Lambs to the Table

Mike Jiminez is a wolf biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He reports with a smile on his face that more than 5,000 gray wolves now live in the lower 48 states and he credits that observation to wolf management programs, public education and research. Federal and state officials say reintroduction programs for the gray wolf have been a success and the animal no longer needs Endangered Species Act protections. Here’s Idaho Department of Fish and Game spokesperson Gregg Losinski. “The grey wolf in the Western U.S. has been de-listed and is being managed like all other game species.”

In a meeting in a Scramento hotel, Jiminez told more than 400 environmentalists, ranchers and other interested parties that “The goal of the Endangered Species Act is to prevent extinction. There’s no set formula for how this is done. The goal is to bring them back to the state where they no longer need protection.” That said, one has to wonder about whether or not there were smiles on the faces of ranchers, knowing that a healthy, well fed wolf population was partly due to the benevolence of those ranchers who are sometimes providing the dinner table that wolves gather around to feast on their livestock. I do know that in Idaho….there are lots of smiles on the faces of wolf hunters.