U.S. plans to drop gray wolves from endangered list

[chatnoir]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wolves-20130426,0,280341.story

headline:

U.S. plans to drop gray wolves from endangered list
The planned ruling would eliminate protection for the top predators,
but scientists and conservationists say the proposal is flawed

By Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times

April 25, 2013, 6:20 p.m.
Federal authorities intend to remove endangered species protections
for all gray wolves in the Lower 48 states, carving out an a exception
for a small pocket of about 75 Mexican wolves in the wild in Arizona
and New Mexico, according to a draft document obtained by The Times.

The sweeping rule by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would
eliminate protection for wolves 18 years after the government
reestablished the predators in the West, where they had been hunted to
extinction. Their reintroduction was a success, with the population
growing to the thousands.

But their presence has always drawn protests across the Intermountain
West from state officials, hunters and ranchers who lost livestock to
the wolves. They have lobbied to remove the gray wolf from the
endangered list.

DISCUSSION: Should the gray wolf be dropped from endangered list?

Once those protections end, the fate of wolves is left to individual
states. The species is only beginning to recover in Northern
California and the Pacific Northwest. California is considering
imposing its own protections after the discovery of a lone male that
wandered into the state's northern counties from Oregon two years ago.

The species has flourished elsewhere, however, and the government
ended endangered status for the gray wolf in the northern Rockies and
Great Lakes regions last year.

Mike Jimenez, who manages wolves in the northern Rockies for the Fish
and Wildlife Service, said delisting in that region underscored a
"huge success story." He said that while wolves are now legally hunted
in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, the federal agency continues to monitor
pack populations and can reinstate protections should numbers reach
levels that biologists consider to be dangerously low.

Scientists and conservationists who reviewed the plan said its
reasoning is flawed. They challenged how the agency reconfigures the
classification of wolf subspecies and its assertion that little
habitat remains for wolves.

Jamie Rappaport Clark, the former director of the Fish and Wildlife
Service and now the president of Defenders of Wildlife, said the
decision "reeks of politics" and vowed that it will face multiple
legal challenges. ... (cont)