The Wolves Are Safe

You may remember a previous blog post about the delisting of the Northern Rockies gray wolf population.

Well, I stopped by the EarthJustice website, and it turns out they won their lawsuit, and the wolves are being relisted.

The article was pretty good, and there were some interesting statements from different conservation groups at the very end.  Check it out.

Lucky for this guy, he'll still be protected by the Endangered Species Act.

“Recovery requires allowing wolves in different populations to reach each other in order to mate and raise their pups,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. ”Even before they were unlawfully removed from the endangered species list, the government was gunning down so many wolves that the Yellowstone population was reproductively isolated, a recipe for extinction. This injunction will give the wolves a fighting chance.”

Also:

“Wolves are once again protected in the northern Rockies. This is great news for the wolves. All three states had plans to allow hunts this fall.  500 wolves were scheduled to be killed and now those plans are halted,” said Earthjustice attorney Doug Honnold.

Of course, the legal battles will continue.  There’s another threat to endangered species coming from the Bush Administration, coming in the form of proposed rule changes that would allow federal agencies to decide whether or not they need to generate a report on the effects a federal action may have on endangered species.  More on that in the next post.