Let's hope the Obama administration officials reviewing the Bush admin's last-second delisting proposal for wolves allows those regs to take affect. There are plenty of wolves out there, and even if hunting has the disastrous effect the anti-delisting crowd claims, wolves have shown they can increase their numbers quickly.
This quote is particularly rich:
“Wolf recovery has been successful, but that can be reversed very quickly,” said Louisa Willcox, senior wildlife advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The population numbers bounce around a lot. You can have a big down-bounce. If you manage for the minimum, kill 500 in Idaho, and then you have a disease year, it makes it hard to crawl out of that hole.”
Hard to crawl out of that hole? There were about 60 wolves released in the northern Rockies in 1995 and 1996. Today there are about 1,500. The minimum population target of 300 animals was reached in 2002, six years after reintroduction.
The notion that wolf populations are somehow fragile and could easily be wiped out is ridiculous. What is fragile is the social/political dynamic that creates an environment of support for wolves in the human populations that surround wolf country. If the anti-delisting crowd keeps playing games with wolf management they run the risk of turning that social dynamic against wolves. Maybe they don't care. Maybe they think they can say the Hell with what the locals think.
We think wolves are better off if the local human populations favor the wolf's presence. We think that's an environment that promotes long-term sustainability of these magnificent predators.
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