10 DAYS TO KEEP GRAY WOLVES ON THE ENDANGERD SPECIES LIST 17MAR14

POLITICS, not science, is what is driving the Obama administration's consideration of removing wolves from endangered species protections. Democrats are in danger of loosing their seats in congress if they don't declassify wolves as an endangered species. Science has shown that wolves do not present an economic threat to farmers, ranchers and hunters (competition for the same big game in the Rockies) but instead improve the overall health of the entire ecosystem in areas where they have been reintroduced and allowed to establish packs and territories. Politicians follow the money, and as long as ranchers and farmers and the nra can threaten them by giving their campaign donations to a candidate who will do as he is paid by them to do. Click the link to the sign the petition to the US Fish and Wildlife Service to keep gray wolves on the Endangered Species List....

Help turn back a dire threat to America’s embattled wolves. Tell the Obama Administration to cancel its reckless plan and give wolves a fighting chance at recovery. TAKE ACTION We’ve been granted one more chance to keep life-saving protections in place for our nation’s wolves -- but we must make our voices heard in the next 10 days. The truth is finally out: an independent panel of scientific experts has unanimously agreed that the Obama Administration’s proposed plan to strip wolves of their endangered species protections across most of the Lower 48 states is not based on the “best available science” -- just as we have long argued. Please urge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to abandon its reckless plan and give wolves a fighting chance at recovery! The return of gray wolves to areas like the Northern Rockies and the western Great Lakes has been one of the greatest conservation success stories of our time. But wolves are only starting to return to large portions of their former range, like the Pacific Northwest. Lone wolves have crossed into California, Utah, Colorado and states in the Northeast. Removing federal protections now would slam the door on wolf recovery long before the job is done. That’s why it’s crucial that we keep the pressure on the Fish and Wildlife Service and make sure these magnificent animals remain protected under the Endangered Species Act. The administration’s disastrous plan would leave vulnerable wolf populations at the mercy of state governments and local politicians -- with potentially deadly consequences. Since the Fish and Wildlife Service kicked wolves off the endangered species list in the Northern Rockies, more than 1,000 wolves have been killed. In Wyoming, wolves can be shot on sight across most of the state. And right now in Idaho, the state legislature is considering a bill that aims to kill 500 wolves -- more than 75 percent of Idaho’s entire wolf population. We can’t afford more wolf-killing policies like these! Yet that is exactly the gamble that Fish and Wildlife appears ready to take ... unless we move quickly to stop them. Please send your message to the Fish and Wildlife Service right away -- even if you’ve submitted comments before. Call on the agency to do the right thing for wolves and give them the fighting chance at recovery that they deserve. Thank you for making your voice heard in defense of America’s imperiled wolves. Sincerely, Frances Beinecke President Natural Resources Defense Council

The mission of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is to safeguard the Earth: its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends.

MAP: Which States Hunt Wolves? 1OKT12

IGNORANCE and a very effective propaganda campaign by ranchers has lead to the tragic and environmentally unsound legalization of wolf hunting throughout the Rockies as well as Minnesota and Wisconsin. EarthJustice, the NRDC, Defenders of Wildlife and many other environmental groups are fighting the federal and state governments to protect the wolves in the Rockies and northern states in a campaign to restore the health of the ecosystems in these areas and wolves are a vital part of this restoration. This from Mother Jones on which states now allow wolf hunting....

Hunting of Canis lupus is making a major comeback.

—By Jaeah Lee and Kiera Butler

Caninest/Flickr

It's a bad day to be a gray wolf in Wyoming, which today begins its first wolf-hunting season in more than half a century. It's one of three states—the other two are Minnesota and Wisconsin—that will offer hunts for the first time in decades this fall. Two more states—Idaho and Montana—will offer wolf hunts this year for the third time since 2009.
The red dots on the map below represent wolves in the United States—a grand total of more than 5,000 in the lower 48 and 11,200 in Alaska (where wolves have never been protected). Multiple dots in one state show approximate locations of wolves; in states with only one dot, only statewide information was available.
Click on a dot to see the number of wolves and their protection status in each state. Click this link to go to the article and view the map http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/09/map-which-states-hunt-wolves In some states, there are two population numbers: "Observed population" refers to wolves that wildlife officials have physically seen and documented, while "estimated population" is an extrapolation, a guess at the total number of wolves believed to exist. (Wolves can be quite elusive and their territories can span hundreds of miles, so it's not always possible to track all of them.)
In the 1800s, hunters drove the gray wolf to the brink of extinction in the lower 48, and it wasn't until the 1930s and '40s that states began to outlaw the practice. Federal and state endangered species acts helped wolf populations slowly rebound, and in the past several years, the species has been delisted in several states.

Today, wolves are possibly the most politicized animal in the United States. Many ranchers fiercely oppose protection programs—understandable, since wolves are a very real threat to their cattle and sheep. Conservation groups, on the other hand, point to wolves' important ecological role: Without predators, entire ecosystems can be thrown out of balance.

It's been a tumultuous few years for wolves in the northern Rockies. In 2009, Idaho and Montana offered the first wolf-hunting seasons in decades. Then, in 2010, conservation groups won a federal case that restored protection for wolves in those states. In 2011, though, Congress once again delisted the wolves and allowed the hunts to continue. Hunts in Idaho and Montana killed 545 wolves last year.



Special thanks to John Motsinger at Defenders of Wildlife for his help with this piece.

Jaeah Lee

Associate Interactive Producer

Jaeah Lee is the associate interactive producer at Mother Jones. Read more of her stuff here. Get Jaeah's RSS feed or follow her on Twitter. RSS | Twitter

Kiera Butler

Senior Editor

Kiera Butler is a senior editor at Mother Jones. For more of her stories, click here. RSS | Twitter

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  http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/09/map-which-states-hunt-wolves