By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
A new coalition of animal rights, conservation and faith groups is asking for a philosophical change in how the federal government treats the nation’s diminishing wildlife, particularly of top predators, whose presence helps insure healthy wild ecosystems.
The coalition sent a letter signed by 115 of its member groups to Agriculture Secretary nominee Tom Vilsack earlier this month asking him to end the federal government’s systematic killings of wildlife, such as wolves, coyotes, bears, cougars and prairie dogs.
The group contends that the killings are excessive and often cruel and that Wildlife Services, a department of the USDA that exterminated 2.4 million animals in 2007 should be reevaluated.
