U.S. plans to drop gray wolves from endangered list
The planned ruling would eliminate protection for the top predators, but scientists and conservationists say the proposal is flawed.
By Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times
April 25, 2013, 6:20 p.m.
Federal authorities intend to remove endangered species protections for all gray wolves in the Lower 48 states, carving out an a exception for a small pocket of about 75 Mexican wolves in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico, according to a draft document obtained by The Times.
The sweeping rule by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would eliminate protection for wolves 18 years after the government reestablished the predators in the West, where they had been hunted to extinction. Their reintroduction was a success, with the population growing to the thousands.
But their presence has always drawn protests across the Intermountain West from state officials, hunters and ranchers who lost livestock to the wolves. They have lobbied to remove the gray wolf from the endangered list.
Once those protections end, the fate of wolves is left to individual states. The species is only beginning to recover in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. California is considering imposing its own protections after the discovery of a lone male that wandered into the state's northern counties from Oregon two years ago.
The species has flourished elsewhere, however, and the government ended endangered status for the gray wolf in the northern Rockies and Great Lakes regions last year.
Mike Jimenez, who manages wolves in the northern Rockies for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said delisting in that region underscored a "huge success story." He said that while wolves are now legally hunted in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, the federal agency continues to monitor pack populations and can reinstate protections should numbers reach levels that biologists consider to be dangerously low.
Scientists and conservationists who reviewed the plan said its reasoning is flawed. They challenged how the agency reconfigures the classification of wolf subspecies and its assertion that little habitat remains for wolves.
Jamie Rappaport Clark, the former director of the Fish and Wildlife Service and now the president of Defenders of Wildlife, said the decision "reeks of politics" and vowed that it will face multiple legal challenges.
"This is politics versus professional wildlife management," Clark said. "The service is saying, 'We're done. Game over. Whatever happens to wolves in the U.S. is a state thing.' They are declaring victory long before science would tell them to do so."
The Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to release its decision to delist the wolves in coming weeks and it could become final within a year. Brent Lawrence, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman, said Thursday that the agency would not comment.
The proposed rule is technically a draft until it is entered into the Federal Register.
Some scientists agreed with the decision to delist the wolves. But several took exception to some of the findings that the agency included in the document, including the scientifically disputed issue of defining wolf subspecies.
"It's a little depressing that science can be used and pitched in this way," said Bob Wayne, a professor of evolutionary biology at UCLA.
Wolves were once common and ranged across much of the continental United States, a vestigial symbol of the Old West and its expanse of open, wild country.
But as the West became urbanized and ranching spread, government-subsidized hunting that offered bounties for wolf kills virtually wiped out the animals by the 1930s.
I am from a small, so called "barbarian" country Croatia, but the people all arround the World know one of our very famous city: "DUBROVNIK"….yes, it is only one city in Croatia. What I wanted to say is, that in my "barbarian" small country, Wolves are so well protected and always will be!!!!! Why are You acting differently?!? Don't You hear the voices of Your people?!? The voices of old Indians?!?The voices of Your Animallovers????? I have no words for such bad behaviour, but I want You to know that Your activists will have a help from abroad and that's for sure. Thank You for understanding. Sincerely, Ines Jambrek, lawyer from Croatia
Dear Ines,
Thank you so much for this response. It means a lot to me. In the late 1990s I was working for Defenders of Wildlife in Washington DC and one our friends was working for our State Department. He called and asked whether or not I had time to meet with some representatives from Croatia to talk about wolves and bears. We met and eventually spent about two or there hours talking about needed wolf and bear protections and management mechanisms. At some point the conversation changed and we started talking about all types of needed environmental and natural resource protections. There was never a follow-up meeting and I moved on to other work, but I always wondered how it all worked out. I am very happy to hear that your government and people respect and protect the wolf.
Best,
Bob Ferris
Executive Director
Cascadia Wildlands