Wildlife coalition will battle Salazar to save gray wolves from slaughter

June 7, 10:56 PMSeattle Environmental Policy ExaminerJean Williams

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Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar is facing a battle from wildlife conservationists, who have filed a law suit to protect recently de-listed Northern Rockies gray wolves from facing certain slaughter in legally sanctioned hunts to begin this fall.

In March, 2009, Salazar upheld the recommendation of the discredited Bush-phase U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove gray wolves, living in the states of Idaho, Montana, and regions of Washington, Oregon, and Utah, from protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Secretary needed no further proof of recovery than the say-so of the FWS and jumped at the chance to remove gray wolves from protection, regardless of the alarm by wildlife organizations at the lack of management plans to sustain wolf populations after being stripped of ESA protection.

“The recovery of the gray wolf throughout significant portions of its historic range is one of the great success stories of the Endangered Species Act,” Salazar said in a March conference call from Washington, D.C.

But that “success story” will be short lived--if many government officials, landowners, and ranchers--have their way.

Idaho Governor, C.L. “Butch” Otter has bragged about wanting to get the first wolf hunting tag in the state so he can go out and kill a wolf. Otter said, “the fish and game population is really counting on a robust population of trophy animals to maintain that part of our economy.”

Suzann Stone, Northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife,said “nothing about this rule has changed since it was rejected and deemed unlawful in a federal court in July of 2008. It still fails to adequately address biological concerns about the lack of genetic exchange among wolf populations in the Northern Rockies and it still fails to address the concerns with the states’ wolf managemnt plans and regulations that undermine a sustainable wolf population by killing too many wolves.”

According to a statement by Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defence Council, “this is the worst possible moment to tear away their ESA protection and sacrifice hundreds of these noble creatures to hunters. And that’s why 230 scientists have asked the Interior Department not to go down this path.”

Beineke emphasizes the reintroduction of wolves in the Northern Rockies, after they had been almost wiped out in the continental United States was “shaping up to be one of America’s greatest conservation success stories. But now it threatens to devolve into massacre.”

“Wolves are a fully recovered species that is thriving in Idaho. That’s a fact, and it is heartening to see that Secretary Salazar recognizes it,” said Governor Otter, who urged the delisting action when he met with Secretary Salazar earlier this year at the National Governors Association conference in Washington, DC.

Accordingly, there were extensive discussions on this issue with other members of Congress from the West, including Rep. John Salazar, a fellow "Blue Dog Democrat" and western Colorado cattle rancher. C.L. “Butch” Otter has supported the Salazars' position many times on issues relating to ranching and livestock.   

As a Colorado rancher, landowner, and member of the Cattlemen’s Association, Secretary Salazar comes from the old school generation, where wolves are only seen as vicious animals that prey on live stock. They are not looked upon as an integral check-and-balance component of the natural world. We need a Secretary of Interior, who can make wildlife decisions based on science, not politics. That was a commitment made by President Obama, which does not translate into Ken Salazar’s premature and reckless de-listing of a species that will soon be targeted for a bloodbath.

What is the point of spending decades of time and millions of dollars to restore healthy populations of an endangered animal, only to have it decimated from thousands down to genetically unsustainable hundreds?

Would they do that to bald eagles or black-footed ferrets?

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Defenders of Wildlife is represented in this litigation by Earthjustice, along with plaintiffs Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, The Humane Society of the United States, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Western Watersheds Project, Wildlands Project, and Hells Canyon Preservation Council.

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Copyright Jean Williams 2009
 

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