U.S. proposes letting Idaho kill scores of wolves

[The Straight Story]

U.S. proposes letting Idaho kill scores of wolves

Federal wildlife officials have proposed letting Idaho kill scores of wolves in what would be largest government-sanctioned wolf culling in the state since the animals were reintroduced to the northern Rockies 15 years ago.

The Fish and Wildlife Service plan would permit state game officials to carry out a 75 percent reduction in a wolf population blamed for decimating elk herds in a hunting area in north-central Idaho near the town of Grangeville.

Under a plan sure to be fiercely debated during a 30-day public comment period, wolf packs there will be thinned from about 80 animals to no fewer than 20 over the next five years through a combination of trapping and aerial hunting conducted by state wildlife managers.

An estimated 1,700 wolves roam parts of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, all of them generally protected from sport hunting -- even though they can be shot by ranchers whose livestock are attacked -- under the Endangered Species Act.



http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/11/us-idaho-wolves-idUSTRE71A0NT20110211?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

[xchrom]

1. ...

:mad:

[I Have A Dream]

2. There has to be a better way than this to deal with this issue. nt

[The Straight Story]

3. Capture and sterilize some of them perhaps? (nt)

[jmowreader]

4. That MIGHT ease the problem in the long run...

but the biggest problem we have right now in Idaho wildlife management is four times as many wolves as we need to balance the ecosystem.

We COULD capture 75 percent of the wolves and deposit them in teabaggers' homes, but we'd run out of wolves before every teabagger who wanted one got one. But that's expensive, and teabaggers are probably not a balanced diet for wolves.

I think the wolf reintroduction was a big mistake--they are a natural part of Idaho, but Idaho's not all that natural anymore.