The U.S. Department of the Interior announced on Wednesday that the grey wolf populations in Western Greta Lakes and part of the northern Rocky Mountains will no longer enjoy protection under the Endangered Species Act. That however will not affect the statute of gray wolves in Wyoming, which still need protection, the Department also added.

 

For the gray wolves, this means that in 30 days, when the decision will take effect, they will be once again at the mercy of hunters. But, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers that the populations in the northern Rocky Mountains and western Great Lakes have recovered well enough to no longer require protection.

 

According to them, in the Rocky Mountains alone, the minimum recovery goal for wolves was met in 2002 and has been exceeded ever since. Furthermore, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it supports regulated public hunting sessions.

 

The decision comes as no surprise, after the gray wolves have been in and out of the Endangered Species Act protection for some time now. The Bush administration is at its third attempt to keep the wolves out of the protection status, but wild life advocates believe the decision will most likely not stand under the Obama administration, which is ready to take over.

 

Andrew Wetzler, Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, called the move not viable legally, politically, or biologically. Furthermore, according to NRDC Staff Scientist Dr. Sylvia Fallon, wolves don’t read maps (…) you cannot have protections start and stop at state lines. The organization believes the decision will only make matters worse, and will prevent a real solution from being found.

 

The Defenders of Wildlife organization, one of the twelve groups that filed a lawsuit earlier this year against the government’s decision at the time to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list, believes the latest effort by the Bush administration to rewrite history is not based on scientific evidence and falls under the same deficiencies as the last attempt to delist the wolves.

 

Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, called it a blatantly political maneuver that the Bush administration has been supporting since day one. It is nonsense to rush this rule through when states have plans to kill hundreds of wolves as soon as they’re delisted, he further explained, also adding that the Defenders of Wildlife organization plans to challenge the decision in court.

 

The Center for Biological Diversity also threatened to take the matter to court. Its representative, Michael Robinson, warned this rule (…) will result in the deaths of over a thousand wolves, and will unravel the natural balance these wolves have maintained. The organization reinforced the idea that the delisting doesn’t fix any problem, but instead it creates new ones that will prevent the gray wolf populations from recovering.