Montana Mulls Upping Hunter “Harverst” Limit to FIVE Wolves

HELENA — Montana wildlife commissioners may extend the hunting season for wolves and the number of predators that can be killed by a hunter or trapper.

“We’ve always had a philosophy of incrementally increasing harvest rates and opportunities,” FWP Wildlife Management Chief George Pauley said in an article in today’s Great Falls Tribune entitled, “FWP proposes extending wolf hunt, kill limit.” The changes would allow hunters more opportunities and reduce the wolf population,
he said.

Well that’s just fucking great; more hunter “harvest” opportunities, fewer wolves–what a philosophy!!

The agency also is proposing allowing hunters and trappers to take up to five wolves each, the Independent Record reported Wednesday.

Last year, hunters and trappers could take only one wolf. The state Legislature this year passed a bill that allows the agency to increase that limit.

The commission takes up the proposal at its May 9 meeting in Helena….

Intolerance is Sometimes the Only Humane Stance

There’s been a lot of talk about tolerance these days, but sometimes it seems only the Left side really takes the concept of peaceful acceptance to heart. Fair-minded folk are encouraged to politely tolerate each other’s differences in order to get along. But lately the anti-wolf faction has hijacked the word to justify the killing of wolves.

For example, ten Washington state legislators recently urged their Fish and Wildlife Commission to enact a policy of allowing the unpermitted killing of wolves, “to maintain social tolerance for gray wolves in northeast Washington.” And a wolf-hunter/wildlife snuff film producer told NPR News, “Having these [wolf] hunting seasons has provided a level of tolerance again.” Sorry, but I just don’t see how killing wolves promotes tolerance for them; sounds more like enmity than tolerance.

The only way I can relate is from a converse perspective: doing away with a few wolf hunters might provide some level of tolerance for them.

Still, tolerance should not be just a catchall catchword to be bandied about whenever the mood strikes—some things don’t deserve to be tolerated. No caring person should be expected to tolerate the mistreatment of others. Anyone with a sense of right and wrong should eventually come to the conclusion that intolerance is sometimes the only humane stance to take.

Intolerant is what Japanese whalers label anti-whaling groups or non-whaling nations when they question the “right” to harpoon and butcher whales or trap and slaughter dolphins. South Koreans, who literally torture dogs to death and boil cats alive in the belief that doing so makes them taste better or improves their medicinal value, call humane activists intolerant when they oppose those barbarous customs. And European and American producers of foie gras scream cultural intolerance when animal advocates work to end the bizarre practice of shoving a pipe down the throats of geese and force feeding them until their livers swell or their stomachs burst, whichever comes first.

Meanwhile hunters and trappers expect us to tolerate the torment they unleash on wolves and other wildlife. Members of a civilized society should not hesitate to take a stand against cruelty to other sentient beings—who are fully capable of suffering—in the same way they oppose cruelty to human victims.

This post includes an excerpt for the book, Exposing the Big Game; Living Targets of a Dying Sport.

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

Letter-length Answer to an Anti-Wolf Extremist

Dear Editor,

It was bad enough to read another damning letter from an anti-wolf extremist asking, “Is the wolf an animal we want protected in our area?” as though it’s our birthright to pick and choose which wildlife species are welcome and which are not—that kind of human arrogance is always unwelcome. But since the letter was full of hyperbole aimed at striking fear into the hearts of sport hunters, by suggesting that wolves are completely wiping out the elk in Montana, someone has to set the record straight.

Having recently lived in Montana, I’ve seen and photographed my share of wolves, but also thousands of elk and mule deer. According to a 2012 Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department survey, there are 141,078 elk in the state, 55% over their “management objective” of 90,910; but rather than allowing wolves to solve their elk “problem,” they want to continue to reduce the number of both elk and wolves. That policy is not only flawed, it’s downright kill-happy.

And an alleged threat to the cattle industry is no excuse for today’s rampant killing of these important predators either. Out of the approximately 2.6 MILLION cows in Montana, only 74, or 0.0003%, were taken by wolves in 2011.

But if there has been any drop in business for Montana’s trophy elk hunting industry, it’s because wolves keep elk on the move (thus doing their job of preventing over-grazing). With elk in Montana now wilder and less complacent, the common complaint you hear from hunters is not that they’re disappearing, but that they’re gettin’ “harder to hunt.”

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

 

An Answer to an Anti-Wolf Extremist

Here’s a letter to a local Washington state newspaper from a budding anti-wolf extremist, followed by my response letter…

“Damage wolves do”
Dear Editor:
I am writing in response to Lorna Smith’s column (April 3), “Why are we so afraid of wolves?”
It’s not the wolf itself, it’s the killing they do to our deer and livestock that I’m afraid about.
I have a friend who lives in Arlie, Mont., where the wolves are abundant. He states that the wolves have completely destroyed the elk herds in his area – and are now preying on the deer.
He also states that the economy has really suffered in the area as the sportsmen are not coming to hunt anymore.
Also, there was an article in the April 2013 Western Horseman magazine. One of the featured articles was “Range Riders of the Upper Green.” The story is of Doc Foster – his main job was caring for the cattle. He states that dealing with the predator-livestock conflict took most of his time – that the wolves attack the cattle herd in a pack and focus on dragging the cattle down by the back and hindquarters. “They are killers,” Foster says. “They [wolves] eat the heart, liver and lungs and then go on.”
Is the wolf an animal we want protected in our area?
Seems like several new wolf pairs have just “arrived” in Washington state lately.
Betty Wagoner
And my response?…

Dear Editor,

It’s bad enough to read a damaging letter from an anti-wolf extremist (“Damage wolves do”) who asks, “Is the wolf an animal we want protected in our area?” as if it’s our birthright to pick and choose which species are welcome and which are not. But when the main thrust of the letter seems to be to spread disinformation—aimed at striking terror in the hearts of hunters—that “wolves have completely destroyed the elk herds” in Montana, well, someone has to set the record straight.

Having recently lived in Montana, I’ve seen and photographed my share of wolves, but also thousands of elk; and some of the mule deer herds were nearly a hundred strong in places. According to a 2012 Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department survey, there are 141,078 elk in the state, 55% over their management “objective” of 90,910; but rather than allowing wolves to solve their elk “problem,” they want to reduce the number of both elk and wolves. That policy is not scientific; it’s downright kill-happy.

Meanwhile, there are currently fewer than 600 wolves in that state (hunters and trappers killed nearly 200 last season). Yet Montana wildlife officials say they are hoping to reduce the wolf population to around 450. Of course, that number does not even come close to representing a recovered state wolf population by any historical standards when you consider that 10,261 wolves were destroyed between 1884 and 1886 in Montana alone after a bounty was first initiated there—or that 380,000 wolves once roamed the lower 48.

An alleged threat to the cattle industry is certainly no excuse for today’s rampant killing of these important predators. Out of the approximately 2.6 million cattle in the state, only 74, or .0003%, were taken by wolves in 2011.

But if there has been any drop in business for the trophy elk hunting industry, it’s because wolves keep elk on the move; wilder and less complacent. In one of their most telling remarks, Montana hunters have complained that wolves make elk “too hard to hunt.” Ever their lackeys, state game managers have used that claim as an excuse to promote wolf hunting, rather than sticking up for wolves by pointing out that they are just doing their job of preventing elk from over-grazing.

So next time you hear hunters complaining about wolves, remember, it’s not because they really think wolves are going to eliminate all “their” elk—they just don’t want to have to walk too far from the pickup truck to make their kill.

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

Wolf-Killers’ Admit They’re Sadistic Perverts

Paul Watson was right. In his foreword to my book, Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport, Sea Shepherd’s Captain Paul Watson wrote:

“Any man who has to kill a magnificent bear or bull elk to mount its head on his wall has some very deep and disturbing psychological and sexual problems. Hunting is no longer necessary for our survival but trophy hunting was never necessary for human survival. Trophy hunters can be described quite adequately as sadistic perverts and social deviants.”

Worst of all, they freely admit it.

An article by Cathy Taibbi in Examiner.com entitled “Wolf-killers admit it’s all about the sadistic sexual thrill” includes photos, links and quotes from one of the many anti-wolf Facebook pages where members brag about “’getting wood’ when seeing wolves trapped, tortured and killed, whether in images or in real life.” Flaunting the fact that they’re still legally entitled to their predatory perversions as long as the abused are only wild animals, they don’t hesitate to tell their Facebook friends that they “feel ‘orgasmic’ when hunting, trapping, killing, butchering, and even eating their victims.”

And they wonder why we call them psychopaths or compare them to serial Killers?

Anyone who gets sexually aroused at the sight of a trapped, struggling or suffering animal should be preemptively executed for the good of the many. They are what the FBI’s Behavioral Science team refers to as “sexual sadists,” the most dangerous of all offenders to their victims.

The Examiner article goes on to say “…in a nutshell, what they are saying plainly is that torturing animals is sexually arousing for them. Do we really want people like this freely expressing their fetishes on the Internet (where children can be traumatized – or worse, titillated – by them), or acting them out using our wildlife or pets?

“What’s happened to our society, when any show of ethics, decorum or empathy is treated as a liability to be ridiculed, threatened and treated derisively, while a site enabling perverted, sadistic sexual thrills from abusing animals is considered free speech?

“These kinds of pages are no better than so-called ‘crush videos’ (movies of innocent, live animals being stomped, cut apart with scissors, burned, etc., and sold to perverts who like to masturbate while watching) except that, being based more in the ‘traditional sports’ of hunting and trapping, these (for now, at least) manage to sneak by legally.

“Hunting, trapping and other hate/fetish sites need to be dealt with in the same fashion as perpetrators of illegal crush videos. The penalties for gratuitous animal abuse need to be severe. The moral fiber and safety of our society is definitely at risk.

“Yup. These are scary individuals. And our politicians are pandering to them. It’s a sad and disheartening statement about where America is at this point.”

The article includes a slide show of graphic photos of which they caution: “Viewer discretion is advised.” If you’re already well aware of the depth of wolf-hater depravity, then you might want to spare yourself the mental and emotional scarring. But if you have any doubts that wolf trapping is as evil as the Inquisition, then by all means view the slide show.

Don’t Let Orrin Hatch His Evil Plan

It appears certain U.S. Legislators won’t be satisfied until wolves in America are a thing of the past once again . An article entitled “Hatch, fellow senators petition to end gray wolves’ protected status” in ksl news, Utah, begins:

Led by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, 72 senators and representatives formally asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Monday to delist the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act. The request in a letter sent to the agency argues that the gray wolf is no longer an endangered species and that uncontrolled gray wolf population growth is a threat to other indigenous wildlife as well as the hunting and ranching industries.

It’s almost laughable that Senator Hatch and his cronies expect us to believe they suddenly care so much about “indigenous wildlife” since—if allowed to hatch—Orrin Hatch’s half-baked, half-witted plan to delist wolves would effectively seal the fate of one the countries most endangered native species.

According to their letter, “State governments are fully qualified to responsibly manage wolf populations…” Sorry senators, nothing we’ve seen so far backs that statement up; it’s simply not true. Now, if the quote was “State governments are fully qualified to irresponsibly wipe out their wolf populations,” then I’d have to agree.

Sixty-five Republicans and seven Democrats signed the Hatch’s evil anti-wolf plan, including every congressman from Utah.

Wednesday’s official request was in response to a March 4 letter sent by 52 federal lawmakers requesting that gray wolves keep their protected status. Environmental groups say the government has its priorities wrong and some are even threatening to sue for a reversal if a delisting goes into effect.

“We believe national delisting would be premature,” said Adam Roberts, executive vice president of Born Free USA, a wildlife advocacy group. “When you have a species that varies greatly from region to region, it’s very dangerous to remove protection nationwide. It puts a bounty on wolves, including where there haven’t been healthy population levels. … Once there’s a market, wolves aren’t safe anywhere.”

Derek Goldman, a field representative for the Endangered Species Coalition, believes a nationwide delisting would be an unnecessary blanket solution. He said stable wolf populations are isolated to areas where their endangered status has already been lifted. “It seems really preposterous to delist wolves where they are barely making a comeback and where there are still great, natural habitats for them,” Goldman said.

And as Howling for Justice posted this morning: Can you imagine the carnage if wolves were systematically delisted across the lower 48? They can’t catch a break now, when they’re federally protected. The USFWS has no reason to take this action against wolves. Wolf recovery is not even close to being accomplished and in fact it’s going in reverse due to USFWS removing their federal protections and turning them over to hostile state management. The pressure to delist is coming from the rabid wolf haters, who believe “the only good wolf is a dead wolf”. Where is the science in that USFWS? I won’t hold my breath waiting for an answer.

And USA Today reports:

“Environmentalists band together to defend gray wolves”

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife report last year proposed dropping wolves from the endangered list in most areas where they’re known not to live, triggering an outcry.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Western environmental groups say they’re alarmed that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering a plan to end federal protections for gray wolves in vast areas where the animals no longer exist.

The groups say ending federal protections would keep wolves from expanding their range back into states that could support them, including Colorado and California.

“As a matter of principle, I just think it’s wrong,” said Jay Tutchton, a Colorado lawyer with the group WildEarth Guardians.

Tutchton’s group has sued over recent action to end federal protections for wolves in Wyoming. Wolves in most of the “Cowboy State” are classified as unprotected predators and scores have been killed since federal protections ended last fall.

“The Endangered Species Act was designed to protect species, including in places where they no longer reside,” Tutchton said. “You were supposed to try to recover them, not throw in the towel.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service could announce as soon as this spring whether it will propose a blanket delisting of wolves in most of the lower 48 states. Wolves in the Northern Rockies and around the Great Lakes, where reintroduced populations are well-established, are already off the Endangered Species List.
Go Here to urge the President not to allow the removal of wolves from the Endangered Species List.

Wolves Need Their Own Untouchables

During the reign of Al Capone, when organized crime syndicates held Chicago in a stranglehold, a response team known as “The Untouchables” was formed to restore sanity to the war-torn city. With politicians and the cops in their back pockets, the crime bosses of yesteryear were able to act with impunity—to get away with murder, so to speak.

An analogous situation exists today, with anti-wolf fanatics in the role of the organized crime gangs and wolves as innocent victims. With corrupt state legislators and wildlife agencies in their pockets, organized wolf-haters are flexing their political muscles to push anti-wolf laws through everywhere the embattled canines can be found.

Some recent examples include: wolf hating troops to pressure the USFWS to delist wolves across the US., Big Game Forever, Don Peay and the Utah Legislature want to stop wolves from returning to Utah and, posted by Ralph Maughan on his website on March 26, Anti-wolf, anti-wilderness going after “pro-wolf” Washington state commissioners in hearing today…

Efforts by Washington state anti-wolf forces intercepted-

Below is an alert from anti-wolf folks in Washington State. This is an interesting example of the kind of email campaign that is being used by anti-wolf forces in a state where pro-wolf opinion is strong.

Those who support wilderness and wolves and other wildlife might want to do just the opposite of the recommendations below.
- – – – – -

Eliminate Pro-Wolf Wildlife Commissioners Now!

This is the most important thing that you can do to help hunting and the increasing wolf problem in our state. The Republicans are giving us this opportunity on a silver platter. Remember, all four guys up for confirmation on the Wildlife Commission have had a state senate hearing and they were not voted on. They can sit unconfirmed until their term expires without ever having another hearing. They don’t have to be voted on, but now they are being brought up for a vote. The Senate Natural Resources Committee Chair is bringing these guys up for hearings even though he doesn’t have to. The writing is so clear. The hunting community and ranchers are being thrown a political bone. This session Republicans were unified on gun issues. They only had two or three defecters at most on the anti-gun legislation. The GOP finally has some political clout and they are willing to do what the Democrats do – share the wealth with people that support them. I am a political realist whose passion is preserving our Second Amendment and right to hunt. Republicans in this state want to be our allies, now we have to do our part. We may never again have a chance to make a bigger splash than this. The Republicans on the committee need to hear from us and so does Hargrove. There are pro-hunting Democrats who support managing wolves 100%.

First we need to achieve our goal with each of these commissioner confirmations in committee, then the commissioners will face a vote by the full Senate. There’s a fair chance of influencing these confirmations because the full Senate did approve two of Senator Smith’s wolf bills which are now in the House. These wildlife commissioner confirmations only go before the Senate, so we do not have to worry about passing in the House. Therefore we only have two hurdles, getting the committee to vote as we would like and then getting the full Senate to vote as we would like. It’s a numbers game and it’s hard to know exactly how many messages we need to send to accomplish this goal, so we need as many messages sent as possible. Ask friends, family and any groups you belong, ask anyone you think you can convince to send email or call today.

As of Friday March 22 a Washington legislator informed us that nobody is contacting the Senate Committee regarding the confirmation of the four Wildlife Commissioners on March 26. This is the perfect chance for hunters, fishers, ranchers, and other concerned persons to have a direct impact on the Wildlife Commission. The hearing for confirmations is at 1:30 pm on March 26.

Please take 1 or 2 minutes and call or email: DO IT NOW IF YOU WANT A CHANGE!

CALL:
The committee assistant is Katharine Grimes (360) 786-7419 and ask her to forward a messages to each committee member to CONFIRM Wildlife Commissioners Mahnken and Carpenter and to OPPOSE Wildlife Commissioners Jennings and Kehne.

EMAIL: (copy and paste email list)
Kirk.Pearson@leg.wa.gov; John.Smith@leg.wa.gov; Christine.Rolfes@leg.wa.gov; Jim.Hargrove@leg.wa.gov; Mike.Hewitt@leg.wa.gov; Adam.Kline@leg.wa.gov; Linda.Parlette@leg.wa.gov;

(copy and paste subject)
Confirmation of WDFW Wildlife Commissioners

(copy and paste message or write your own)
Senate Natural Resources and Parks Committee

RE: Confirmation of WDFW Wildlife Commissioners

Inside the Wolf Hunter’s Mind

My book, Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport, includes a chapter in which I peered “Inside the Hunter’s Mind.” What I saw was a selfish, self-serving, self-important braggart with a self-esteem problem.

But, when I try to envision what goes on in the mind of a wolf hunter, or trapper, my first impression is of an empty space—as devoid of substance as their heart evidently is. To actually imagine what kind of warped thinking goes on in their head is mind-boggling. But, as with every sadistic killer, there must be a motive for their unjust acts.

In considering why they would take so much anger and hatred out on wolves, it’s clear that it couldn’t stem only from superstition like the wolf-haters of centuries past. We must not forget that it’s not really the wolves themselves that these people hate, but the idea of a species killed off by their forefathers now being protected by more evolved people who want to make amends for the damage done by those seeking to “settle” the land and “subdue the Earth.”

Modern day wolf haters don’t have a phobia of wolves—instead they’re paranoid of any kind of government control of their perceived “right” to exploit the land and wildlife as they see fit. When they act out their murderous fantasies, they’re not just killing wolves, they’re trying to assert their power and reclaim their supposed birthright.

So next time you see another tweaked and twisted photo of a wolf-killer with an overblown sense of entitlement posing over a dead wolf, remember that it’s not just the wolves they hate—it’s anyone who stands in the way of their getting whatever they want handed to them on a silver platter.

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

More Sick Ideas From Idaho

Proposed Idaho legislation could let ranchers use dogs as live bait to kill wolves

Article from:

http://www.9news.com

Wolves were protected by the Endangered Species Act until December 2011. Wolves are now off that list because their population in North America has improved. However, their removal from the endangered species list makes it no longer illegal to kill a wolf.

“We killed wolves, we reintroduced wolves, and now they’ve been removed from the Endangered Species Act,” Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of Colorado-Boulder, said. “So there’s a real ethical dilemma here. You kill animals and you bring them back and then you kill them again and so it’s a waste of time, a lot of person power and money.”

Siddoway, who proposed the Wolf Depredation Control bill, is a sheep rancher. The bill would amend existing Idaho laws relating to the control of wolves and would give more freedom to ranchers.

Under the measure, if a wolf killed livestock, the rancher could hunt down the wolf and kill it without a permit within 30 days of the livestock attack. Bekoff has studied coyotes for years and says it takes a long time for a person to be able to reliably identify a wolf or coyote that they’ve seen.

“It’s going to result in mass killing of wolves because people will say, ‘Well, the wolf came in and I just killed the wolf who came in,’ but they’ll have no evidence of that at all,” Bekoff said.

The proposed legislation would allow ranchers to use a number of different ways to kill the wolves, like using live bait to bring the wolf to a particular area to be killed. Domestic dogs, sheep and goats are some of the examples cited of what could be used as live bait.

“From a dog’s perspective, being used as bait would be a terrifying experience,” Bekoff said. “They would know that there’s danger out there. It would be terrifying and, physiologically, it could kill them. It’s known that animals under these conditions lose weight, they stop eating, just imagine yourself being used as bait.”

Members of Idaho’s livestock industry believe the bill is needed to control the predators. Many ranchers at the hearing Monday supported the bill, saying they’ve lost thousands of dollars worth of cattle from wolves.

“I applaud this bill, the Idaho Wool Growers Association certainly is in support of this,” Harry Soulen, Idaho sheep and cattle rancher, said. “We need all the tools out there that are available to us to hopefully curtail some of our losses.”

The legislation would also allow ranchers to use a number of different ways to kill the wolves, including the use of night-vision scopes to shoot the wolves and even the use of an airplane to shoot the animals from the air.

As it stands now in Idaho, an animal that is killed by a wolf has to be verified by state officials before any action can take place. Because the legislation faced only a hearing Monday, there was no vote on it. The committee will take this bill up again on Wednesday.

“I think this bill could pass in the state of Idaho which is notorious for killing wolves,” Bekoff said. “I’m holding my breath that it won’t but in some ways after reading some of the comments in the newspaper articles about it, and just seeing the zeal with which these legislators are going after it, I think it’s got a good chance of passing.”

(KUSA-TV © 2012 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)

South Dakota Reclassifies Wolves as “Varmints”

 

Earlier today I posted an action alert to Urge Your Representative to Stand Up for Wolves. Well, here is an article by the AP and Mark Watson in the South Dakota’s Black Hills Pioneer (a newspaper that boasts being “local and independent since 1876”—and whose attitude toward wolves obviously has remained unchanged since then), titled, “Wolf bill likely signed into law today.” The “wolf bill” in question is actually a state anti-wolf bill which unintentionally underscores why wolves need to remain on the federal Endangered Species List…

SPEARFISH — Gov. Dennis Daugaard is expected to sign a bill today that would reclassify wolves from protected species in the state to predators or varmints in East River counties.

SB 205 received final Legislative action on Feb. 26 when the House approved it 60-9. It passed in the Senate unanimously 35-0.

The bill will classify wolves the same as coyotes, foxes, skunks, gophers, ground squirrels, chipmunks, jackrabbits, marmots, porcupines, crows, and prairie dogs, but only in Eastern South Dakota. They will still remain protected by federal and state law West River.

In 2012, wolves residing in the Great Lakes population, which includes Eastern South Dakota, were removed from the federal Endangered Species Act. Now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working on plan that would delist the wolves West River as well.

Wolves don’t often roam across South Dakota, however there have been confirmed sightings. Wolves are occasionally killed by vehicles. One was killed in Harding County by a lethal trap set for coyotes and one was shot in 2012 near Custer. Olson said that one was seen just south of her Harding County ranch in February, however that sighting, like most others, lack physical evidence and are not confirmed.

The wolves that do traverse the state come from both the Rocky Mountain packs as well as the Great Lakes packs. They are typically younger males searching out mates and new territory.

Montana officials said that 255 wolves were killed in the 2012-2013 hunting and trapping season. Wyoming reported about 60 wolves killed. In Wisconsin, 117 were killed and in Minnesota, 395 were killed.

Scott Larson, a field supervisor with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Pierre, said a proposed rule by the service regarding the delisting wolves in West River should be issued this spring.

“It will be part of a larger effort,” Larson said. “The Rocky Mountain population and the Great Lakes populations have been delisted, but they are protected in most of the Lower 48 where we don’t have plans for any recovery efforts. … When you have a recovered population you have transients that move out into area where there is not suitable habitat. It doesn’t make any sense to have the protection status different.”

But dozens of U.S. House members don’t want that to happen.

A letter signed by 52 representatives [the good guys] urged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to not drop wolves from the endangered species list in areas where it hasn’t already been done. The comeback of the wolf populations in the western Great Lakes and the Northern Rockies is “a wildlife success story in the making,” the lawmakers said in a letter distributed by Reps. Peter DeFazio of Oregon and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats. But it added that because of lingering human prejudice, “federal protection continues to be necessary to ensure that wolf recovery is allowed to proceed in additional parts of the country.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to return wolves to the Southwest, despite court battles and resistance from ranchers. It’s also reviewing the status of wolves and their potential habitat in the Pacific Northwest, where perhaps 100 of the animals are believed to roam, and in the Northeast, which has no established population although occasional sightings have been reported.

“The outcome of these reviews will identify which, if any, gray wolves should continue to receive protections under the Endangered Species Act outside of the boundaries of the recovered populations and the Southwest population,” agency spokesman Chris Tollefson said.
…

…And which wolves, by contrast, will be classified as “varmints,” the same as coyotes, foxes, skunks, gophers, ground squirrels, chipmunks, jackrabbits, marmots, porcupines, crows, and prairie dogs, as South Dakota has done.

Speaking of prairie dogs, please sign on to this pledge for that beleaguered cornerstone species:

Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson