DMS Signed the petition and blogged it.

http://redstarcafe.wordpress.com/tag/wolves/

There is an update in the LA Times on the wolves:

http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-na-wolves25jan25,0,7313959.story

"The shame of it is we spent so much time and effort trying to recover wolves, and were within spitting distance of recovery," said Doug Honnold, managing attorney for the Northern Rockies office of Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm. "But instead of securing those recovery gains and building on them, Fish and Wildlife Services is throwing them away. . . . They want the right to kill wolves willy-nilly."


Currently, gray wolves cannot be killed unless they are preying on livestock or on a dog on private property, or are the main culprit behind dwindling populations of animals such as deer, elk and moose.

The rule change issued Thursday would ease the burden of proof to justify a wolf kill. State agencies would only need to show that wolf predation had been one factor among others for a decreasing population of ungulates, such as elk, deer or moose. A wolf threatening a dog also could be killed. None of the rule provisions apply to wolves within national parks or outside central Idaho and the greater Yellowstone area.

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I can understand the fear of being personally attacked by a wolf or the economic consequence of losing livestock.  I wonder how common wolf attacks on humans are. But the unprovoked killing of wolves seems too much like hunting dogs to me.   Man wants to be the only predator.  If deer, elk, and moose are allowed to overpopulate without natural predators, we can more easily justify killing them as well.  But, I guess further complicating things, is the fact that the wolves' range is limited and they are very successfully reproducing.  So their populations are getting out of control, too.  We are finally running out of space, people.  Even the magnificent elephants and other large wildlife of Africa, Asia, and the Americas are increasingly unable to migrate and claim the territory they need to survive.  These splendid creatures are being relegated to large zoo-like habitats where they can live only psuedo-naturally in diminishing habitats.   I believe we will see the extinction of many free-roaming large mammals in my children's lifetimes.  It is very sad, indeed.

So then, WTF are we supposed to do?  Is having hunters kill the deer better?  Why is extinction a better proposition? Rather than saying what's wrong, can you give some ideas regarding solutions? Are we as humans and our livestock more important?

I live in the middle of the supposed wolf overpopulation.. UM the only wolves I see are hybrid with dog ... The gov of the state I live wants the first permit ...

YES he was ON NATIONAL TV saying how he wanted to kill a wolf..

Kill, Kill Kill, that's all this administration wants to do.
I signed all. This is just crazy.

     First of all, let me say that I am not for killing of any species indiscriminately.  However, I don't think that this rule change is meant to do that.  Right now, the gray wolf is still on the Endangered Species list, but the populations of them are growing in this particular area to where they are threatening livestock and domestic animals.  This rule just allows an exception to the endangered species law to allow for killing the wolf in very specific circumstances.  There already is an exception that allows one to kill a wolf that threatens your dog on your own property.  But, if you were on a hike with your dog in this area of the country, and you encountered a wolf who threatened your dog, you would not be allowed by Federal law to kill that wolf.  Think about that.  In this circumstance, would you rather be allowed to protect the life of your dog, or would you prefer to allow the wolf to kill your dog?  If you killed the wolf without this new rule being enacted, you would be violating Federal law, but feel justified in doing so because you love your dog.  Many want to defend the wolf and don't want this rule or for the wolf to be delisted from the Endangered Species list, but would chose to kill the wolf in specific circumstances.  You can't have things both ways.  Wouldn't it make more sense to have this exception for now until a decision is made for delisting and a reasonable management plan be put into place?  At the very least, people who live in this area of the country would not have to make the decision to violate Federal law to protect their beloved pet and suffer the consequences of that decision.  I would hope for some reasonable resolution of the management problem if delisting takes place, but I don't think this rule for exception to the law right now is necessarily a bad thing. 

I understand about the rare exception ~ however, I have two thoughts about that. First, once the "exception" is legal, there will be too many unscrupulous people who take it as an open door to kill these wolves for other reasons. The other thought is that we move into their dwindling habitat and then kill them when they act like nature created them to act. It happens all the time. We devastate forests, grasslands, etc and take away their home and then kill them for "intruding" on ours. I don' like the idea of wild animals attacking domestic animals or humans, of course, but it seems to me that we have to learn to share this planet with them. (This hits very close to home because in my state we have overdeveloped areas and now have deer in cities, suburban neighborhoods, etc and they end up dead because they have nowhere else to go.)
catmom5