Gray Wolves No Longer Endangered, Says USFWS
Turns out that scientifically managing wildlife together with sportsmen works–who knew? (You did.)
Last Thursday, Department of the Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Aurelia Skipwith announced that the American gray wolf no longer qualifies as an endangered species…and although it’s great news, it’s not surprising. Scientifically managing wildlife populations–complete with crucial data and selective hunting from sportsmen–works. Now that gray wolves are back from the brink, they will no longer be under federal management authority. That is going back to the individual states, to manage as they see fit within their own ecosystems.
Wolves are a wildlife restoration success story, akin to the recovery and delisting of bald eagles, peregrine falcons, and numerous other species. The ultimate goal of the Endangered Species Act is to stabilize populations so that management can move back to the states. Now that wolves are not considered endangered species, there is no reason to delay state-level management…to include hunting seasons. The Boone and Crockett Club, which celebrates conservation and fair-chase hunting, alooks forward to the future collaborative management of this species.
“As a leader in the first successful delisting of the gray wolf 10 years ago, we welcome this decision and hope it brings closure and celebration to the restoration of the wolf in the lower 48 states,” commented Boone and Crockett Club President Tim Brady in response to the announcement. “The goal of the Endangered Species Act is to recover imperiled species so they no longer require the protections offered by the Act, and the gray wolf is a good example of how a species can be recovered.”
In 1995 and 1996, 66 wolves from southwestern Canada were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park and to central Idaho and by 2002, the states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming had exceeded their recovery goals. In addition, existing populations in the western Great Lakes states had met their population goals by the early 2000’s and within a decade the populations were two to three times their recovery goals.
The Boone and Crockett Club has worked to ensure that recovered wolf populations could be moved off the endangered species list in order to be managed by state fish and wildlife agencies. However, legal challenges to FWS delisting decisions had put wolf management in a constant state of limbo. The Club worked closely with Idaho Representative Mike Simpson and Montana Senator Jon Tester on legislation to ensure that wolves in those two states would be delisted and to prohibit future litigation.
After it was enacted in 2011, Idaho and Montana assumed full management authority and proved that their state management plan could maintain stable wolf populations. Wolves in the contiguous U.S. are now estimated at 6,000 individuals and the Club has continued to work with states and the FWS to move to delist gray wolves throughout their range in the lower 48 states.
“Wolves are fully recovered and are naturally expanding and reestablishing well beyond their identified recovery area,” Brady concluded. “Continued lawsuits and delaying of state management of this recovered species is unnecessary, as are proposals to reintroduce wolves in states like Colorado. It is time to celebrate wildlife restoration when we have been successful; it is time to close the book on gray wolves as a federal endangered species.”
Here in Washington, along with piss poor management skills and letting uninformed citizens vote for or against big game management objectives , ( Cougar , Bear, Wolves ) the Deer and Elk populations have plummeted instead of thriving.
Colorado already has a Deer population is serious decline, now that the silly people have voted to reintroduce the Wolf (at a whopping $2 million plus expenditure), our Deer hunting won’t be worth coming here and we will lose serious out of State license income.
The Elk will be next, and our program of Moose reintroduction will most likely be seriously harmed.
It’s a stupid idea, and the consequences will be severe.
These things should NEVER be a ‘voter’ issue, but a scientifically based one, and now we will ALL lose, because of ignorance and silly emotionally based voter influence.
I totally agree man can not leave well enough alone!!
If you want to get technical about the problem, Hunters are worse on the Deer and Elk population than the wolves. Hunters take the Biggest and strongest, depleting the natural order, where with the wolves take the sick and injured HELPING the herds. Wolves do more good than people want to admit. They also get a handle on the coyote population so the small game make a recovery. When you add it all up the wolves are better for the wild than man. Just remember there used to be 30 to 60 million Bison in America and in 1900 there were less than 1,000. So don’t tell me about the danger of wolves. Man is the most dangerous creature on the face of the earth. I rest my case. Semper Fi.
boo hoo, nature back in balance is a good thing.
Dosen’t matter if they are federally De-Listed, the Individual Stated have not followed suite, like here in Oregon, we have the most worthless Governor anywhere, she has NO clue the damage these killing machines are doing to our wildlife population, as well as domestic livestock killings.!
The big question is whether sportsmen will be willing to share game with the wolves. I hunt on the Montana/Idaho border and the elk and deer populations have been decimated by wolf packs that had moved out of Yellowstone. I was use to good hunting and much higher game populations. Not so now.