Wisconsin Ag Connection - Efforts Revived to Remove Wolves From Endangered List

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Efforts Revived to Remove Wolves From Endangered List
Wisconsin Ag Connection - 09/16/2010

A federal wildlife agency is looking once again at removing wolves from the endangered species list for the Great Lakes states. That's after Wisconsin and Minnesota asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the animal from the list.

This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that four petitions have been submitted in recent months to remove the protections. The group says those proposals contain substantial information that delisting may be warranted.

The agency will begin an in-depth review of the species status in order to determine whether to propose gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region for delisting.

Chris Hoving of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources says a decades-old recovery plan for wolves have brought the population from 100 in Michigan and Wisconsin to over 1,000.

In April 2009, the federal government remove the wolves from the Endangered Species Act list in certain states, including Wisconsin. But two months later, animal rights groups reached a court-ordered settlement with the agency that restored those protections.

The Wisconsin DNR says depredation of livestock is one of the main reasons so many are pushing for the delisting. Such attacks occurred on six Wisconsin farms in 1999, compared with 29 in 2009.

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