America’s tradition of persecuting wolves has resumed. And although it’s mostly happening on federal land, the Biden administration appears singularly unmoved and unconcerned.
In 2021 conservative state lawmakers in Idaho, Montana, and Wisconsin seized wolf management authority from trained wildlife professionals and reembarked on the age-old war on wolves, radically liberalizing wolf trapping and hunting regulations.
In Wyoming, where wolves were delisted from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 2017, the politicized Department of Game and Fish allows year-round wolf killing across 85 percent of the state at any time and by virtually any means, including running them over with snowmobiles and incinerating pups and nursing mothers in dens.
On July 1, 2021 Idaho implemented legislation designed to reduce its wolf population by 90 percent. It established bounties as high as $2,000, authorized financial compensation for wolf hunters and trappers (amounting to an additional bounty) and, like Wyoming, legalized wolf killing at any time and by virtually any means. Idaho has earmarked just over $1 million for wolf killing.
Read more at: Yale Environment 360
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