Half of Idaho's wolves gone in a year, thanks to Obama's Sect'y of the Interior

[Cerridwen]

64. Perhaps you could explain why the 2000 de-listing of the wolf

and the subsequent regulations that were almost forced on the DOI back when shrub was leaving office and the subsequent congressional legislation and court rulings are due to this administration.


Here's another article I found, from 2009:

<snip>

On January 14, in what conservationists view as a last-ditch effort by the Bush administration to undermine environmental protections, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the Northern Rockies gray wolf will be taken off the Endangered Species List.

Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, said, "This blatantly political maneuver is hardly surprising. The Bush administration has been trying to strip Endangered Species Act protections from the Northern Rockies wolf since the day it took office - no matter the dire consequences of delisting wolves prematurely and without adequate state protections in place."

Two previous attempts to remove protections from the wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains have been struck down by federal courts.

"The Bush administration is forcing the future of wolves in the region to play out in the courts by finalizing a delisting rule in its last hours in office," Schlickeisen said. "We intend to challenge this poorly constructed decision in court as soon as the law allows. It is outrageous that the Bush administration has chosen to create this unnecessary legal problem for the new Obama administration to deal with as it takes office."

<snip>Obama Freezes Pending Federal Rules, Wolves May Benefit

Wiki has some interesting links on the history of this particular listing/de-listing if you'd care to look.

I'd also like to know what "deal" Secretary Salazar made that handed federal regulation oversight to the states. Oh yeah, and how does the fact that the state is the one doing this boomerang to the feds?

Does anyone else remember back in, oh, '08 or so we were discussing the "landmines" the next (hopefully Democratic/democratic) administration would have to un-earth before it could clear away the destruction caused by 8 years of the shrub/cheney horror show? Any idea if this is part of that?

Finally, I'd like to ask those replying to this thread about how this is about helping ranchers and protecting livestock at the expense of the wolves, have you stopped eating beef and buying products made of cattle parts? Can you list the collection of laws, regulations, and policies under which the DOI operates? Do you even live out here "where the deer and the antelope (and the wolves and the coyotes) play"? Have you made an effort to not add to the population that is moving into the territories in which "deer and antelope" play and from which the human population is driving them?

Wouldn't it be grand if things were as simplistic as they appear on the surface? They aren't; this isn't.

Wolves are beautiful animals. They're also predators and almost as dangerous as humans.