The White House is getting a lot of flack over animals lately!
Alaska is threatening to sue the federal government for new policies protecting Polar Bears, while Center for Biological Diversity is threatening to sue unless the Obama administration restores the gray wolf population.
In a formal notice to the U.S. Department of the Interior, the environmentalists said that it will sue the agency in 60 days unless the government crafts a plan to bring back wolves throughout their historical range.
Noah Greenwald, director of endangered species for the Center for Biological Diversity, says:
“Wolves once roamed nearly the whole country and down into Mexico, but at this point there just in a fraction of that range.”
6,000 wolves, protected from hunting except in Alaska, currently live in the lower 48 states, but the Arizona-based group argue there is enough wild habitat to support thousands of wolves in New England and New York, the southern Rocky Mountains, parts of Colorado and the Cascade Range of Oregon and Washington.
Unfortunately, most of the states representatives don’t see it that way and some, like Republican Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho, want to end the federal protection of wolves because they see them as predators harmful to their livestock.
Greenwald reminds us that every species, even if they are predators, can benefit the environment, saying:
“We’ve learned from where wolves have been reintroduced that they have a tremendous benefit. They force elk to move around more, which allows riparian vegetation to come back and increases songbirds, and they control coyote populations.”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently analyzing research into wolf genetics to see how populations in different parts of the country relate to one another, but the effort is not part of a nationwide recovery plan.
The agency’s spokesman Chris Tollefson said Tuesday:
“It’s designed to establish the best scientific foundation to make future management decisions about wolves. That’s about all I can say about it at this point.”
We’d like to see every species given a chance to thrive!
What do U think of the lawsuit? Should the federal government restore the gray wolf population to the lower 48 states in our country?
[Image via AP Images.]