U.S. Ends Protections for Wolves in 3 States

that's right folks...the bu$h* administration declares the 'wolves are back' and we know what great stewards they've been of our green earth.....:sarcasm:


DENVER — The Bush administration on Thursday announced an end to federal protection for gray wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, concluding that the wolves were reproductively robust enough to survive.

“Wolves are back,” said Lynn Scarlett, the deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior, in a telephone conference call with reporters. “Gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains are thriving and no longer need protection.”

A coalition of wildlife and environmental groups dismissed the government’s claims and announced plans for a lawsuit to reverse the decision, which is to take effect next month.

Advocates for the animals said there were too few wolves to make a genetically sound population, and that state plans to manage wolf populations were underfinanced and fueled by a long-simmering animosity against wolves that could drive them back to threatened status.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/us/22wolves.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1203696062-irQYGeD2bxL/JmlKfj9njw&pagewanted=print

Otherwise it is party time. Open hunting season one and all.

NDRC
Louisa Willcox's Blog

The wolves were barely visible, with so much snow falling heavy and fast. Across Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley, a black wolf was tussling with a pale gray one, on its back, feet in the air. In a flash, the gray rolled over, jumped up and playfully snapped at the black, who leaped to the side and came back for the other’s legs. Two other wolves lay curled up nearby. Behind them were about 30 buffalo, plastered with white. A few were taking the storm lying down, but most were grazing placidly, pushing the deep snow from the grass with their huge heads. Three ravens erupted from a draw near the wolves, sign of a recent kill. And a reminder that a wolf kill feeds more than the immediate family.


I needed this trip—we needed this trip, my husband and I. And we needed to see wolves especially, the animal that we had been working so hard for. In fact, we had worked ourselves through the holiday, and many, many months before that, preparing for the moment, perhaps a week away, when the federal government would decide to allow the killing of hundreds of wolves in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and central Idaho. First would come a revised “10(j)” rule under the Endangered Species Act, then—even worse—the government would remove federal protections altogether. Under both rules, massive numbers of wolves would be killed.


But wait a minute. Aren’t these the same wolves that Americans had made a commitment to restore, after they had been shot, poisoned and trapped out of 95% of their former range in the lower-48 states?



http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/lwillcox/wolf_storm_in_yellowstone.html