Congress Rules to Remove Rocky Mountain Wolf from the Endangered Species List

In an unprecedented action, Congress has elected to revoke the Rocky Mountain wolf’s endangered species status. A clause removing the animal from the list was included within the proposed congressional budget. This provision takes away federal protection from the gray wolf populations in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and Utah, giving the responsibility to state wildlife agencies. It would also legalize wolf hunting in Montana and Idaho. This course of action has infuriated various environmental groups and activists. This rider is one piece of several environmental cuts proposed by Congress.

According to New York Times writer Michael T. Leahy, the Rocky Mountain region director for the group Defenders of Wildlife said, “Now, anytime anybody has an issue with an endangered species, they are going to run to Congress and try to get the same treatment as the anti-wolf people have gotten.” Meanwhile, ranchers and hunters support the new rider; ranchers assert that the growing gray wolf population threatens their livestock while hunters argue that the wolves will decrease the amount of elk and moose that act as their game. State officials would like to control the Rocky Mountain wolf population as well. Ron Aasheim, a spokesman for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said to The New York Times, “We need to be able to manage them as a state to balance them with other wildlife and landowner impacts pertinent to livestock.”

States are fielding mixed reactions regarding the legislation. The Idaho House passed a bill declaring the gray wolves a “disaster emergency,” granting the state government the ability to eradicate the population. “Passage of a bill in Idaho that all but declares a war on wolves comes as a federal judge is deciding whether to sign off on a deal struck between the U.S. government and conservation groups that remove wolves again from the endangered list in Idaho and Montana”, as stated by Reuters. In Utah, however, Governor Gary Herbert received roughly 56,000 emails against the new legislation, largely sent through the organization, Defenders of Wildlife.

Environmentalists are outraged about this legislation for numerous reasons. Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, cites this movement to revoke federal protection of the gray wolf as a “shameful” bipartisan effort “behind the slaughter of an endangered species.” Much like her fellow environmental colleagues, she fears for the population of the gray wolf, saying that the hunt of these animals will potentially eliminate the population. She argues that the rider was not open to public debate, and is barred from undergoing judicial review. Furthermore, Beinecke asserts that the sanctity of the Endangered Species Act is in jeopardy, because of Congress’s decision to simply remove the animal from the list.

It is with this opposition that environmentalists and politicians cannot agree. This issue has raise many questions, including this: does government have a role in regulating environmental or scientific issues?