U.S. plans to drop gray wolves from endangered list
Source: Los Angeles Times
U.S. plans to drop gray wolves from endangered list
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.
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.
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Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wolves-20130426,0,280341.story
Source: Associated Press
Draft rule ends protections for gray wolves
AP foreign, Friday April 26 2013
MATTHEW BROWN
Associated Press= BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Federal wildlife officials have drafted plans to lift protections for gray wolves across the Lower 48 states, a move that could end a decades-long recovery effort that has restored the animals but only in parts of their historic range.
The draft U.S. Department of Interior rule obtained by The Associated Press contends that roughly 5,000 wolves now living in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes are enough to prevent the species' extinction. The agency says having gray wolves elsewhere — such as the West Coast, parts of New England and the Southern Rockies — is unnecessary for their long-term survival.
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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/10766303
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