Farmers, ranchers, hunters and wildlife advocates filled a Brainerd auditorium Tuesday night to give passionate testimony for and against a proposal to remove federal protections for gray wolves.
The hearing was the only opportunity, anywhere in the country, for members of the public to give input in person on the proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take gray wolves off the endangered and threatened species list — which, among other things, makes it illegal to kill a wolf unless it’s threatening a human.
De-listing gray wolves would turn management of wolf populations over to states, potentially making them subject to hunting and trapping. Only the Mexican gray wolf would remain under federal protection.
Federal officials say they want to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list because they no longer consider the animals endangered. During their 40-plus years of protected status, gray wolves — once almost extinct in the lower 48 states — have made a dramatic recovery. There are now more than 6,000 gray wolves, in nine states. Minnesota’s gray wolf population alone is estimated at more than 2,650.
“The reason we keep species listed is because we want to protect species from going extinct. Wolves are not even close to that,” said Lori Nordstrom, who works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the endangered and threatened species list. “They’re doing very well in the Great Lakes region, and they’re also expanding out west.”
But opponents of the proposal to remove the wolves from federal protection say the move is premature. They argue that, while wolf populations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and the northern Rocky Mountains have […]
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