Protection for Wyoming's wolves has been removed within this hour. Damn it to hell.
There's a lot more to
restoring an endangered species than simply getting enough animals to
breed in the wild. They return to a changed area, narrower and more
hostile, where humans occupy more space. Sometimes this works out fine;
the bald eagle has been a stunning success story. The return of the gray
wolf to the northern Rockies looked as though it would be similarly
inspiring, with the wolf's numbers rising from an original 66 to about
1,700. It still could be, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has
been too willing to see the multimillion-dollar wolf program set back by
agreements with states that allow widespread hunting. Now it's about to
happen again, this time in Wyoming.
Once an animal is removed
from the endangered list, its future depends on state agreements to
manage and maintain the species. None of the plans for gray wolves has
been ideal. Since they were originally delisted in Montana and Idaho,
hundreds of them have been shot and killed. But Wyoming's plan is the
worst — so bad in its original incarnation that the government would not
allow the animal to be delisted there.
The new agreement, which
the federal government is expected to approve, is only somewhat better.
Wyoming would be responsible for maintaining no fewer than 10 breeding
pairs of the wolves, and no more than 100 wolves total, in a small area
of the state outside of Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.
Hunting of the wolves would be allowed in that area, but only during a
limited season. Outside of that northwest corner of the state, which
represents about a fifth of its land, the wolf would be considered a
predator, subject to wanton hunting. There are an estimated 230 Wyoming
wolves outside of the two parks, and the state's intention is to
significantly reduce that population by the end of the year.
There's natural concern, in a
ranching state, over the prospect of wolves feasting on cattle, and
hunters who seek elk consider the wolves competition. But killing wolves
that attack herds has always been allowed, and the problem has been far
less common than Wyoming ranchers had expected. Wolves also can play an
important role in helping to keep coyote populations in check.
A tighter plan than this is needed, as well as a revisiting of all state plans over time to ensure that the wolf population remains healthy.
The purpose of spending millions of dollars to bring endangered species
back to their natural roles in the wild should not be to forever keep
them teetering on the edge of decline.
source
Wyoming
contains the northern portion of the Rocky Mountains, which contains a
significant, but dwindling population of North American gray wolves. The
State of Wyoming is currently in the process of decriminalizing wolf
hunting, which could result in the slaughter of countless wolves. As of
May 5, 2011 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formally delisted wolves
as endangered in the Northern Rockies, which allowed for the slaughter
of 600 wolves in deregulated areas like Montana and Idaho. Wolves are
now considered “predators” and can be shot on site.
![Unlike this wolf, kept on a leash as a prop for a 2007 hearing on wolf protection, gray wolves in Washington's "Wedge" area are being targeted by wildlife officials over cattle predation.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_urJV9pvACg4HcmNrnIH7j1cOl-mxPCIEXo2eeEne0qwFnjev7zhV7_hpw6y5JJwsiNOWm_WljhJLyMjejGmz50KkbTVEklfUNLM1XLr-pORNhZm-rckwy0ymujn8dJvk9bCE3ye8Hldbpso5QKpxLu9V63mAccNHvv1ZNill1ZKYvFND-rtfqNpPry9xT8zRNLfh6WfbMWWa7s3Q=s0-d "Unlike this wolf, kept on a leash as a prop for a 2007 hearing on wolf protection, gray wolves in Washington's "Wedge" area are being targeted by wildlife officials over cattle predation.")
