The state of Idaho has set a quota of 220 individuals for the wolf hunting season which begins on September 1st. If the quota a quarter of Idaho’s estimated 880 wolves will be killed.
The 220 quota is actually a reduction from an earlier proposal that called for a quota of 430 wolves, almost half the state’s population. In contrast, Montana has set its quota for the year at 75 wolves, approximately 15 percent of its population.
The environmental group, Defenders of Wildlife has stated that it will seek an injunction to stop the hunt, arguing that the numbers are unsustainable. This has angered some wildlife managers.
“It’s time for some environmental groups to abide by their previous promises,” said Fish and Game Commission Chairman Wayne Wright, from Twin Falls, Idaho. “It’s time for our judicial system to put science before partisan ideology. Neither our sportsmen, our ranchers or our elk herds can wait any longer. It’s time.”
Wolves were removed from the Endangered Species Act in Montana and Idaho last May in a controversial decision by Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar.
“It is really astonishing that you could have an animal on the endangered species list at one point, and a bare five months later they’re being hunted,” Stephen Augustine of the Northern Idaho Wolf Alliance told the Spokane Spokesman-Review . “To my knowledge there isn’t another animal that has had this happen to them.”
Related articles
Another milestone in Afghanistan: listing of endangered species
(06/08/2009) Thirty-three species are included in Afghanistan’s first-ever listing of protected wildlife. Well-known animals like the snow leopard, wolves, and brown bears received full legal protection from hunting and harvesting alongside lesser-known species like the paghman salamander, goitered gazelle, and Himalayan elm tree. The protected species list consists of twenty mammals, seven birds, four plants, one amphibian, and one insect.
As wolves face the gun, flawed science taints decision to remove species from ESA
(05/07/2009) On Monday the gray wolf was removed from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in Idaho and Montana, two states that have protected the wolf for decades. According to the federal government the decision to remove those wolf populations was based on sound conservation science—a fact greatly disputed in conservation circles. For unlike the bald eagle, whose population is still rising after being delisted in 1995, when the wolf is removed from the ESA it will face guns blazing and an inevitable decline.
First wolves killed in Wyoming after species loses ESA protection
(04/02/2008) In one of a series of controversial decisions regarding the Endangered Species Act recently, the federal government has dropped the Rocky Mountain grey wolf from the program. The announcement of the de-listing was made in mid-February, but did not go into effect until Friday when the reins of control were handed over from the federal government to the individual states. Over the weekend wolf-hunting began in Wyoming.
Credits
