Wednesday, January 08, 2014

Rewrite of species-protection law seen in move to take wolves off the U.S. list

From the journal "Conservation Letters" comes a compelling academic critique of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's evolving enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, through some key rewriting of policy that might appeal to satirists like George Orwell or Joseph Heller. The paper, published last week in the journal's "Policy Perspectives" section, is focused largely on the service's announcement that it will remove gray wolves from federal protection throughout the lower 48 states, following earlier "de-listings" in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, Wyoming and Idaho (as well as states of the northern Rocky Mountains and a scattering of others with few if any wolves). But the authors — including Sherry Enzler of the University of Minnesota and John Vucetich of Michigan Technological University, who directs the wolf-moose population study on Isle Royale — argue that the service's reasoning in support of its decision on gray wolves changes its application of the landmark wildlife law in two ways that effectively repeal it: First, by redefining the Endangered Species Act's notion of natural range from the territory a species historically inhabited to the territory it currently occupies. Second, by deciding that human activity — especially intolerant activity — in portions of a species' range can justify reclassification of those areas under the ESA as habitat no longer suitable for threatened animals and plants...more

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