Feds Plan To Drop Gray Wolf Protection - Camille Vigil

This week the federal government announced that it is considering taking the gray wolf off of the endangered species for the United States. In the past several years, the gray wolf population had sharply plummeted as a result of excessive hunting. With the government's protection of its population, its population has been allowed to rise to a significant number once more. However, this new proposal comes at a time that many say is quite premature in that the population has only recently risen to reasonable numbers; in Washington state, the gray wolf population is currently estimated to be a mere 50-100. The reasoning behind the government's proposal is that if the gray wolf is taken off the endangered list, that they may concentrate conservation efforts more closely on the Mexican wolf, whose numbers are estimated at only 75 in the entire nation. The Fish and Wildlife Service Agency's director even stated that the proposal is designed to ensure that the species is living and thriving in enough places so that it "won't die out".

This government agency's proposal seems extremely selfish and careless to me. It seems like they want to take the easy way out and just be done with helping this species. The article mentioned that The Center for Biological Diversity found that if the proposal were to be put into action, the wolf's population would likely plummet soon after, with hunting of the species permitted again. This organization also found that the gray wolf's decline in population had begun to affect other species such as deer, which would further be affected if the government took the species off the endangered list which would also allow hunting of the wolf to resume.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/30/feds-drop-wolf-protection/2897615/