Will we really let our wolves be slaughtered??

[G_j]

A chance like this won’t come around again.


Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) formally proposed to remove federal Endangered Species Act protection for nearly all gray wolves throughout the United States. But after an independent peer review board unanimously decided that the best available science doesn’t support the plan to delist, wolves have been given a second chance at maintaining federal protection.


This is a major development in our efforts to stop this irresponsible proposal from going through.


But wolves need your help – submit your official comment to FWS, strongly opposing this misguided proposal to delist nearly all gray wolves.


Now that it’s been confirmed that this proposed delisting is clearly not based on the best available science, we are left wondering why FWS wants to turn its back on wolves.


There isn’t much time. Your chance to submit your official comment opposing this awful proposal ends on March 27th.

HERE: https://secure.defenders.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2707

In states like Idaho, we continue to see what happens when wolves are prematurely stripped of federal protection and left to be managed by states with deadly anti-wolf agendas – as we speak, a bill is being rushed through the Idaho legislature that would spend as much as $2 million of Idaho taxpayers’ money to kill off as many as 450 wolves.


Wolves now serve as a scapegoat for anti-government extremists with a political agenda – and these groups will spare no expense to try and derail wolf conservation in America. We simply can’t allow politics and private interests to trump science – it’s irresponsible and unacceptable.


Please stand with us and call for this proposal to be stopped in its tracks.


Thank you for all that you do!

Sincerely,

Jamie Rappaport Clark
President
Defenders of Wildlife

[Mojorabbit]

1. k and r nt

[yeoman6987]

3. Why do they want to kill 450 wolves

It doesn't make sense to me if the wolves are just "possibly" coming off the endangered list that they would turn around and kill 450 wolves. Wouldn't that require them back on the list? So confusing.

[Mojorabbit]

4. It is one of my huge disappointments from this administration

It makes no sense to me either.

[truebrit71]

6. This administration has been a TERRIBLE steward of the environment...

....including the wildlife it is supposed to protect...which all started when Obama appointed a cattle-rancher as the head of the DoI...

Pathetic really....they simply extended the destructive bush policies...'Hope and Change' my ass...

[G_j]

5. the delisting proposal was carried over from the Bush administration.

that should you tell you something...

[HereSince1628]

7. The wildlife management reason is because of the capacity of wolves to reproduce.

In the early 90's WI had ~15 wolves in 2 packs. Twenty years later there were ~800 wolves in ~200 packs

In WI they aren't in danger of extirpation, and the restitution payments for wolf depredation have reached almost a quarter of a million dollars per year. As the population grows the depredation on livestock and pets increases. Management of the population and the restitution costs becomes an issue. Population management goals get put in place. Historically, culling by permitted hunters has been a cost effective possibility for conservation agencies, but this practice is emotional for many people.

The official list for animals killed by wolves in WI since 1895 is shown below. It isn't huge in terms of numbers of animals, but then if you lose your hunting dog, purebred calf, pet goat or Llama it's not a sterile actuarial matter:

calves – 401
hounds – 192
chickens – 164
turkeys – 148
sheep – 138
cattle – 66
deer – 54
pet dogs – 33
goats – 13
horse/donkey – 12
llamas – 2
pig – 1

[G_j]

8. unfounded science,

http://m.livescience.com/43213-unsettled-science-gray-wolf-peer-review.html

By Megan Gannon, News Editor
Date: 07 February 2014 Time: 04:07 PM ET

The drawn-out battle over the fate of gray wolves in the United States continues.
An independent panel of experts said Friday (Feb. 7) there is wide disagreement about some of the science the Fish and Wildlife Service used to make its case for ousting gray wolves from the Endangered Species list. The review could hinder the FWS proposal to lift federal protections for the animals throughout much of the United States.

"It was a very clean process and we got a unanimous result," said Steven Courtney, one of the scientists charged with setting up the independent panel at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The panel was not taksed with deciding whether or not the gray wolf should be removed from the Endangered Species list. Rather, they were charged with determining whether the FWS recommendation to do so was supported by the best available science, explained Frank Davis, director of the NCEAS.

The experts' main complaint was that the FWS proposal relied too heavily on a 2012 study (published in the FWS's own journal North American Fauna), which determined wolves that once occupied the eastern part of the country were likely a genetically distinct species (Canis lycaon) from the gray wolves in question (Canis lupis). If this were the case, the FWS would not be responsible for ensuring the gray wolf's recovery in the eastern United States.

But scientists on the panel said the results of the 2012 study are not universally accepted or settled. The group decided that FWS officials "had interpreted the science that they used fairly, but there has been a lot of new science on the question of wolf genetics, and that science needs to be brought into that discussion," Davis told Live Science.

The FWS has now reopened its public comment period on the proposal, which it hopes to make a decision on by the end of the year.

..more..

Full Report

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R