As reported here, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Friday he was upholding the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to remove gray wolves from the federal endangered list in the Northern Rockies and the western Great Lakes.
Wolves would remain a federally protected species in Wyoming because the state's law and management plans were not strong enough, he said. But management of the predator will be turned over to state agencies in Montana and Idaho and parts of Washington, Oregon and Utah, in addition to the Great Lakes states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The Obama administration had ordered a review of the decision made by the Bush administration shortly before departing. Salazar said he had concluded that dropping the wolf from the list was justified by its strong comeback in the two regions, which together have a population of nearly 5,600 wolves.
On the one hand, I'm cautiously pleased with the findings that the gray wolf can safely be removed from the endangered species list, as that means that their population has reached a certain self sustainability level, which is wonderful news.
On the other hand, this does not bode well for individual animals, as they would then move to the list of animals that people are allowed to hunt. Don't get me wrong, although I'm not a hunter, I fully support the right of people to hunt, both for sport and for food. However, I personally do not see the attraction of hunting predators merely for sport, whether it be wolves, cougars, coyotes, bears, etc. The one caveat I have to that is when a particular individual predator animal goes "rogue" and rather than hunt wild game, turns instead to domestic live stock. The selective removal of that particular animal, imo, is justified.
Predators keep the populations of wild grazing animals at sustainable, and healthy levels, allowing hunters to be able to "harvest" robust animals, rather than sickly, weak animals. Also, by keeping the wild grazing animal populations in check, this allows ranchers to maintain their domestic grazing animal stock at an appropriate level for the environment.
Idaho Gov. C.L. Butch Otter on Friday repeated his desire to get the first available wolf hunting tag in the state so he can try to shoot one of the animals.
As for Idaho's Governor desiring to have the first wolf permit issued by his state, all I can say is, gray wolves are a lot smarter than you think they are, pal - one of them might just bag you! :p
H/T specialrpt, writing in quicknews
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