# Grey Wolves no longer need fed protection



## tallbuck (Apr 30, 2009)

From the new york times!

*Gray Wolves No Longer Need Federal Protection, Obama Administration Says*

*Published: June 7, 2013*

Gray wolves, whose packs now prowl through hundreds of square miles of the northern Rockies and the forests along the Great Lakes, need no more federal protection to prevent their extinction, the Obama administration announced on Friday.

The Fish and Wildlife Service unveiled a proposal to eliminate the remaining endangered-species restrictions that had anticipated the spread of these existing packs into areas like California and the southern Rockies, where there are few, if any, wolves now. 
The only wolf populations to have protection going forward would be Mexican wolves in southern Arizona and New Mexico. 
The announcement by Dan Ashe, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, marked the imminent end of 50 years of controversial federal efforts to bring back a predator that once roamed the continent, but had been all but exterminated in the United States by the mid-20th century. 
"Wolves are recovered and they are now in good hands," Mr. Ashe told reporters on a conference call. "States are the most competent people to make the decisions in the future about how many wolves" there should be and "where wolves can add value to the landscape in the years ahead." 
But environmental groups that focus on biodiversity were quick to criticize the decision, saying that it reflected a parsimonious view of the Endangered Species Act and would hinder the further expansion of the wolves' current range, effectively leaving the species' recovery a work in progress, not an accomplished fact. 
Kieran Suckling, the president of the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, said, "What this is really about is the agency saying: We're closing the door on the recovery of wolves, new wolf populations in new areas. We're going to be satisfied with a Northern Rockies population, a Great Lakes population and a southwest population." 
The protections available for wolf populations in the northern Midwest have been largely uncontroversial, as was the removal of these populations from the endangered species list in 2011. But in Montana and Idaho, where wolves were reintroduced a generation ago, they were a magnet for bitter controversy, pitting ranchers and hunters against groups dedicated to making the transplanted populations thrive. The federal protections of these populations were removed by Congress two years ago; the gray wolf was delisted in Wyoming last year. 
But until the current proposal was made, federal regulations still protected wolves in areas where they once lived, and to which they might return. If the new rule is adopted, that will no longer be the case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/s...rotection-obama-administration-says.html?_r=0


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## Kingfisher (Jul 25, 2008)

caveat is they (usfw) now want to focus on the reintroduction of the mexican red wolf to the south west...


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## Vanilla (Dec 11, 2009)

It's about time! I am not anti-wolf entirely. What I am against is unmanaged wolves. I think it would be cool to be out in the hills and hear the distant howl of a wolf. I think it would be equally cool to have one in the crosshairs ready to squeeze the trigger. -8/- :grin:


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## klbzdad (Apr 3, 2012)

Reading the press release, research on, and the management plan for Mexican Grey wolves. Its clear to me that Mexican Wolves listed as a subspecies only has limited protections and NOTHING like we've fought against with the big mutts. Plus, they (Mexican Wolves) are small enough to be easily mistaken for a coyote.:rip:


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## Dukes_Daddy (Nov 14, 2008)

Yes I voted for the man. Thank you Obama.

Do you think SFW will give the $300K back? President Obama took care of the issue.


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## Lonetree (Dec 4, 2010)

****ing Obama! :mrgreen:

Another question, does SFW get the second 300,000 next year?

So Tester gets them delisted in Idaho and Montana, while SFW fights against the effort. Then SFW wastes 300,000 of our taxpayer money, and the Obama administration ends up being the ones to get them delisted? Wow! I cant wait for the SFW response. Are they going to take credit? Are they going to lobby against it? Is Don going to claim the $50,000 he gave to Harry Reid got it done? Cause I heard that many times when you give money to Harry, he does not come through.


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## Dukes_Daddy (Nov 14, 2008)

> ****ing Obama!


Yep you are a class act


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## stevo1 (Sep 13, 2007)

I would love to see a audit of the money SFW gets from us the taxpayer. I would rather it go in to stocking fish!


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## Bax* (Dec 14, 2008)

It would be interesting to see the plans for the Mexican Gray Wolf honestly. I wonder what the "historic" range of the MG was before they were considered endangered? Did they make it into Utah or stay in areas like Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas?

Lonetree?


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## stillhunterman (Feb 15, 2009)

I'm not aware of any hard data (dna, etc.) that shows the MGW made it up into Utah, though there are some claims from some groups saying so. Here are a couple of links BAX* that will give you some good info.

http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/wolf/documents/In-depthNaturalHistoryInformationonMexicanWolves_000.pdf

http://www.fws.gov/southwest/es/mexicanwolf/pdf/MW_EIS.pdf

The re-introduction of this critter will not have the same immediate impact as the northern gray introductions, and will not be accomplished as quickly. It's worth keeping an eye on but certainly not the "devil is coming now!" thought process that many groups and individuals cried about Canis Lupus in the northern Rockies.


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## klbzdad (Apr 3, 2012)

Great Links Perry. The entire plan including the draft that will be decided in conjunction with the delisting of the CANADIAN Greys they planted is also available there. Spoke to several folks involved in the MGW in Arizona today and that too is "experimental" but each of them reiterated that there is not any plan to actually turn loose any animals anywhere near the Utah / Arizona boarder despite the mention of the Kaibab. There also isn't one red dime allocated to any such project.


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## Bax* (Dec 14, 2008)

Thanks for the links Perry! 8)

According to http://www.fws.gov/southwest/es/mexi...pdf/MW_EIS.pdf section 1-4, the historic range is really not much farther North than Phoenix and Albuquerque. Obviously there will always be outliers in any study and there very well could be animals that do make it in to Southern UT. But that is probably an isolated instance assuming historic ranges are accurate and that the new populations stick to a common range.

This is a very interesting read honestly


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