URGENT: WYOMING WOLVES NEEDS YOUR COMMENTS

Take Action for Wyoming’s Wolves

BACKGROUND

• Wyoming’s wolf management plan calls for the state to:

  • maintain only 10 breeding pairs and 100 wolves outside of Yellowstone National Park,

  • classify wolves as unprotected predators that could be shot on sight in 90% of the state,

  • classify wolves as trophy game animals in a flexible trophy game zone in the northwestern corner of the state, right outside Yellowstone. 

• Wyoming lawmakers voted unanimously to recommend approval of this plan that could delist gray wolves in the state as soon as next year. The full Legislature will consider the issue when it meets in February, 2012.

USE THE TALKING POINTS BELOW AND SEND IN YOUR COMMENTS PROMPTLY:

JAN. 13^th DEADLINE – US Fish and Wildlife Service deadline for comments

• http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=FWS-R6-ES-2011-0039-0001

TALKING POINTS:    WY’s proposed plan is completely unacceptable because the plan:

• should be based on science (vs. politics) and acknowledge the ecological importance of the wolves in the Rockies and work to preserve healthy and sustainable wolf populations throughout the state

• recklessly removes protections for gray wolves in a manner that can potentially unravel the scientific recovery of wolves across the region;  it allows wolf hunting in important wildlife corridors which endangers wolves’ connectivity with neighboring wolves in Idaho, and thus, will negatively impact their biological diversity.

• affords NO protection to wolves in almost 90% of the state; it allows two-thirds of Wyoming’s wolves to be shot on sight, trapped, or even chased to exhaustion and exterminated by anyone, at any time, for any reason without a hunting license;  independent scientists say that 2,000 to 3,000 wolves are needed for a sustainable, fully recovered population.

• the deal would protect only the wolves in and around just a few protected areas like Yellowstone National Park;  wolves draw tourists who spend millions of dollars a year in Wyoming; the economic impact of the potential loss of revenue to the region could be catastrophic

• combined with the recent congressional delisting and hunting of wolves in Idaho and Montana threatens their very survival; the  federal government has spent 16 years and millions of dollars to reintroduce wolves in the West.

• Mead and Salazar’s plan is very similar to the plan the US Fish and Wildlife Service rejected a few years ago; if it wasn’t right then, then it isn’t right now.

 National Wolfwatcher Coalition                                  

 Understand, Love, Protect