Last Monday was the public hearing at the town center on the official de-listing of the Gray Wolf from the list of endangered species in Idaho. Wolves were exterminated from Idaho at the turn of the last century to make cattle ranching in rural areas easier for ranchers by removing the main threat to unwatched and unprotected herds of sheep and cows. This way ranchers can leave their herds unwatched for days on BLM land without worrying. This process killed tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of gray wolves across the upper 35 states and removed them from America completely. In the mid eighties congress passed the endangered species act which led to the reintroduction of gray wolves from Canada into Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Today there are 1,200 wolves across these 3 states, 650 of which are in Idaho.
The plan proposed at the hearing was to "cull" their numbers from 650 to 100 in the state of Idaho by removing all government protections and issuing hunting tags for the wolves for $9.00. Since this plan is not expected to reduce the number sufficiently, an aerial gunning strategy was suggested to get the kills the state was looking for.
The public hearing was pretty evenly split between cowboy hats and Birkenstocks, however the local native American tribes and state departments were given the floor first, and they each approved of the plan which was drafted by 6 of the local cattle ranching associations and agribusinesses. When the floor was opened up to the public, the opposition for the plan amongst the speakers was overwhelming, nearly 10 to 1. Many people choose to spoke and eloquently articulated the cruelty of the state's plan. I also spoke about the stupidity of spending 25 million dollars to reintroduce the species into the state and then a few years later, selling tags to kill them for the grand total of $4,300. Stupid.
