Brian Lynn
We've been fighting this wolf battle for well over 20 years now. It's changed. The question is no longer “are the wolves recovered by population status”, they far surpassed that years ago.
What's happening has been in the court systems. We’ve de listed a multiple times. Then the Humane Society United States (HSUS) and Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), these groups sue, and keep bringing up different points of contention.
It's kind of moved from population status, which is what we all think of as “Are there enough wolves in this area?” Or “what was the D listing threshold?” Since we’ve far surpassed that, it seems like it's a no brainer.
Well, their arguments then shifted to historic range, and suitable habitat within that historic range. And the impact hunting and natural mortality would have on these distinct populations where the wolves are recovered. If something happens to those core populations, basically, what's the impact to these remnant populations where the wolves haven't met thresholds or are just beginning to take hold?
And so the courts said, Yeah, you're right, you have to consider this Fish and Wildlife.
When you do delist these, you have to consider historic range, suitable habitat, and these remnant populations, how we handle these things.
So they laid out a pathway. Now I believe Fish and Wildlife just completed kind of that consensus work.
So we saw an opportunity to strike and file these petitions using their own data that they that they have, and our dual approach.
One is to Delist, the western Great Lakes, wolves, those found in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin.
We've delisted them three times - they've been put back on each time and because of these different arguments. This time, we are asking them to delist these wolves because they've surpassed all thresholds and everything else.
Then we're asking them in our second petition to create a West Coast wolves DPS. It’s part of the Rocky Mountain DPS right now. But the Rocky Mountain DPS includes the eastern third of Oregon and Washington. But now the wolves are expanding into Western Washington, Western Oregon and down into California.
So we want them to create a new Distinct Population Segment is what that stands for West Coast wolves that would be that outside the Rocky Mountain boundaries.
That way, nothing can happen to the Rocky Mountain population. There’s a fear they would have tried to limit hunting of that population, claiming these wolves are really part of it.
So we're asking them to carve out those (wolves), create a new DPS, the Rocky Mountain wolves as they are delist, the Great Lakes wolves.
And in that second petition about carving out the Western wolves, we're also asking for remnant populations. This would allow remnant populations as these wolves expand out of their distinct population segments. They become protected automatically, until recovery goals are met, while leaving the distinct populations to be managed by the states.
