Obama Admin. Stripping Wolf Protections Across Most of Lower 48

[G_j]

Last edited Tue Jun 11, 2013, 03:04 PM - Edit history (2)

**TODAY IS LAST CALL for comments on Wyoming wolf policy Here: (please!!)
http://wolfwatcher.org/2013/05/nwc-public-statement-2013-wyoming-wolf-hunt/.

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http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2013/06/07-1


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 7, 2013
12:33 PM
CONTACT: Center for Biological Diversity
Noah Greenwald, [phone]

Obama Administration Strips Wolf Protections Across Most of Lower 48 States
Plan Ends Prospects of Wolf Recovery in Southern Rockies, California, Northeast, Pacific Northwest

WASHINGTON - June 7 - In a move questioned by some of the World’s leading wolf researchers, the Obama administration announced plans today to prematurely strip Endangered Species Act protections from gray wolves across most of the lower 48 states, abruptly ending one of America’s most important species recovery programs. The proposal concludes that wolf protection in the continental United States, in place since 1978, is no longer needed, even though there are fledgling populations in places like the Pacific Northwest whose survival hinges on continued federal protection.

“This is like kicking a patient out of the hospital when they’re still attached to life-support,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Wolves cling to a sliver of their historic habitat in the lower 48 and now the Obama administration wants to arbitrarily declare victory and move on. They need to finish the job that Americans expect, not walk away the first chance they get. This proposal is a national disgrace and our wildlife deserve better.”

Wolves today occupy just 5 percent of their historic habitat in the continental United States. Today’s proposal means that wolves will never fully reoccupy prime wolf habitat in the southern Rocky Mountains, California and Northeast, and will hinder ongoing recovery in the Pacific Northwest.

The proposal will hand wolf management over to state wildlife agencies across most of the country – a step that has meant widespread killing in recent years. Following removal of protections for wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains and western Great Lakes in 2011, states in those regions quickly enacted aggressive hunting and trapping seasons designed to drastically reduce wolf populations. In the northern Rocky Mountains more than 1,100 wolves have been killed since protections were removed; this year populations declined by 7 percent.

“By locking wolves out of prime habitat across most this country, this proposal perpetuates the global phenomena of eliminating predators that play hugely important roles in ecosystems,” said Greenwald. “Wolves are well documented to benefit a host of other wildlife from beavers and fish, to songbirds and pronghorn.”

In response to a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity, today’s proposal maintains protections for the Mexican gray wolf as a separate subspecies. Only 75 Mexican wolves roam a recovery area restricted to portions of Arizona and New Mexico. The population has not grown as expected because of a combination of illegal poaching and government mismanagement that requires wolves to be removed from the wild or killed when they leave the recovery area or depredate livestock.

“It’s obvious that Mexican gray wolves continue to need protection and we’re glad they’re getting it,” said Greenwald. “But it is equally obvious that wolves in the Pacific Northwest, southern Rockies, California and Northeast also need continued protection.”
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At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature - to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law, and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive.

[darkangel218]

1. Yah, the repukes were complaining.

So POTUS made em happy what's so outrageus about that?

[vi5]

6. Nothing is outrageous about that.

That's the problem. That's the pattern.

Republicans complain, the POTUS caves. At this point it's the least outrageous thing imagineable.

[G_j]

8. obviously

and never mind the bleeding-heart, tree-hugging scientists who say this is wrong.

[geek tragedy]

9. Actually, Western Democrats want wolves to be extinct as much as Republicans do.

For whatever reason, in the Rocky Mountain states wolves are viewed as New Yorkers view rats.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Horrible, HORRIBLE decision.

Is there that much political pressure from the farmers and ranchers who opposed the reintroduction of the wolf?

I am sickened.

[G_j]

3. a lot of pressure, but this is unacceptable

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/opinion/dont-forsake-the-gray-wolf.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=1&

Don’t Forsake the Gray Wolf
By JIM DUTCHER, JAMIE DUTCHER and GARRICK DUTCHER
Published: June 7, 2013

<>

Wolves are already under state rather than federal control in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, which are home to about 97 percent of the gray wolves in the lower 48 states. Wolf management in those states is often driven by politics, and wolves are being killed at alarming rates in the name of sport in all but Michigan.

For instance, most of the nearly 1,700 wolves surviving in the West lived in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming at the end of 2012. Those states now have recreational hunting and trapping seasons, and in the past two years, nearly 1,200 wolves have been killed. Nearly 400 more were killed for attacking livestock.

Wolves are highly social. They live in packs, which for the most part are extended families of parents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, all sharing in the tasks of sustaining and providing for the whole. Their teamwork and intelligence fascinate researchers, but throughout history, in folklore and fairy tales, wolves have been portrayed as voracious and formidable, cunning and sinister. If you really want to understand wolves, though, consider the dog. Studies analyzing mitochondrial DNA have concluded that dogs are derived from wolves and are closely related. In most ways, they are the same genetically, behaviorally and emotionally.

Last year, wolves killed 645 of the estimated 7 million cattle and sheep in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Those wolves can be killed legally; a federal fund also compensates farmers and ranchers for their losses. But these predators are critical components of the ecosystem, a so-called keystone species. Their presence can keep populations of browsing animals in check and on the move, allowing vegetation to regenerate. They are true ecological assets, but not if they are reduced to ecologically irrelevant numbers.

The problem is that wolf management continues to be hijacked by hunting and livestock interests.

<>

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. Your last sentence says it all.

[life long demo]

5. A lot of people are in mourning as we are

I wonder if a lot of people really understand how bad it's going to get for the wolf. We've seen what state management has done in Wyoming and Montana, et al. Some believe (paraphrasing here) the only good wolf is a dead wolf. I wish I'm wrong, but from reading incidents from the last 2 years of state management, I don't think so. I'm sorry, this is just so depressing.

[G_j]

7. Thank you for paying attention, so very few are

It's been an out and out slaughter.
When a wolf pack collapses it is devastating. They don't care.

even here, few seem concerned

[newfie11]

10. As a farmer/rancher I just want to say

Obama you suck!

[byeya]

11. 0bama, keeping his solid "F" environmental rating. This is pathetic.

[david13]

12. This is just ...

a proposal, isn't it? Therefore it has not yet, and may never take effect? Or am I wrong about that?
Second. What are the wolf numbers like?
I know the deer numbers are now outrageous and a serious threat to someone riding his motorcycle in the western states. (That would be me).
1.5 million vehicle deer collisions last year. That's too much.
What are the wolf numbers?
dc

[G_j]

13. It's already happened in the Northern Rockies

It's already happened in the Norhern Rockies. This is round two, and it's not looking good, given past actions. There is a new Interior Secrety now, with another proposal for the lower 48 states.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-03-14/politics/36803863_1_cabinet-members-president-obama-white-house

Salazar's Wolf Decision Upsets Administration Allies
By Juliet Eilperin,March 14, 2009

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's decision to stick with a controversial Bush administration move that took gray wolves off the endangered species list in most of the northern Rockies reflects the independent streak that has defined his career. But it has alienated key Obama administration allies, including environmentalists and some lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Since then: (Please read the article in post #3.)

".., most of the nearly 1,700 wolves surviving in the West lived in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming at the end of 2012. Those states now have recreational hunting and trapping seasons, and in the past two years, nearly 1,200 wolves have been killed. Nearly 400 more were killed for attacking livestock.

Last year, wolves killed 645 of the estimated 7 million cattle and sheep in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Those wolves can be killed legally; a federal fund also compensates farmers and ranchers for their losses. But these predators are critical components of the ecosystem, a so-called keystone species. Their presence can keep populations of browsing animals in check and on the move, allowing vegetation to regenerate. They are true ecological assets, but not if they are reduced to ecologically irrelevant numbers.

The problem is that wolf management continues to be hijacked by hunting and livestock interests."

[G_j]

14. k

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[G_j]

15. wolves 'good for ecosystems'

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/opinion/the-world-needs-wolves.html

Why the Beaver Should Thank the Wolf
By MARY ELLEN HANNIBAL
Published: September 28, 2012


THIS month, a group of environmental nonprofits said they would challenge the federal government’s removal of Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in Wyoming. Since there are only about 328 wolves in a state with a historic blood thirst for the hides of these top predators, the nonprofits are probably right that lacking protection, Wyoming wolves are toast.

Many Americans, even as they view the extermination of a species as morally anathema, struggle to grasp the tangible effects of the loss of wolves. It turns out that, far from being freeloaders on the top of the food chain, wolves have a powerful effect on the well-being of the ecosystems around them — from the survival of trees and riverbank vegetation to, perhaps surprisingly, the health of the populations of their prey.

An example of this can be found in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, where wolves were virtually wiped out in the 1920s and reintroduced in the ’90s. Since the wolves have come back, scientists have noted an unexpected improvement in many of the park’s degraded stream areas.

Stands of aspen and other native vegetation, once decimated by overgrazing, are now growing up along the banks. This may have something to do with changing fire patterns, but it is also probably because elk and other browsing animals behave differently when wolves are around. Instead of eating greenery down to the soil, they take a bite or two, look up to check for threats, and keep moving. The greenery can grow tall enough to reproduce.
..more..

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6310211.stm

Wild wolves 'good for ecosystems'

[Union Scribe]

16. Bad policy, bad science, bad politics.

There is no angle to approach this decision from that makes it look smart.

[G_j]

17. LAST CALL for comments on Wyoming policy

OP edited to reflect this.

[Solly Mack]

18. K&R

[one_voice]

19. This is..

unacceptable. I will go comment on the link provided.

This just can't happen.

[TheKentuckian]

20. K&R

[QC]

21. If Bush had done this, DU would have melted down.

Funny what a difference it makes which team is in charge.