Protesters seek protection for gray wolf as feds consider delisting

Montana’s wolf-hunting season ended a month ago, but wolf-debating season continues unabated. A dozen wolf advocates gathered at Caras Park on Monday to plead for restored Endangered Species Act protection for the predator, while their colleagues in Helena and five other state capitals demanded the attention of their respective governors with civil disobedience efforts. Across the state line, Idaho legislators last week approved a year-round wolf hunting season on private land in most of the Panhandle region, from the Canadian border to the Salmon River. The Idaho State Fish and Game Commission also OK’d moving the start of wolf trapping season from Nov. 15 to Oct. 10. And a week earlier, Montana Fish and Wildlife commissioners allowed landowners to kill wolves threatening their livestock or property without a permit. Montana hunters and trappers killed 230 wolves in the just-ended 2013-14 season. All this is taking place as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers delisting gray wolves throughout the Continental United States. Hogue said similar protests were set for capitals in Idaho, Wyoming, Minnesota, Minnesota and Wisconsin, with supporting rallies in four more states, Germany and South Africa. He argued that returning gray wolves from the brink of extinction to a viable population “should be a cause for celebration, not a reason to open hunting season again.”...more