"Cost of Freedom" a film by Vanessa Schulz about wolf reintroduction in Idaho will be shown today, Wednesday February 27, at Boise State University.
The film event is sponsored by Western Watersheds Project and will take place at the Hatch Ballroom at the Student Union Building on University Avenue at 7:00 P.M. There is no charge for admission. All Boise area members and supporters are cordially invited to join WWP board and staff members at this event.
The film documents the high costs both to individual wolves and wolf packs of the reintroduction program with its amazingly expensive "wolf management" cottage industry spawned by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's Formal Rule for Reintroduction solely to benefit a few cattle and sheep ranchers whose losses to wolf depredation have been remarkably minor and which are reimbursed by Defenders of Wildlife when confirmed as caused by wolves.
The film includes interviews with wolf removal advocates, Nez Perce tribal administrators of the reintroduction program, Wildlife Services employees who are responsible for killing and relocating wolves, central Idaho public lands ranchers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife staff, and conservationists. The film includes graphic footage of wolves being trapped, drugged, caged, and transported, and is not for the easily upset.