Wolf Delisting Again (2009, legal, food)

[Toyman at Jewel Lake]

Northern Rockies Gray Wolf Delisted AgainPosted: Wednesday, January 14, 2009
COEUR D’ALENE, WA - The U-S Fish and Wildlife Service today [Wednesday] removed the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List. The delisting applies to wolves in Idaho and Montana, but not in Wyoming. Correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports the announcement is certain to kick off another round of legal battles.
U-S Fish and Wildlife Service wolf expert Ed Bangs says this is almost the same delisting rule that the Bush administration issued last year. There are two differences. One is that it doesn’t include Wyoming, whose state wolf management plan is deemed to be inadequate. Wolves there will stay on the endangered list.
Bangs says the second difference is that new research shows wolves in the three states are not as isolated from each other as earlier thought.
Bangs: “We’ve now proven that we have natural dispersal between all the recovery areas and that those dispersing wolves have successfully raised young in each recovery area. And so that totally resolves that issue.”
No, it doesn’t, says Suzanne Stone from Defenders of Wildlife. The group was one of about a dozen that sued last year and forced the agency to put the wolf back on the Endangered Species List.
Stone: “Most people look at this wolf population, where we have about 15-hundred wolves in the region, and think that we’re doing well, when, unfortunately, the delisting rule allows all but about 300 of those wolves to be killed.” Stone’s group wants the agency to rewrite the rule to provide greater protections for wolves. Both Bangs and Stone expect the delisting to be challenged in court. Conservation groups hope the new Obama administration will withdraw the rule until something more wolf-friendly can be written.
************************************************** *************************

It will be interesting to see how this plays out this time. Wolves in the Northern Rockies have exceed recovery targets and were delisted a year or so ago. This would have allowed management of the population via regulated hunting. The pro-wolf community found an activist judge that overrulled science and recovery targets and put them back on the endangered species list.

I don't hate wolves and think they have a place in the west. However, I personally think the elk is a much more majestic animal and much more a symbol of the west than what are essentially wild dogs. Resonable management of the wolf population may allow both species to thrive. Elk herds in much of Idaho, particularly the Clearwater drainage, have been decimated since the wolf reintroduction, a factor that is especially severe in the winter when elk are concentrated into somewhat confined areas and can not travel well due to snow. In addition to the animals killed directly for both food and "sport", others die due to additional stress and energy expended at a time when they are at their weakest. Cow-calf ratios are below what has been determined necessary to allow for herd survival.

This latest ruling may allow for the survival of both species.