Wolves threatened: Ending federal protection is a mistake

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_23578921/wolves-threatened-ending-federal-protection-is-mistake



Wolves threatened: Ending federal protection is a mistake

By Winston Thomas
Special to the Mercury News
Posted: 07/02/2013 10:55:26 AM PDT
Updated: 07/03/2013 06:49:12 PM PDT

Until recently the restoration of the gray wolf to a portion of its natural habitat in the lower 48 was one of the success stories of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. However, the job is far from complete, and now the U.S. Department of the Interior wants to allow the states to return to many of the same methods of the late 1800s and early 1900s that led to the eradication of the wolf in California and elsewhere.

On June 7, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced its plan to remove the gray wolf, Canis lupus, from the federal list of endangered wildlife in the remainder of the lower 48 states where it is not already delisted (except for the Mexican wolf in New Mexico and Arizona). The gray wolf will

Gray wolf at the Wildlife Science Center in Forest Lake, Minn. (DAWN VILLELLA / AP)
be dropped, not because it has recovered across most of its former range, but because the Department of the Interior appears to be responding to political pressure rather than peer-reviewed science.

Elk hunting groups mistakenly see the wolf as competition for their sport. This represents a grave misunderstanding of the ecology of predator-prey relationships.

Many livestock producers have not begun to explore the nonlethal methods proven to reduce conflict between wolves and livestock. Even though livestock losses to wolves accounted for less than .01 percent of the total livestock in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana in 2012, many sheep and cattle ranchers want to see the wolf eradicated.

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