Jon Tester (D-MT) got the Northern Rockies gray wolf removed from the Endangered Species List in a 112th Congress budget bill. On that day, April 15, 2011, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a proposal to remove the gray wolf from the ESL in the Western Great Lakes region. I found this out from MI Senator Carl Levin in a reply to a comment about the Rockies wolf. Additionally on April 15, 2011, the FWS announced a proposal to remove gray wolves in the Western Great Lakes area, which includes Michigan, from the Endangered Species List. Wolf populations in this area have exceeded established recovery goals, and the FWS indicates they believe state management plans should be able to maintain a viable gray wolf population in these areas without ESA protections. You may comment on this proposal once it is published in the Federal Register at [www.regulations.gov].
Michigan has no dollars to manage bubkes, let alone wolf populations. 690 gray wolves identified in the upper peninsula of Michigan. That's a recovery? And FWS has just also discovered that what it thought a subspecies of gray wolf (Canis lupus) in the Western Great Lakes is actually a distinct species, eastern wolf (Canis lycaon). And this is the government agency deciding what species are recovered and which are not. At least the FSW called on locals, Native American tribes, and anybody who might know more than they do to report sightings of C. lycaon. If we don't turn this around, sightings might be pelts. Thanks be to Senator Levin for the alert!
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