BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Federal
lawmakers pressed Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on Wednesday to drop
the administration’s plan to end federal protections for gray wolves
across most of the Lower 48 states.
Seventy-four House members signed onto a Wednesday letter to Jewell that cited a peer-review panel’s recent conclusion the government relied on unsettled science to make its case that the wolves have sufficiently recovered.
Gray wolves were added to the
endangered-species list in 1975 after being widely exterminated in the
last century. Protections already have been lifted for rebounding
populations of the predators in the northern Rockies and Great Lakes
regions.
Hunting in those regions now kills
hundreds of gray wolves annually, though state officials insist the
species’ population remains healthy.
But lawmakers led by Oregon Rep.
Peter DeFazio, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources
Committee, contend protections elsewhere should remain. That’s in part
because gray wolves have not yet repopulated areas where researchers
identified suitable habitat for the animals in California, Utah,
Colorado and the Northeast.
The lawmakers wrote that taking
the animals off the endangered species list and putting them under state
management would ‘‘stifle gray wolf recovery’’ and undermine decades of
restoration efforts.
Among those signing the letter were two House Republicans — Chris Smith of New Jersey and Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
A panel of independent scientists
last month rejected the government’s claim that the Northeast and
Midwest were home to a separate species, the eastern wolf. The
government claim would make it unnecessary to restore gray wolves in
those areas, but the peer-review panel said there was too little science
to support such a view.
In their letter to Jewell, the
lawmakers criticized Interior for resurrecting a dormant government
journal to publish a study from its own employees that justified the
findings about the eastern wolf.
A public-comment period on Interior’s proposal ends March 27.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Chris
Tollefson said a decision on how to proceed will be made after federal
officials review the comments and the peer-review panel’s report. The
agency has said it expects to make a final decision by the end of the
year.
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