Idaho is already spooling up for a wolf hunt this year. No word from Montana yet . . .
Officials with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game plan to meet with Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter on Monday to discuss a public wolf hunting season.
“We will be ready to have another hunting season,” said Jim Unsworth, deputy director of Fish and Game.
It’s official: Gray wolves are off the endangered species list in this corner of the country . . .
Federal wildlife officials say they will take more than 1,300 gray wolves in the Northern Rockies off the endangered species list within 60 days.
An attachment to the budget bill signed into law Friday by President Barack Obama strips protections from wolves in five Western states.
Seems like there’s also a move afoot to remove gray wolves from the Endangered Species List in the Great Lakes region . . .
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is making another attempt to remove gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region from the endangered species list.
The agency says Friday that wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin have recovered and no longer need federal protection. About 4,000 wolves roam the three states.
Here’s the Daily Inter Lake’s story on congressionally mandated delisting of wolves . . .
Congress passed legislation Thursday removing Montana and Idaho wolves from the Endangered Species list and returning management to the state, as part of a budget bill to continue federal funding this year.
The legislation was advanced by Montana Democratic Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus, along with Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, in the House.
Tester said the overall package is expected to be signed by President Barack Obama.
This recent post to the Missoulian contains some additional information on the wolf delisting rider attached to the federal budget bill that is expected to be signed into law within the next few days . . .
The U.S. Senate passed a budget bill Thursday that will return gray wolf management to Montana and Idaho state control, settling the question whether the predator is endangered or recovered.
“Our provision does not undermine the Endangered Species Act,” said Montana Sen. Jon Tester, who led the effort to delist the wolf in Congress. “It recognizes the ESA as a success.”
Under a 2009 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisting rule, wolves reached the numbers needed for full recovery in 2002, Tester said in a conference call Thursday afternoon. There are almost 1,700 animals in the three-state area, including about 600 in Montana.
This is a pretty good article about the potential implications of the budget bill rider that will remove gray wolves from the Endangered Species List in several western states . . .
The White House is poised to accept a budget bill that includes an unprecedented end-run around Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in five Western states — the first time Congress has targeted a species protected under the 37-year-old law.
A pretty good AP article posted to today’s Flathead Beacon . . .
An attachment to a federal budget bill needed to avert a government shutdown would take gray wolves off the endangered species list across most of the Northern Rockies.
Wildlife advocates conceded Tuesday the wolf provision was all but certain to remain in the spending bill after efforts to remove it failed. Congress faces a tight deadline on a budget plan already months overdue, and the rider has bipartisan support.
It orders the Obama administration to lift protections for wolves within 60 days in five Western states.
Protections would remain intact in Wyoming, at least for now.
It now looks very likely that wolves will be removed from the Endangered Species List. Late last night, Senators Tester and Baucus successfully placed a rider in the “must pass” budget bill that restores the 2009 U.S. Fish and Wildlife rule returning management of gray wolves to state-level control in Montana and Idaho. The rider also prevents judicial review of that rule.
In other words, it looks like there will be wolf hunt in Idaho and Montana this year.
Here’s the actual text of the rider, as posted to Sen. Jon Tester’s web site:
SEC. 1713. Before the end of the 60-day period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Interior shall reissue the final rule published on April 2, 2009 (74 Fed. Reg. 15123 et seq.) without regard to any other provision of statute or regulation that applies to issuance of such rule. Such reissuance (including this section) shall not be subject to judicial review and shall not abrogate or otherwise have any effect on the order and judgment issued by the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming in Case Numbers 09–CV–118J and 09–CV–138J on November 18, 2010.
Yeah, I know, another wolf post. But this one is a little different, not to mention pretty interesting . . .
Carter Niemeyer didn’t set out to become an expert on wolves.
For the first 26 years of his career, the author of “Wolfer, A Memoir” was the man behind the gun who killed predators that threatened livestock.
This week, Niemeyer will tell that part of his story in appearances around Missoula.
He’ll also let people know how he learned to appreciate the need to bring wolves back to the American West.
From today’s Missoulian . . .
Wildlife advocates are scrambling to remove from the federal budget bill a provision that would lift protections for gray wolves in Montana and Idaho.
John Motsinger with Defenders of Wildlife said Monday his group would continue to fight the provision “until it’s a done deal.” But time is running out, with final language for the bill expected to be released Monday.