The issue was related to the delisting of the Grey Wolf from the Endangered Species Act, and then the start of an open season on the wolf by Idaho.
There were websites detailing the legal proceedings of the lawsuits that followed the delisting. There was a website posting a letter to the Secretary of State from a non-profit environmentalist group. There were even more articles and pages detailing the factual aspects of the delisting and wolf hunt. But what I was most surprised by was firstly, the government’s usage of the internet to deliver information, and the public’s use of the internet as a means of expressing an emotional response.
Idaho has a population of 1.5 million people – slightly more than the Bronx Borough of New York City – yet the state has a range of online information services that has almost become essential to my own life when in and outside of Idaho.
The Idaho Fish and Game agency within its already minimal government is able to manage an extensive website that provides huge amounts of information.
Specifically relating to the hunting of the grey wolf, Idaho Fish and Game provides hunt information ranging from wolf hunting regulations, a map and chart of updated wolf kills by region, and even specific hunting tips. Since there is a limit to the number of wolves that can be killed in each region, the updated map allows hunters to check up in real time if the season has been closed or not in their area. Considering that the wolf hunt, because of its sensitivity, is heavily regulated and monitored, the regulations page contains the myriad of mandatory legal information for any person who is in a wolf hunting zone.
Purely through the use of the internet, any novice hunter can be prepared with wolf hunting skills, season information and legal regulations needed to be a responsible outdoor gamesman. Any such situation, especially for backcountry residents who do not rely on the internet, would be unimaginable just ten years ago.
The public has been able to use the internet to, with little or no coordination, effectively create a strong emotional response to the hunt. Environmentalist groups have paved the way with an established forum and base support group to provide a backlash against the hunt. The Defenders of Wildlife video below is just one example of the ways in which an organization is able to utilize media and the internet to rally for a cause completely free from any traditional media spaces such as the radio talk shows, television stations, newspaper editorials.
Social networking and blogging sites have been the central medium through which responses to the wolf hunts was rallied.
Facebook opposition groups such as ‘Call off the Guns’, ‘Stop the Wolf Hunts in Idaho’, and ‘Wolf Massacre’, and even anti-wolf groups ‘Anti-Wolf Idaho’ and ‘Transplant Idaho’s wolves to Central Park’, have rallied a few thousand people to their causes. Separate Facebook groups supporting some legendary individual wolf packs even exist! Proclaimed environmentalist blogs such as The Alternative Consumer or Ralph Maghaun’s Wildlife News (interesting photo) have provided a new forum for wolf related comments and debates, all outside the confines of any financially or physically restrictive media establishment.
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