September, 11 2020, 12:00am EDT
Idaho Documents Reveal Weeks-old Wolf Pups Among 570 Maimed, Slaughtered Wolves
As the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week that the removal of wolves from Endangered Species Act protection nation-wide is "very imminent," new data from Idaho show the ugly face of state wolf management there.
BOISE, Idaho
As the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week that the removal of wolves from Endangered Species Act protection nation-wide is "very imminent," new data from Idaho show the ugly face of state wolf management there.
According to an analysis of records obtained by Western Watersheds Project, hunters, trappers, and state and federal agencies have killed 570 wolves in Idaho during a 12-month period from July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020. Included in the mortality are at least 35 wolf pups, some weighing less than 16 pounds and likely only 4 to 6 weeks old. Some of the wolves shattered teeth trying to bite their way out of traps, others died of hyperthermia in traps set by the U.S.D.A. Wildlife Services, and more were gunned down in aerial control actions. The total mortality during this period represented nearly 60 percent of the 2019 year-end estimated Idaho wolf population.
"There is nothing scientific about the Idaho Department of Fish and Game's management, which seems to be guided by anti-wolf hysteria among some members of the ranching and hunting communities, rather than any sort of conservation ethic," said Talasi Brooks of Western Watersheds Project. "It is cruel, morally and ethically reprehensible, and policy is set through a process which denies conservation interests any voice."
About 400 wolves have been killed each year in Idaho for the past several years, and the 570 wolves killed in 2019-2020 is record-breaking, perhaps reflecting Idaho Department of Fish and Game's (IDFG) incentivization of wolf killing. This level of population disruption leads to population-level effects among wolves, including population decline, a younger, destabilized population, and ultimately more livestock conflicts.
"It's sickening to see how wolves have been slaughtered in Idaho once federal Endangered Species Act protections were lifted," said Andrea Zaccardi, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. "If wolves are delisted nationwide, this cruelty could extend to all wolves within our country's borders. This treatment of our nation's wildlife is unacceptable."
"Idaho's reckless, violent, massacre of wolves and their pups not only showcases the worst of state wildlife "management," it shines a light on the darkest corners of humanity. To maim, bludgeon and actively seek to destroy a native animal, that is familial and social by nature, is disgusting," said Samantha Bruegger, Wildlife Coexistence Campaigner with WildEarth Guardians. "Tragically, the Idaho narrative clearly shows, to the rest of the country, what can happen to wolves if they are delisted from the Endangered Species Act."
"Idaho is not 'managing' wolves but is attempting to reduce the state wolf population to the brink of federal relisting while jeopardizing region-wide recovery of a native carnivore. This inhumane mass killing of wolves abuses federal recovery objectives and is one of many reasons why Endangered Species Act protection is so important for gray wolves nationwide," said Zoe Hanley of Defenders of Wildlife.
IDFG recently announced it had awarded approximately $21,000 in "challenge grants" to the north Idaho-based Foundation 4 Wildlife Management, which reimburses wolf trappers a bounty up to $1,000 per wolf killed. The Foundation also has received funding for wolf bounties from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. A single individual may now kill up to 30 wolves under IDFG hunting and trapping rules--a new increase from the 20 wolves previously allowed.
"It is beyond tragic that Idaho has become the poster child for animal cruelty through their pathological destruction of wolves," said Brooks Fahy, executive director of Predator Defense. "I find it hard to believe that most Idahoans would approve of this indefensible carnage being carried out on behalf of zealots in the ranching and hunting community. Time and again we see that removing Endangered Species Act protection and allowing states to manage wolves generally leads to mass slaughter."
"Wolves are a native species and part of our iconic Western wildlife heritage," said Derek Goldman, Northern Rockies Representative of the Endangered Species Coalition. "It's deeply disappointing that Idaho Department of Fish and Game is abandoning science and ethics in its zeal to eradicate wolves, when many nonlethal, less-costly approaches to conflict prevention already exist."
The Endangered Species Coalition's mission is to stop the human-caused extinction of our nation's at-risk species, to protect and restore their habitats, and to guide these fragile populations along the road to recovery.
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Supreme Court Deals Trump Major Loss on Illinois National Guard Deployment
"Trump is losing his grip on the dictatorial power he so covets," said one legal analyst.
Dec 23, 2025
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday dealt President Donald Trump a major loss by rejecting the administration's request to strike down a temporary restraining order that barred him from deploying the National Guard in Chicago.
In a 6-3 ruling that featured dissents from Justices Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court determined that the Trump administration had not met statutory requirements needed to justify deploying the National Guard in a state over the objections of its own government.
The court noted that the administration justified its Illinois deployment—pursued alongside a federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants in and around the state's largest city—by pointing to a law stating that the president may federalize the National Guard in the event that he is "unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States."
However, the court found that the "regular forces" referenced in the statute refers to the US military, not civilian law enforcement officials. This is relevant because the president faces significant restrictions on his ability to deploy the military domestically under the Posse Comitatus Act.
"Because the statute requires an assessment of the military’s ability to execute the laws, it likely applies only where the military could legally execute the laws," the justices wrote. "Such circumstances are exceptional: Under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military is prohibited from 'execut[ing] the laws' 'except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or act of Congress.'"
The justices further said that the Trump administration so far "has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois" and has not invoked any statute that would provide an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act.
In conclusion, the court wrote that the federal government "has not carried its burden to show" that the law "permits the president to federalize the guard in the exercise of inherent authority to protect federal personnel and property in Illinois."
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, who had sued the Trump administration over the deployment, cheered the ruling and said that "the extremely limited circumstances under which the federal government can call up the militia over a state's objection do not exist in Illinois."
Raoul added that he was "pleased that the streets of Illinois will remain free of armed National Guard members as our litigation continues in the courts."
Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor, celebrated the Supreme Court's ruling as a victory for the rule of law.
"Trump is losing his grip on the dictatorial power he so covets," Kirschner commented on X.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said he was "genuinely shocked" by the court's ruling, and he credited an amicus brief written by Georgetown University Law Center professor Marty Lederman with swaying the court, as it centered the definition of "regular forces" in the statute as central to determining the legality of Trump's actions.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen and co-chair of the Not Above the Law Coalition, hailed the court's ruling but warned that the danger posed by the Trump administration's authoritarian ambitions has not ended.
"With a lawful administration that understood the limits of executive power, this would be the end of the question," she said of the ruling. "Unfortunately, we are living under an authoritarian regime that persists in every possible effort to expand its power and override guardrails. With an administration that displays utter disregard for the Constitution, we must now watch diligently how it will respond to a decisive Supreme Court decision against its lawless power grab."
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'Devastating': Amnesty Rips Hegseth Memo Reversing Limits on Landmines
“Antipersonnel landmines are inherently indiscriminate weapons that take a disproportionate toll on civilian lives, oftentimes long after conflicts end," said the group's director for Europe and Central Asia.
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In a move decried by human rights organizations, the Trump administration has scrapped a Biden-era prohibition on the use of antipersonnel landmines, which killed thousands of noncombatants last year.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sent a memo on December 2 reversing the policy, saying the use of such mines would provide the US military with a “force multiplier” against enemies during “one of the most dangerous security environments in its history.”
“Antipersonnel landmines are inherently indiscriminate weapons that take a disproportionate toll on civilian lives, oftentimes long after conflicts end," explained Ben Linden, Amnesty International USA's advocacy director for Europe and Central Asia, in a statement on Tuesday.
According to a report published earlier this month by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Committee to Ban Landmines (ICBL), antipersonnel landmines and other explosive remnants of war killed at least 1,945 people and injured another 4,325 in 2024—the highest yearly casualty figure since 2020 and a 9% increase from the previous year.
Ninety percent of those casualties were civilians, and 46% of those civilians were children.
More than 160 countries have signed an international treaty, written in 1997, banning the use of antipersonnel landmines, defined as mines “designed to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person and that will incapacitate, injure or kill one or more persons” in war.
The US military has not used antipersonnel mines widely since the Persian Gulf War over three decades ago. However, it is one of the few countries that has not signed the treaty, known as the Ottawa Convention, and until earlier this year was the only NATO member not to participate.
In June 2022—just months after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine—then-President Joe Biden announced the US would begin to follow many provisions of the convention, outlawing the use of antipersonnel mines in war zones with the exception of the Korean Peninsula. It was a return to a policy instituted under former President Barack Obama, before it was rolled back during the first Trump administration.
The Biden White House cited the mines' "disproportionate impact on civilians, including children," and drew a contrast with Russia, which it said was using the mines "irresponsibly" in civilian areas.
But Biden would reverse the policy just two years later, opting in 2024 to greenlight their provision to Ukraine, which was forbidden from acquiring or using the mines under the treaty.
The ICBL, a leading donor to global mine clearance, condemned the move, noting that "Ukraine already faces years of demining due to Russian landmine use."
In his memo, Hegseth has delivered another blow to global demining efforts. According to the Post:
He outlines five objectives for the new policy—including lifting geographic limits on the use of landmines, which would allow for their use globally, and giving combatant commanders the authority to use the explosives. It would also limit the destruction of landmines in the US inventory only to those that are “inoperable or unsafe."
The decision comes as other state actors are rapidly abandoning their obligations under the landmine treaty. Last week, Poland announced that after withdrawing from the convention, it plans to start producing antipersonnel mines again, deploying them to the eastern border, and possibly exporting them to Ukraine.
According to the ICBL report, Cambodia, Iran, Myanmar, and North Korea have all been alleged to have used mines within the last year. Meanwhile, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania are also in the process of withdrawing from the Ottawa Treaty, while Ukraine is trying to “suspend the operation” of the convention during its war with Russia.
Hegseth's memo also states that President Donald Trump has rescinded the US Humanitarian Mine Program, a long-running government initiative that helps partner nations find and destroy unexploded landmines.
According to the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, the research arm of the Campaign to Ban Landmines, the US was the largest global donor to mine-clearing actions around the world in 2024. According to the State Department, it has provided more than $5 billion in assistance to more than 125 countries and areas since 1993.
Some of the money for the program has already been revoked through the Trump administration's slashing of funds for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) at the beginning of his term. The administration ordered mine-clearing nonprofits funded by the agency to cease operations "effective immediately."
According to a report earlier this month from the Century Foundation, the State Department "terminated or let expire" nearly 100 security assistance programs, which included demining programs, as part of its "foreign aid review" in January.
Hegseth's memo states that despite the end of the program, the US will remain "a global leader in unexploded ordnance clearing assistance and in conventional weapons destruction." It provides no details on how the new policy would allow for this.
Linden at Amnesty International called Hegseth's reversal of the landmine policy a "devastating decision."
"Not only will this policy change put more civilians at increased risk of harm, but it will undermine global efforts to eliminate the use of these dangerous weapons," Linden said. “This landmine policy reversal would make the United States and its partners less safe by eroding the prohibition against the use of these indiscriminate weapons on the battlefield."
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Progressive Jews Decry ADL 'Mamdani Monitor' for Conflating Israel Criticism With Antisemitism
The head of one group decried the ADL's "disproportionate attention on left-of-center activists’ views on Israel while failing to apply the same scrutiny to the Trump administration."
Dec 23, 2025
The heads of three left-leaning US Jewish groups on Monday admonished the Anti-Defamation League after the controversial watchdog once again conflated criticism of Israel with antisemitism in its latest report on New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and his transition team.
The Anti-Defamation League noted approvingly in its updated "Mamdani Monitor" that "at least 25 individuals" in the democratic socialist's transition team "have a past relationship with the ADL or partner organizations, or a history of supporting the Jewish community."
The group also appreciated that "Mamdani's team can and will respond appropriately" to actual incidents of antisemitism, pointing to last week's resignation of Catherine Almonte Da Costa, Mamdani's former director of appointments, following the revelation of antisemitic social media posts she published in the early 2010s.
However, the ADL said it remains "deeply concerned" by Mamdani's statements and actions, highlighting what the group claimed were "many examples of individuals who have engaged in some type of antisemitic, anti-Zionist, or anti-Israel activities and/or have ties to groups that engage in such activities" among the mayor-elect's transition team appointees.
"These activities include spreading classic antisemitic tropes, vilifying those who support Jewish self-determination in their ancestral homeland, seeking to undermine the legitimacy and security of the Jewish state, and more," the ADL said, adding that "at least a dozen transition committee appointees expressed support for the anti-Israel campus encampments in the spring of 2024."
The Mamdani Monitor also noted that "at least 20% of the 400-plus appointees have ties to anti-Zionist groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which openly glorifies Hamas’ October 7 attack... Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a fringe group that advocates for the eradication of Zionism and demonizes Zionists; Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a New York-based radical anti-Zionist organization... and others."
Asked about the report during a Monday press conference, Mamdani said, "We must distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of the Israeli government."
“The ADL’s report oftentimes ignores this distinction, and in doing so it draws attention away from the very real crisis of antisemitism we see not only just in our city but in the country at large,” he continued. “When we’re thinking about critiques of Zionism and different forms of political expression, as much of what this report focuses on, there’s a wide variety of political opinion, even within our own 400-plus transition committee.”
Critics say the ADL's claim in the update that it "has long distinguished between legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies and antisemitism" is belied by not only the Mamdani Monitor's language, but also its own significantly expanded definition of antisemitism and antisemitic incidents, which include protests against Israel’s US-backed genocidal war on Gaza.
Jamie Beran, CEO of the progressive group Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, said in an X thread that "we were disappointed but not surprised to see today’s ADL report continue their conflation of criticism of the Israeli government’s actions with antisemitism" and the group's "favoring of Trumpian tactics over bridge building and its prioritization of fearmongering over the safety of American Jews and our neighbors."
Beran continued:
The ADL of today seems to have three interests: keeping their right wing megadonors happy, protecting the current Israeli government’s violent far-right agenda by conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and cozying up to [US President Donald] Trump to stay close to power.
None of this fights antisemitism. Their McCarthyist Mamdani Monitor is the first of its kind because the ADL chose not to deploy a similar tactic when their bedfellows offered Nazi salutes, hired and pardoned neo-Nazis, and continued to openly spread dangerous antisemitic conspiracy myths.
"If the ADL truly wanted to fight antisemitism—like we do every day—they would actually confront it at its roots and how it works alongside all forms of bigotry, not instrumentalize it for an unpopular political agenda that has nothing to do with Jewish safety," Beran added.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal Jewish group J Street, also rejected the ADL's "continued conflation."
“J Street continues to be deeply concerned by the ADL’s ongoing use of its so-called ‘Mamdani Monitor,’ which goes well beyond combating antisemitism and too often conflates legitimate political speech with hate," Ben-Ami said in a statement Monday.
Ben-Ami asserted that there is "something deeply wrong when major Jewish leaders and institutions focus disproportionate attention on left-of-center activists’ views on Israel while failing to apply the same scrutiny to the Trump administration and MAGA leaders, whose blatant antisemitism and ties to white nationalist movements pose a clear and dangerous threat to American Jews."
"Our communal institutions should fight antisemitism consistently and credibly, wherever it appears—not selectively, and not in ways that inflame fear or deepen division," he added.
Another liberal Jewish antisemitism watchdog, Nexus Project, also decried the ADL update, which it said "repeatedly blurs the line between antisemitism and anti-Zionism."
J Street among the groups supporting the Antisemitism Response and Prevention Act (ARPA), legislation introduced last week by US Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) in the wake of the Sydney Hanukkah massacre.
According to Nadler's office, the bill "clearly states that it is against the policy of the United States to use antisemitism as grounds to pursue ulterior political agendas, including attacks on educational institutions, suppressing constitutionally protected speech, or any other enforcement of ideological conformity."
ARPA stands in stark contrast with the Antisemitism Awareness Act (ARA), which was introduced in 2023 by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ, Max Miller (R-Ohio), and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) in the House of Representatives and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) in the Senate.
The bill would require the Department of Education to consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism when determining whether alleged harassment is motivated by anti-Jewish animus.
The ADL has pushed a wide range of governments, institutions, and organizations to adopt the IRHA definition, which conflates legitimate criticism and condemnation of Israeli policies and practices with anti-Jewish bigotry, and forces people to accept the legitimacy of a settler-colonial apartheid state engaged in illegal occupation and colonization, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
House lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the legislation last year; however, the bill remains stalled in the Senate.
Zionism—the settler-colonial movement for the reestablishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine—is being rejected by a growing number of Jewish Americans due to the racism, settler-colonialism, illegal occupation, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide perpetrated by Israel and rooted in claims of divine right and favor.
Jewish-led groups like JVP, IfNotNow, and Jews for Economic and Racial Justice (JERJ) have been at the forefront of pro-Palestine demonstrations since the start of Israel's war and siege on Gaza, which have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing; 2 million others displaced, starved, and sickened; and most of the coastal strip in ruins.
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