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 ust as Idaho and Montana were gearing up for another season of killing wolves, there was more bad news for the embattled animals in the Northern Rockies: The Obama Administration has agreed to strip wolves of their endangered species protections in Wyoming as well. The move puts the fate of Wyoming's wolves in the hands of state officials who have proposed allowing the animals to be shot on sight across almost 90 percent of the state. "Wyoming's so-called wolf management plan is a disaster for wolves," says Matt Skoglund, a wildlife advocate in NRDC's Montana office. "The administration is throwing Wyoming's wolves off the endangered species list without a real safety net in place."
As Nature's Voice went to press, more than 200 wolves had been killed already in Idaho and Montana in the first wolf hunts since Congress took the unprecedented and controversial step of removing wolves in those two states from the endangered species list. Now, Wyoming's wolves are in similar jeopardy. While the animals would remain protected in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and would receive limited protections in a handful of other areas, Wyoming is nevertheless poised to allow virtually unrestricted killing of wolves across the vast majority of the state.
NRDC is vigorously opposing Wyoming's proposed wolf plan, mobilizing Members and online activists against the state's dangerous proposal and joining forces with other wildlife groups in demanding that the Obama Administration make Wyoming ensure the sustainability of the state's wolf populations. "As it stands, Wyoming's plan is a throwback to another era," says Skoglund. "It casts the gray wolf -- a native species -- as an enemy that has no place on most of the landscape where it has roamed for thousands of years."
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“The administration is throwing Wyoming's wolves off the endangered species list without a real safety net in place.”
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