.

I would also like to recommend that all aerial hunting and killing of wolves, as well as all trapping using leg-hold traps or snares, be stopped immediately and removed entirely from any future wolf management plan.

By the draft Plan's own admissions, 11 years of killing wolves to save caribou has not worked. These programs have failed and should not be continued. In fact, your government has acknowledged that the primary cause for the decline in the province's mountain caribou population is a loss of habitat, not wolf predation. Without this critical habitat protection, which would mean restricting atv and snowmobile access, halting all resource development, and completely removing all road access, then there is no scientific basis for continuing with wolf culls to try to save the endangered caribou.

Several other recommendations I feel would be necessary in the wolf management plan moving forward include:
It is time that British Columbia stepped into the 21st century with its wildlife management plans and rewriting the Draft Management Plan for the Grey Wolf in British Columbia to include these recommendations would be a good first step. I feel it would much better represent what the people of British Columbia and of Canada would like to see in regards to wolf management.

Thank you, sincerely,

[Your Name]
[Your Location]

If you have time, please also include a short sentence in regards to where you are located. If you are from British Columbia, then please indicate if this wolf management plan will be a major issue for you come voting time next year (and consider including the email address of your local MLA). And if you are from out of BC, please indicate what you will consider doing if the wolf management plan is not rewritten -- for myself, that will include a full travel boycott of northern BC as I've already expressed on my Wolf Kill Contest blog entry.

Also note that you can choose to change the first bullet point if you believe that all wolf hunting should be stopped in BC.  I'd love that, personally, but wanted to take baby steps before giant leaps.

Thank you very much everyone, let's hope that we can make a difference and bring some sense back to British Columbia's wolf management practices.

Sincerely,

John
[Note: we're up over 100 emails submitted in less than 24 hours, great work everyone!]