AnimalVoicesNews
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Link: <http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/06/02-5>
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 2, 2009
1:22 PM
CONTACT: Defenders of Wildlife http://www.defenders.org/
Suzanne Stone, (208) 424-9385, (208) 861-4655
Erin McCallum, (202) 772-3217; (610) 207-5209
Lawsuit Last Hope for Long-Term
Wolf Recovery in Northern Rockies
Suit filed as a last resort
WASHINGTON - June 2 - Today, Defenders of Wildlife and 12 other
conservation groups filed a lawsuit asking the courts to reverse the
ill-timed and unwarranted removal of Endangered Species Act protections for
wolves in the Northern Rockies. The lawsuit is a last resort, and only comes
after exhausting all other reasonable options.
Regrettably, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar failed to fully consider both
scientific and legal inadequacies underlying the Bush administrationıs
delisting rule before adopting it on April 2, 2009. The Bush administration
delisting rule adopted by Salazar essentially allows over two-thirds of the
regionıs wolves to be killed before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would
even consider stepping back in and restoring protections.
The following is a statement by Suzanne Stone, Northern Rockies
representative for Defenders of Wildlife:
³After working more than 20 years to restore wolves here, itıs a thrill to
see the wolf population finally on the threshold of recovery with more than
1600 wolves in the region. However, we cannot ignore that this delisting
plan fails to protect their future and would allow states like Idaho, which
has demanded that all wolves be removed by any means necessary,ı to
decimate the population to less than a few hundred wolves. We need a
delisting plan that allows the wolf population to thrive while addressing
the needs and concerns of our regional residents.
³We had hoped to avoid the need for litigation, but Secretary Salazarıs
decision to go forward with the Bush administrationıs delisting plan, which
allows states to reduce wolf numbers from 1650 (not including pups), to a
mere 450 region wide, left us no choice.
³We are going to court in order to ensure that wolves are fully recovered
and treated as key components of the Northern Rockies ecosystem not as
token isolated subpopulations maintained at the most minimum levels in
national parks and wilderness areas.
³We had expected at this point to be celebrating the recovery of the gray
wolf in the Northern Rockies. Instead, after decades of recovery efforts,
tremendous support and investment from the American public, impressive
efforts by federal and state wildlife agencies, and one of the most
successful wildlife restorations in history, the future of the gray wolf in
the Rocky Mountains is once again in jeopardy.
³We look forward to one day seeing wolves fully recovered and under state
management, but both the delisting plan and the state plans currently in
place are not adequate to ensure the long-term recovery of wolves.
³Sadly, rather than committing to ensuring the long-term recovery of wolves,
Secretary Salazar, like his predecessor in the Bush administration, has
forced us again to the courts to reverse a delisting rule that puts us right
back where we started with a wolf population that cannot survive without
federal protection.²
Learn more about Defenders' work to ensure the recovery of wolves in the
Northern Rockies
http://www.defenders.org/programs_and_policy/in_the_courts/legal_dock...
hern_rockies_gray_wolf-_delisting_challenge_2009.php
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Defenders of Wildlife is a national, nonprofit membership organization
dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their
natural communities.
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We are a nonprofit, progressive, independent and nonpartisan organization.
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
İ Copyrighted 1997-2009
www.commondreams.org
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Judy Reed
AnimalVoices
Speaking For Animals & Their Environment
Liberal, Progressive, Secular, Green, & Humane
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