Science Behind Plan to Ease Wolf Protection Is Flawed, Panel Says
Virginia Morell
The science doesn't support a claim that gray wolves (Canis lupus)
didn't live in the eastern United States before they were hunted nearly
to extinction almost a century ago, a four-member independent panel
review concluded in a report released 7 February. The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service has argued that a different species of eastern wolf
historically lived in 22 eastern states. If true, that scenario would
support the agency's proposal to remove gray wolves from the endangered
species list, because western populations have recently rebounded and
the agency would have no legal obligation to restore the wolf to its
eastern habitat, because it never lived there. But the panel, while not
disputing the possible existence of an eastern species, rejected the
idea that the two types of wolves did not live side by side in the East.
http://app.aaas-science.org/e/er?s=1906&lid=40601&elq=14764923d0914f2c907c2c0a4e410720
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