Wolves issue comes full circle
On a mild fall day, with the Wind River Range glittering in sunlight to the southwest, more than a dozen state and local lawmakers and some 50 members of the public spent several hours inside a windowless conference room Friday talking about wolves. "We are right now, in effect, right where we were before that rule was published," Wyoming Attorney General Bruce Salzburg told the panel. "The plan going forward, as I understand it, is they will re-open the comment period for another 30 days, the Fish and Wildlife Service will look at those comments and publish a revised delisting rule." Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, urged lawmakers not to rush into anything until the legal issues shake out a bit more, and until they see what happens with wolves in Idaho and Montana. It's possible the animals could be delisted in those two states and remain endangered in Wyoming. "We'd like to put this to rest, but I don"t think we have a playing field where we can put this thing to rest today," Magagna told the panel. David Noble, a rancher, agreed with Magagna, and he urged legislators "not to waste any more energy trying to accommodate" the judge. The delisting process, Noble believes, is "set up to fail." Rancher Charles Price urged the panel to stick to its guns and sue the federal government to accept the Wyoming plan and make them "do as was promised."....Nice comments, but Wyoming is gonna cave. They're thinking about who Obama will appoint as head of the Fish & Wildlife Service.