United States Passes Law To Hunt Endangered Species Gray Wolfs
 

BILLINGS, Mont. (Feb. 21) - Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies will be removed from the endangered species list, following a 13-year restoration effort that helped the animal's population soar, federal officials said Thursday.

An estimated 1,500 wolves now roam Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. That represents
a dramatic turnaround for a predator that was largely exterminated in the U.S. outside of Alaska in the early 20th century.


"Gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains are thriving and no longer require the protection of the Endangered Species Act," said Interior Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett. "The wolf's recovery in the Northern Rocky Mountains is a conservation success story."


The restoration effort, however, has been unpopular with ranchers and many others in the three states since it began in the mid-1990s, and today some state leaders want the population thinned significantly.


The states are planning to allow hunters to target the animals as soon as this
fall. That angers environmental groups, which plan to sue over the delisting and say it's too soon to remove federal protection.


"The enduring hostility to wolves still exists," said Earthjustice
attorney Doug Honnold, who is preparing the lawsuit. "We're going to have hundreds of wolves killed under state management. It's a sad day for our wolves."


Plans submitted by Idaho, Montana and Wyoming indicate the states will likely maintain between 900 and 1,250 wolves for the foreseeable future, federal officials said.


Wolves have increasingly preyed on livestock as they expanded into new territories. At the same time, ranchers and wildlife agents have made more wolf kills, which are allowed under the Endangered Species Act in response to livestock conflicts.


Since the late 1980s, 724 wolves have been killed legally, and roughly the same number are estimated to have been killed illegally by poachers. Despite
that, the overall population has continued to grow at thups critical of such hunts say the government should be moving in the opposite direction, restoring wolves to areas where they are not now found.


The only other areas of the lower 48 states where gray wolves live are the western Great Lakes and the Southwest. A population of about 4,000wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin was dropped from the endangered list last year, while a reintroduced population of dozens of animals in Arizona and New Mexico has struggled to expand.


In a petition filed Wednesday with the Department of Interior, Defenders of Wildlife and the Natural Resource Defense Council argued new wolf populations
should be established in Maine, New York, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, Washington and possibly New Hampshire, Texas and portions of the mid-Atlantic.


Federal officials said Thursday there were no immediate plans to reintroduce wolves into other states or regions.


However, an independent wolf biologist said he would be "shocked" if
the animal again ends up on the endangered list.


"The last thing any of the states want is for wolves to be re-listed by
the federal government," said Daniel Pletscher, director of the
University of Montana's wildlife biology program. He added that tolerance of wolves has grown immensely since the species was nearly wiped out.

Link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080221/...wolf_delisting

"US passes law" is rather misleading.

These are Bush appointees doing this, and they are about to be sued by an environmental group to prevent it. There was no federal law passed about this.

I'd be interested to know your opinion on this Joann.

I am against anything that hurts or kills animals, and I believe that this is wrong.

So you should be against wolves. They kill deer and elk and many other animals.

Therefor, you should be for this.

When things happen in a natural order that is fine.
Lions hunting in the jungle – owls catching mice in a field etc…

When people or something goes out of there way to hurt or kill animals

Michael Vick fighting and killing dogs for fun for example - that is wrong.:headshake

"They're just some dogs, man"

(Joann, this is just an inside joke from where I got all bent out of shape over a post shortly after the Vick incident. I love animals!)

Jeez, elephants in Kenya...wolves in the US...let's go after the crane fly too. (I hate those bastards)!

They could co-locate the excess wolves with the excess elephants and everyone would be happy.

Well yes, but...where? If we bring the elephants to the US then we would possibly have to contend with illegal elephants, and we can't have that.

How about Palestine?

Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies will be removed from the endangered species list

Hence there was no law that a species on the endangered list is being hunted.