Authority says Great Lakes gray wolves still need federal protection

Letters to the Editor

A gray wolf. (Gary Kramer/Associated Press)

 

December 4 2015

 

Regarding the Dec. 1 Health & Science article “Scientists want gray wolves declared recovered in western Great Lakes area”:

Wolf policies are in the news again, revived by a group of 26 scientists and wildlife managers, most of whom are former government employees. They recommended in a letter to federal officials that wolves in three Great Lakes states be stripped of federal protections. That includes allowing Congress to sidestep our most popular and effective environmental law, the Endangered Species Act.

In a Nov. 30 open letter , 70 scientists and scholars, including myself, pointed out that the 26 individuals misunderstood the scientific evidence and the law. This debate is much more than a clash of opinions between two camps. We provided evidence that wolves still meet the legal definition of endangered and that state agencies do not have adequate regulatory mechanisms in place to ensure wolves won’t fall victim to the same unregulated killing that nearly wiped them out. Tolerance for wolves and the Endangered Species Act is positive and growing. My colleagues and I presented evidence; the other group presented only unsubstantiated claims about wildlife management, hunting and trapping.



Adrian Treves, Madison, Wis.

The writer is director of the Carnivore
Coexistence Lab at the University of Wisconsin
at Madison.

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