We need your help to stand up to the Progressive Conservative government who have just proposed sweeping changes to the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and to our Environmental Bill of Rights (they intend to cut the public out of further consultations on species at risk!).
The Algonquin wolf is being targeted again, even though they lost so much of the automatic protection the ESA should have given them under the ESA back in 2016. They can’t afford to lose anymore safeguards from hunting and trapping!
Please send your official comments today. By adding just one line or comment in your own words to our template letter, your voice can have an even bigger impact with the decision-makers!
The deadline for submissions is May 18th.
TAKE ACTION
Will you go one step further and share our action alert with your friends, family and social networks? This consultation is the most important we’ve ever asked for your help with, and since our last round of comments which opposed further weakening of the ESA have largely been ignored, we need to get LOUDER!
Here’s how the proposed changes will impact Algonquin wolves:
1. The Minister will be allowed to remove or reduce protections for any threatened or endangered species, and doesn’t have to notify or consult the public, or ask species experts for their professional opinion;
2. The Minister can demand that COSSARO, the independent scientific body that conducts assessments of species at risk, re-assess any species. Moreover, the scientists will have less time to report, and COSSARO members may no longer be independent since the eligibility requirements are about to change;
3. Timelines for the government to create an action plan once a species’ science-based Recovery Strategy is finalized will be weakened. They also want to loosen monitoring of the recovery plan, meaning they don’t have to report on progress they don’t plan to make.
For Algonquin wolves this could even mean removing their protection from provincial parks that still allow hunting and/or trapping (most of them do!), even around Algonquin Park where the science clearly indicates how beneficial the no-kill zone is.
In a landscape populated by coyotes that have a better chance of survival, Algonquin wolves won’t stand a chance at recovery if their entire range is opened up to hunting and trapping again. If COSSARO re-assesses them as endangered in their next round of review, it won’t make a difference in legal protections if the proposed amendments go through.
Extinction is forever, please speak for Algonquin wolves and the other 230+ species facing extinction in our beautiful province!