Group calls for widespread wolf effort
by Cat Urbigkit, Pinedale Online!
November 16, 2008
The environmental group Center for Biological Diversity is sending out a plea for help to its members to "Save the Wolves of the Rockies from Slaughter."
An email alert from CBD stated: "After losing twice in court, the lame-duck Bush administration is taking a last shot at endangered wolves -- moving, in the waning hours of its power, to strip them of protection all across Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and parts of Oregon, Washington, and Utah.
"If finalized, the removal of endangered species protection could result in the killing of 1,000 wolves in 2009 alone.
"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has only given the public till November 28 -- the day after Thanksgiving, when people will be too busy with their families to pay attention -- to comment before they hammer their bureaucratic nails into the wolves' coffins.
"Though the Center is already preparing to return to court on the wolves' behalf -- after having successfully protected these northern Rockies wolves twice before in court, along with our conservation allies -- massive public opposition could stop the Bush bureaucrats in their tracks by persuading Congress to block the wolves' delisting.
"Your comments can help save lives."
The email included a link to have a form letter sent to FWS which reads in part: "Instead of removing protections from wolves when they occupy only a small portion of their historic range, the Service should develop recovery criteria for the southern Rocky Mountains of Colorado, the Pacific Northwest, California and the Great Basin, the Great Plains, the Southwest, and elsewhere where wolves once roamed but were exterminated.
"It is grossly premature to delist wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains. Instead, the Fish and Wildlife Service has a duty to develop recovery criteria for gray wolves as a whole before yanking their protections in one of the only two places where they have begun -- ever so tenuously -- to thrive again. "
|
