4-3 SS Endangered Designation

 If you listened yesterday you heard me talking to fish and wildlife spokesperson Meggan Laxalt Mackey about the Selkirk Mountains woodland caribou. My line of questioning regarded who designates species as endangered? Here is her answer: : “is this as hotly contested as the Wolf endangered species issue and who is it that brings about the perception or the reality that these are indeed endangered? The Fish and Wildlife Service as well as the Canadian Ministry of the Environment have been studying caribou and actually Idaho Fish and Game, as a matter of fact originally fish and game petitioned us to list that animal years and years ago. Studies have been ongoing on this animal for years. So any time any species of plant, animal, or fish, bird or whatever, there is a call made on endangered species is an action of the Fish and Wildlife Service. At the end of the interview, I asked Meggan if hunting was one factor that figured into their being endangered. Megan wasn’t sure and said she’d get back to me when she did in an e-mail, let me read it. “Yes, historically (late 1800s and early 1900s) over-hunting was identified as one of the factors contributing to the decline of mountain caribou. Mountain caribou are no longer legally hunted in either the U.S. or Canada, however, some poaching and mistaken identity mortality may still occur. Consequently continued habitat alteration and loss are identified as the primary factors threatening the population today, although, even more recently, predation is identified as becoming more of a threat to caribou.