S12. E2: Ella Driever and Sneha Sharma: The Timberline Pack
“We don’t want Idaho to have a bad reputation. This is our home state. We love our home state, it’s beautiful. We pride ourselves on our nature. We pride ourselves on our wildlife. And instead, we are continuing to do things that are… that are sickening.”
In 1995, wolves were reintroduced to central Idaho, and in 2003 a Boise High school called Timberline officially adopted a local wolf pack. Throughout the 2000s, students went on wolf tracking trips in their wolf packs range.
But in 2021, Idaho's legislature passed Senate Bill 1211, allowing Idaho hunters to obtain an unlimited number of wolf tags, and also allowing Idaho's Department of Fish and Game to use taxpayer dollars to pay private contractors to kill wolves. That means bounties on wolves, including on public lands.
And also in 2021, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission expanded the wolf hunting season as well as hunting and trapping methods. So it's not too surprising to learn that that same year the Timberline pack disappeared.
The students, the ones that cared about wolves at least, were devastated.
Last summer I went to D.C. with some of the Species Unite team for a wolf rally on Capitol Hill. While there, two young women gave a talk about what happened at Timberline in 2021. Their names are Ella Driver and Sneha Sharma. They both graduated from Timberline High School and were there when their wolf pack disappeared.
Please, listen and share.
In gratitude,
Elizabeth Novogratz
Learn more about International Wildlife Coexistence Network interview
Become a Species Unite member!
You can listen to our podcast via our website or you can subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Play. If you enjoy listening to the Species Unite podcast, we’d love to hear from you! You can rate and review via Apple Podcast here. If you support our mission to change the narrative toward a world of co-existence, we would love for you to make a donation or become an official Species Unite member!
As always, thank you for tuning in - we truly believe that stories have the power to change the way the world treats animals and it’s a pleasure to have you with us on this.