Subject:
         Alert on Reclassification of the Gray Wolf
    Date:
         Sun, 10 Sep 2000 22:45:54 -0700
    From:  Thanks Ed Smith, for sending this alert.

CRITICAL ALERT!

  US FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE PROPOSES
TO WEAKEN ESA PROTECTION OF THE GRAY WOLF

Comments due November 13, 2000
Address at the end of this message.

       The US Fish and Wildlife Service (the Service)
has formally proposed
to severely weaken the protection of the gray wolf in
the United States
south of Canada.

      The proposal is the gravest threat to the
survival of the gray wolf
since it was first listed as an endangered species.
By this action, the
Service is yielding to the intolerance of the
livestock industry, which has
waged war upon the wolf and other predators ever
since the founding of the
American colonies.

      Under the proposal, the listing under the
Endangered Species Act (ESA)
of all currently "endangered" populations of gray
wolves will change to
"threatened," except for Mexican Gray Wolves reintroduced back into
Arizona and struggling to remain wild (ie. without getting shot).

      In states where no wild wolves are known to
live, such as California
and Nevada, there will be no ESA protection.  That
would prevent any
recovery efforts in those states.  The proposed rule
does not affect the red
wolf.

      The Service wants to downlist the wolves to
threatened status so that
it can issue new regulations under section 4(d) of
the ESA "to increase our
ability to respond to wolf-human conflicts."   The
section 4(d) provisions
allow considerable weakening of protections for
threatened species, and
therein lies the most serious danger of the proposal. The Service and
their livestock buddies have already done a considerable amount of this
(ie. the "experimental, non-essential" designation which has allowed
trapping, snaring, and aerial gunning of wolves).

      In any human-wolf conflicts, the wolves lose.
According to Bart Semcer,
chair of the Sierra Club's Wildlife and Endangered
Species Committee: "A
level of killing would be allowed that we haven't
seen since the days wolves
were hunted for a bounty; Fish and Wildlife plans to
be very lenient (and already IS) in
defining circumstances under which wolves can be
killed." (The Planet,
July/August 2000)

  You may read a summary of the proposal at the
Service's web site at
http://endangered.fws.gov/news/wolf.html.

      Please write comments strongly objecting to the
proposal and opposing
weakening ESA protection of any population of gray
wolves in the United
States.  Include the following points:

(1) Despite government claims, most populations of
the gray wolf south of
Canada are severely imperiled and under continual
siege from the intolerant.

(2) Weakening of ESA protection with the proposed
"special rules" will lead
to the deaths of more wolves, thus jeopardizing their
chances of either
establishing or maintaining healthy populations.

(3) Retain the "endangered" status for states without
contemporary wolf
populations so that recovery efforts in those states
may be possible in the
future.

Please send your comments to:

Content Analysis Enterprise Team,  (Geez, even this name stinks!)
Wolf Comments
200 East Broadway
PO Box 7669, Room 301
Missoula, Montana 59807

  Please distribute this alert extensively to all who
may care.


  Thank you

  Ed Smith



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