Thanks to my love-hate relationship with Facebook, I’ve had the opportunity to reconnect with many of my friends from high school—something that our generation has while many previous generations did not. One friend and I are always getting into friendly debates with each other. While it never gets bloody—though my debates with others do sometimes!—it’s always filled with fun banter, and we always find something we can agree upon.

The condemnation of the aerial killing of wolves is one thing that my friend and I are in complete agreement with. The fact that people actually sit in the comfort of a helicopter while chasing and shooting down wolves from the sky is just a heinous image to have in your head—like something from a horror movie or an Orwellian book. Could you imagine if the roles were reversed? I know people hate when I use that analogy, but really, all animals have just as much right to live on this planet as we do—and if we didn’t have the helicopters and guns, we sure wouldn’t dare to face off with one wolf, let alone a pack of them, unarmed.

Yet many people seem to think that wolves are nothing more than easy target practice. In fact, up to 80% of the wolves living in Idaho are about to be slaughtered in such a manner—as well as through deadly gassing—with the full approval of the USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack, and the Wildlife Services Agency. Gases will be used to murder wolf pups in their own dens, and aerial hunting will not only decimate individual wolf numbers, but it will also divide and weaken existing wolf packs.

The USDA is also planning on sterilizing alpha wolves, making it harder for wolves to repopulate. If numbers are curtailed beyond repair, this would make repopulation efforts extremely difficult. And for those who support these measures based on some sort of species superiority, know that wolves not only bring the area $35 million each year in tourism; they also help keep grazing numbers of deer and elk down, as well as help keep herds moving to ensure optimal species numbers and reduce overpopulation.

How ironic is it that a film about wolves being used to repopulate an area—Alpha and Omega—is being released during the very same time that wolves are about to be violently killed across an entire state? If this bothers you as much as it does my friend and me, please consider using this form to write to USDA Secretary Vilsack and ask him to stop these deadly tactics.