Endangered Species

Endangered Species

To Whom It May Concern:

Current situation

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the most popular and effective environmental laws ever enacted. It is a commitment by the American people to work together to protect and restore those species that are most at risk of extinction.

One of the many animals listed on the Endangered Species list, the Gray Wolf is about to be delisted within the Northern Rocky Mountain Distinct Population Segment (DPS). According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, de-listing would place the wolf under individual state wildlife management agencies even though state governments have voiced intentions of killing them.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has tried to assure that the states of MT/ID/WY (the states making up most of the DPS) had adequate state wolf management plans in place before proposing to de-list the wolf. Both MT/ID produced plans acceptable to the FWS. WY has continued along a path of demonizing wolves and refused to prepare a plan that offers even the minimal protections the MT/ID plans provided.

1) Change needs to happen

в--Џ The short time that wolves have met the recovery goal is simply not enough time to determine a population trend or viability. Concerns over disease, productivity (remember in any given pack only a couple of wolves actually produce litters), ecological carrying capacity and available territories outside of the National Parks should require at least a full decade of population data. For example, few wolves have migrated from one population center to another, risking population viability by inbreeding and isolation. в--Џ Wolf management plans focuses on hunting, predator control and minimizing wolf packs in both size and geography. State wildlife agencies have simply not been able to shed their hunting/recreational mentality and replace it with an ecological worldview. в--Џ A practice called aerial gunning is the government’s effort to eradicate wild carnivores by chasing them down and shooting them from aircraft.

2) Consequences of present situation

в--Џ Wolf researchers in Alaska have shown that heavy hunting of wolves has changed wolf behavior, including howling patterns, making packs much more individualistic and less pack-oriented-- in other words, dysfunctional families в--ЏThe five-year freedom in Yellowstone is far too short of a period and its population nowhere near broad enough to determine the ecological integrity of the species. в--Џ Wolves are easily hunted so wolf packs can be disrupted and fragmented, causing dysfunctional behavior. Wolves function as a pack, not as roaming individuals, and are less likely to get into “trouble” when functional packs define behavior.

3) My reason for purposing change

в--Џ According to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, most livestock losses come from disease, weather, birthing problems, starvation, or lightening. Not from wolves. в--Џ Citizens and industry groups have funneled $1.6 billion dollars into predator-killing programs between 1939 and 1998, в--Џ Taxpayers pick up the tab for aerial gunning. We are taxed for this “service” at the federal, the state, and county level в--Џ 32,408 coyotes, 292 bobcats, 60 wolves, and 156 red and gray foxes were killed using aerial gunning in the attermpt to help farmers. It did absolutly nothing but harm and bloodshed to all the sheep and cattle