The Chicago Tribune weighed in with an editorial this weekend on the Obama Administration’s latest in a series of proposals to strip recovering gray wolves of their federal protections—leaving the fate of wolves to the blood lust of hostile state politicians and trophy hunting and ranching interests. More than 1,000 wolves have been killed with painful steel-jawed leghold traps, hound hunting, and other methods since Wisconsin, Minnesota, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming legalized hunting seasons—including storied Yellowstone National Park wolves whose packs had been studied for decades, but were gunned down in their GPS collars over the park border.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Montana officials now propose lengthening the wolf hunting season and increasing the bag limit. It’s alarming to Yellowstone administrators who say it places more of the park’s wolves in jeopardy when they step over the border into Montana—putting the Department of the Interior in the awkward position of handing wolf management to the states and then watching from the sidelines as they kill the very descendants of the wolves reintroduced to the park 17 years ago. And just last month, Wisconsin raised its quota to 275 wolves which, when combined with other forms of human-caused wolf mortality, likely will result in 50 percent of the entire wolf population in the state being killed—despite the fact that Wisconsin voters oppose wolf hunting by a more than eight-to-one margin.
You’d think the pogrom for wolves in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes regions would cause the Obama Administration to pause before adding to the carnage. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced its plans to drop endangered species protections for the gray wolf population in virtually all of the lower 48 states, with the exception of about 75 wild Mexican wolves in Arizona and New Mexico.
Some states have set up sound, capable management plans for wolves—such as Washington, which this year passed legislation to create a state gray wolf conflict account to be used for mitigation, assessment, and payments for injury or loss of livestock caused by wolves. But many others have taken a regressive, dangerous approach. The Utah legislature even handed out hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to a private group to advocate for killing wolves. Instead of hoping for the best from a patchwork of state authorities subject to varying degrees of political power exerted by ranching and hunting interests, the federal government should be overseeing and working with the states and driving the nation toward full recovery of wolves.
The Tribune is urging concerned citizens to submit comments to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by visiting this web site before the September 11 deadline, and urging the agency to keep protections intact for one of America’s most ecologically valuable creatures.
Meanwhile, in Michigan, state politicians are so dead-set on killing wolves that they pulled a fast one on voters who gathered more than 250,000 signatures to place the question of wolf hunting on the ballot. Michigan lawmakers passed a second bill, signed into law by Gov. Rick Snyder, to subvert a vote of the people and allow wolf hunting, after their first bill was the subject of a citizen referendum. They want to take the power to decide wildlife issues away from the state’s voters, and put it in the hands of seven unelected bureaucrats—paving the way to kill wolves and other protected species.
But Michigan citizens are fighting back against this undemocratic power grab, and have launched a second referendum campaign to stop the trophy hunting and trapping of wolves and restore the right of Michigan voters to weigh in on critical wildlife issues. With the bodies of wolves piling up around the country, Michigan citizens are taking a stand for these rare and majestic treasures. You can join them by visiting the Keep Michigan Wolves Protected campaign.
