LA Times: Northern Rockies pols attack gray wolf protections

The Los Angeles Times has posted an informative article about at least two efforts underway in Congress to prevent protection of northern Rockies gray wolves under the Endangered Species Act.

In 2007 the Bush administration removed gray wolves in Montana and Idaho from the endangered species list. But a federal judge recently held that the decision violated the Endangered Species Act because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service separated populations in Wyoming from those two states for regulatory purposes.

In August Judge Donald Molloy ordered the entire population in the northern Rockies returned to the list.

The original recovery target for gray wolves in the region was 300 individuals. There are now more than 1,700 in the three states.

The bills that either are, or will be, before Congress would, if enacted into law, mark the first time that a federal wildlife agency is ordered by statute to remove a species from the protection of the Endangered Species Act.