One More Time with Feeling: Bush Administration Renews Efforts to Remove Gray Wolf from Protected List
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles 
on 10.25.08
Image from Thomas Roche
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," seems to be the Bush administration's running mantra -- especially as it relates to environmental issues. After seeing its previous attempt to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list thwarted by the last minute interjection of a Montanan federal judge, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to push back by reopening for public comment its 2007 proposal to delist the species (never mind that the judge called the agency's first attempt "capricious" and "arbitrary"), according to the Washington Post's Joel Achenbach.
The agency rationalized its "good science-based" decision (their words) by trotting out its wolf "recovery" coordinator, Ed Bangs, to state that, "[t]he position of the service is, we think the wolves no longer need the protection of the Endangered Species Act," and that it should be left up to the public. The new comment period will open on Tuesday and last until November 28, after which the agency's officials could quickly remove federal protections for the wolf in most of the northern Rockies; management for the species would be subsequently turned over to the states, as per the Endangered Species Act's dictate.
Several environmental groups, such as Earthjustice, which took part in the first successful effort to beat back the administration's attempt to delist the wolf are considering filing a lawsuit anew if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service moves to eliminate the protections.
This, on top of its other efforts to gut the ESA and remove mountaintop mining protections, signals that the Bush administration has decided to go all out during its final months in office in attacking and systematically undermining key environmental legislation. Let's hope the courts and advocacy groups are able to keep their damage in check.
More boneheaded Bush environmental decisions
Another Endangered Species Gets Shafted
Bush Administration Actively Gutting Environmental "Magna Carta"
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Focus on Focus Earth: Saving the Whales (Video)
- Can Your Fishing Habits Save the Coral Reefs?
- Forget Going Green Because It's the Right Thing to Do—Go Green to Make Your Neighbors Jealous
- Focus Earth: June 27, 2009: The Roots of Eco-Terrorism and Saving the Whales
- Save the Wolves—Because Obama Isn't Going To
- Focus on Focus Earth: Snake Invaders
How can anyone who calls themselves a Christian support such an administration, it has done everything that no decent Christian could agree with. Now this.
When Bush leaves the Whitehouse there's going to be the largest sigh of relief from around the globe that history has known!
How can humans be green when we try to seperate our selves from the circle of life. We are at the top of the food chain and there for lets hunt them. The numbers of Wolves are high and stable in Wyoming and Montana and Idaho, so why not? They have to be kept at a healthy balanced so they are not over populating but not overly hunted to extinction like they were years ago.
Well Ken, how are you going to hunt them? With your bare hands, that would be as nature intended. Then will you eat them and wear their fur? No! You will use a high power rifle and blast them from a distance, you will leave wolf cubs to die while the corpse of their mother rots on an open field.
Overpopulation of wolves? How pray tell? When Europeans (like myself) came to the US they butchered almost every form of life to the edge of extinction, now when some forward minded people attempt to right the wrongs of the past they are condemn and attacked by the farming industry.
Humans have destroyed great ecosystems all around the world and going if you wish to go back to hunting as you say so, then at least have the honor to hunt as nature intended.
You really need to check your history much better. You should listen to your Fish and Game departments and what they have to say too. I didn't say that we as a human race have not made mistakes in the past because we have. The buffalo can answer to that and so can the wolf. Even the Native Americans believed in predator control. And yes I would consider eating wolf. Why not? Some countries eat bugs of all kinds. In South America they eat Guinny pigs. In the past I have also seen some very nice coyote hats and scarfs. So why not where the wolf's skin? If that isn't turning the clock, I don't know what is. As for the weapons that were used in historical times. They used spears, the atlatl, bows and arrows with points made out of stone.
Another thing, we as humans have been hunters for thousands of years and have learned the art of conservation. All except those that nothing but city foke that are out of touch with your real history and what it means to live off the land.
as much as I hate to see animals being endangered, sometimes there is a reason for lifting the protection. For example in most of EU wolves are endangered species, so there is a ban on hunting that all member states must follow. Even member states that have wolf populations that are record-high, even to the point of getting too dangerous and out of control.
So all such decisions shoud be viewed in context, based on expert opinion and not just the notion that all hunting is bad. What people seem to forget, is that mismanaged predator populations can have adverse effects on the entire ecosystem. If wolves enjoy universal immunity, their numbers will take a heavy toll on the numbers of their pray and soon enough they will turn to farm animals, pets and maybe even humans.
Is the Obama administration now systematically destroying environmental legislation in his first few months in office? Oh nowwww it's good science..........