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Obama’s treatment of endangered species: too soft or just right?

Some have criticized President Obama’s snail’s pace when it comes to listing species as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.  So far, he is even behind Bush, who only listed 11 species in his two terms.  Also, Obama has not reversed President Bush’s decision to delist the gray wolf.  However, is this seemingly soft treatment of endangered species really a bad thing? 

Contrary to what this slow start suggests, the President seems to respect the Endangered Species Act.  While he has not listed many species, he has reversed a policy from the previous administration which allowed federal agencies to go forward with projects that would affect endangered species without consulting with the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service.  This policy also specifically dismissed any connection between climate change and endangered species on the grounds that climate change occurs through global processes and cannot be reasonably predicted.  By reversing this policy, Obama has again made it possible for the government and citizens to use the ESA as a tool in regulating carbon.  Additionally, endangered species and compliance with the ESA has been an important issue to the President regarding the Gulf oil spill. 

Overall, Obama seems to be interested in increasing the overall strength of the Act, not necessarily the number of species that are listed.  At least in the first years of his presidency, this might be the most important thing.  By stressing energy, climate change, and ecosystem restoration in his environmental policy, the President is focusing on the big picture for environmental protection.  By increasing the strength of the Act, he has increased the protection to every species currently listed.  These broader goals are a prudent start for a president who wants to change and restore our nation’s attitude towards environmental protection.  After all, listing new species means nothing if the Act as a whole has been degraded into uselessness.  

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Blog post by: Aubrey Coffey-Urban

The National Press Club was Wrong to Invite Don Blankenship to Speak

Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy Company, may have the right to vent his anti-environment, anti-government rhetoric at any venue that is willing to have him.  What I cannot fathom is why the National Press Club would offer this man a platform to speak.  He certainly has done nothing to earn this privilege.  Blankenship lacks even a modicum of credibility and his abysmal record of citizenship puts him in a league all his own. The list of particulars against Mr. Blankenship is long and sordid.  We know him best perhaps because of the recent disaster at the Upper Big Branch Coal Mine, where methane exploded and killed 29 miners.  Although still all too common in some developing countries, mine explosions had become a rarity in the United States because we know how to prevent them.  We are pretty good at ventilating mines and detecting methane build-up when it still occurs, and so we are quite capable of keeping miners safe.  Our record of preventing methane explosions at underground coal mines over the past several decades testifies to our success.  That it didn’t happen at the Upper Big Branch Mine is a testament to Blankenship and his willingness to sacrifice the health and safety of his employees for the sake of his company’s profits. 

At his National Press Club speech, Blankenship tried to shift fault for the accident from himself and his company to the federal regulators.  The government surely should have been more vigilant.  In the five years preceding the accident, the Upper Big Branch Mine had racked up well over 1,300 safety violations.  Given this record, it is fair to ask whether the federal government should have moved more aggressively against the operator.  But the idea that Blankenship and the anti-regulatory culture that he fostered within his workforce were not fundamentally responsible for what happened is as shameless as it is mendacious.   One hopes that the federal government will now do a better job of holding Blankenship to account, personally and perhaps criminally, for his role in this tragedy.

As horrific as the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster was, one might be more willing to accept Blankenship’s efforts to deflect criticism away from himself if this were an isolated incident.  On the contrary, however, the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster is part of a pattern that reveals Blankenship to be a mean-spirited person who cares only for the well-being of himself and his company.  This is a guy who time and again skirted labor laws by buying out union mines, shutting them down, only to reopen them soon thereafter as non-union mines that refused to employ workers who were previously members of the union.  (This short-sighted behavior is at least partially responsible for the lack of skilled workers at places like Upper Big Branch.) 

This is a guy who has bullied West Virginia officials for years into approving his plans to lop off mountain tops and plunder the West Virginia landscape.  Mountain top mining is, of course, allowed, under the federal mining laws.  But it was plainly intended to be allowed only in exceptional circumstances and then only when it could be done in full compliance with the federal Clean Water Act.  Thanks largely to Blankenship, and the other mining companies trying to emulate and compete with Massey, mountaintop mining has pretty much become the rule in West Virginia.  In the process, hundreds of miles of mountain streams have been buried under the rubble of West Virginia’s mountain tops, in shocking disregard of the requirements of the Clean Water Act.

Finally, this is a guy who spent millions of dollars to defeat an incumbent judge on the West Virginia Supreme Court and have his own candidate installed in order to prevail in a bitter dispute with a rival company.  This was even too much for the U.S. Supreme Court, which demanded that Blankeneship’s judge recuse himself from the relevant case. 

Long before the tragic events at the Upper Big Branch Mine, Michael Schnayerson wrote a terrific book called Coal River, which describes in detail the many sins against humanity visited upon our world by Don Blankenship and Massey Energy.  It is well worth a read.  But you don’t need to know the details to know that what the National Press Club did in inviting Blankenship to speak was wrong.  The National Press Club serves as an important forum for debating public policy and it rightly solicits a range of views and perspectives in carrying out its mission.  But the civic-minded behavior – or the lack thereof – of any prospective speaker should surely be part of the calculus in any decision to extend an invitation.   Someone seems to have forgotten this when they invited Don Blankenship to the Club.

- Mark Squillace  

Global dirty energy subsidies total more than $550 BILLION!!!

I just read this article in the Financial Times (limited free subscription available), which previews a forthcoming report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The IEA is completing a study that should be an eyeopener to those "conservative" types who misguidedly believe they are champions of free-market capitalism.

The IEA estimates that in 2008, 37 large developing countries spent about $557 billion in energy subsidies devoted to oil, natural gas, and coal consumption, about 75 percent more than previously thought.

Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, and China are the top "subsidizers" of fossil fuel production, and while my choice of the term "conservative" (above) may suggest that I place the onus of this problem on those members of our US society who -- for some reason that continues to shake my understanding of the much heralded idea of "free-market capitalism" as well as the definition of the verb "conserve" -- seem to support these subsidies that place clean, alternative energy at a competitive disadvantage, I do not suggest that a global crisis like our fossil fuel addiction is one that the US or conservatives must address alone. The problem belongs to all of us, and so must any real solution. What really gets my goat is the unwillingness of profiteering fossil fuel executives and their government bedfellows to answer for or even admit to creating a problem for the entirety benefiting the few while assisting not at all in the development of a lasting solution.

BP has no right to destroy my Gulf and Massey Energy has no right to destroy my Appalachian Mountains. Likewise, they, aided by our elected government, have no right to cripple capitalism in ways that force the American economy toward dirty energy that continues to slowly make this planet uninhabitable to thousands of species who called it home long before we did.

Furthermore, these subsidies are a drain on our respective economies at a time when we can ill afford to be putting more money from the Treasury into the pockets of the Don Blankenships and Tony Haywards of the world.

I think some people need to go back to 6th grade Social Studies class and refresh themselves on the basic principles of capitalism. The rest of us need to get on with this revolution.

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Judson Brehmer is the project manager of the Red Lodge Clearinghouse, a forum for citizen participation in natural resources policy. He holds a J.D. and a Certificate in Environmental Law from the University of Oregon and is a research faculty member with the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado Law School.

Change we can believe in?

Even while BP's Deepwater Horizon well continues to fill the Gulf of Mexico with oil, and with no plan to stem the black tide, the Obama administration issued a new offshore drilling permit Wednesday to Bandon Oil and Gas for a well about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana 115 feet below the ocean's surface.

What?!?! I thought there was a moratorium?

Apparently that moratorium only applies to offshore drilling in water deeper than 500 feet.

In the days after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig (now SIX weeks ago) most of us didn't notice that while the MMS extended the moratorium on deepwater drilling, it allowed the moratorium on shallow water drilling to expire.

Apparently MMS plans to require operators of wells, even those like the Deepwater Horizon which are already enjoying categorical exclusions, to submit additional information about risks before being allowed to drill new wells.

Why do I feel like this is meaningless lip-service?

There are about 5000 offshore drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. There is no doubt that this will happen again, if not in the Gulf, then in the Arctic. Besides that, we still don't know if/when this disaster will be stopped! Oil could gush from this well for years to come, spread to the Atlantic, and effect coastlines all over the world.

(Oh yeah, have we talked about mountaintop removal coal mining lately?)

When will the American people stand up and demand an end to our fossil fuel addiction?

It's time for an intervention.

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Judson Brehmer is the project manager of the Red Lodge Clearinghouse, a forum for citizen participation in natural resources policy. He holds a J.D. and a Certificate in Environmental Law from the University of Oregon and is a research faculty member with the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado Law School.

Kerry-Lieberman: Thoughts

Senator Graham pulled out, so it is no longer a tri-partisan effort, more like a Frankenstein of good intentions and unrealized ambitions. What was supposed to be comprehensive climate change legislation for the U.S. has turned into a joke. I mean, come on, the new Kerry-Lieberman climate change bill (The American Power Act) has provisions for expanding off-shore oil drilling. Really? I don’t know much about politics but even I can tell that will go over like a lead balloon in the Senate. With a BP rig in the Gulf of Mexico hemorrhaging 5000 barrels of oil a day, politicians want to include offshore oil drilling in a climate change bill. Really? And that begs the question as to why incentives for offshore oil drilling are in a climate change bill in the first place. Aren’t we supposed to find ways to wean ourselves off the teat of fossil fuels and carbon dependence? Also, Senator Graham cites the importance of the immigration debate as another reason for his withdrawal. All of this highlights the shortsightedness of American policy makers. Understandably, climate change deals in timelines that are more expansive than a single election cycle, or even the life of a single politician, but these are problems that need to be addressed now. We think the immigration debate is at a fever pitch right now, just wait until millions (if not billions) are displaced by rising tides and natural disasters. Climate change refugees on a global scale will make Arizona border jumping look like child’s play. I think that Senator Graham saw the writing on the wall and wanted his name off of this bill of concessions.

I am not saying that America needs its own private Kyoto, not even close. What it does need is an honest effort to address the problem. A problem that is not just America’s. We are starting to become the laughing stock of the world. And why not, I ask? When Fox News leads off its Earth Day coverage with the headline that insinuated that climate change was a hoax. There is no denying that climate change is upon us and that it is anthropogenic. Now the issue needs to be how to stop it. How to stop sea level rise, how to stop increasing storm intensity, how to stop ocean acidification, how to stop loss of biodiversity. The problem lies in the time horizon. A popular adage in the environmental community is that a good economy breeds green, and guess what… we are far from a good economy. Our focus now is on cheap energy, finding jobs, and immigration. We can’t even be bothered with fixing the mess BP has created in the Gulf. I am not saying we are approaching another era of flaming rivers, Love Canals and Silent Springs… I am saying that it could be worse.

Kerry-Lieberman claims to be THE comprehensive climate change bill, and they released it without Senator Graham. While this can be viewed as an act of defiance, it isn’t. It seems to be the fastest way to kill the bill. The target is 60 votes. That is not going to happen with a key Republican backing out of his own bill. What kind of message does that send? It sends the message that America has other concerns. Immigration. That America doesn’t want to play ball with the rest of the world. Byrd-Hagel. That America likes its oil.

Other stumbling blocks (besides the offshore provision that would essentially give states a 37.5% share in the revenues from drilling in Federal waters) in the Act are nuclear power, offsets, and allowance allocation. The problem with nuclear is that Kerry-Lieberman is for it, but not in a smart way. The Act has provisions that would expedite the permitting and construction of new nuclear plants. This is both dangerous and necessary. The last nuclear power plant built went online in 1996 and there have been no new orders for plants since the 1970s. This is a problem. Some European nations, such as France, are almost 80% nuclear. The Act also calls for billions in loan guarantees to build new plants. This is a problem because we still have no place to store the waste. Yucca Mountain is out—Harry Reid has made sure of that. So now we are looking at on-site storage and that is toxic for politicians. No one wants a potential nuclear accident in their state even if it means cheap, clean power.

Another problem is the offsets. If there is one adage in American environmental politics, it is don’t mess with agriculture. Kerry-Lieberman is yet another example of agriculture getting its way. It gets the offsets. To put a finer point on it, the USDA gets oversight over all offset crediting from agriculture and forestry. Also, the cap for offsets is set at 2 billion tons of carbon per year, which is way too high. Offsets are essential for a cap and trade system to work effectively and efficiently. They allow flexibility and allow covered entities to come into compliance in the cheapest manner possible- either clean up your act or pay for offsets. Simple. Except for the fact that these offsets can lack environmental integrity and to allow so many in could bust the cap and lead to no real reductions in CO2 levels. If the offsets come from projects that generate no reduction in carbon emissions, the integrity of the cap will be compromised. Kyoto has struggled with this, as has the European Union-Emission Trading System. It seems like we are next.

The last problem is that only 25% of allowances are to be auctioned. Ideally, 100% of allowances should be auctioned to send a proper price signals as to the true value of carbon in the market. As it is designed, the government gets to pick winners (utilities and heavy manufacturers). While this amounts to windfall profits to utilities, they are to pass on the benefits to consumers. This is a problem because it creates a perverse incentive for consumer to keep consuming. The goal seems to be cheap power, not clean power.

There are problems. Lots of them. Some that could be worked out in committee, others that might sound the death knell of the Act in its entirety. However, this should not mean that America isn’t ready for energy reform. We are. Past due, actually. Changes must be made and this is a notable step in the right direction, it just seems that something has gotten lost in translation. While there are aspects of the bill that are not ideal, I understand that politics is like sausage making. What you want is the end product, you don’t want to know how it’s made. Kerry-Lieberman may be like that. Lets see what we get when it gets out of committee. Hold your breath (just because soon you wont be able to breathe the air).



For more information on Kerry-Lieberman see:

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/05/11/kerry-lieberman-short-summary/

or

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/12/kerry-lieberman-american_n_572963.html

Kagan’s Stance on Environmental Issues Uncertain but Promising

President Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to replace Justice John Paul Stevens has generated the usual questions from both sides the political spectrum, often raising more questions than answers. Kagan’s views on environmental issues will be particularly important, because as the government acts to increasingly regulate greenhouse gas emissions and institute cap-and-trade programs in the coming years, legal challenges to such issues will reach the Supreme Court with increasing frequency. As far as her stance on these issues is concerned, Kagan hasn’t expressed a clear view in favor of upholding environmental regulation, but her actions as dean of Harvard Law School should give environmentalists hope.

During her nearly six years as dean, Kagan brought Harvard’s Environmental Law program from relative obscurity to its current position as one of the best in the country. She started the school’s environmental law program in 2005, and created its environmental law clinic. In what was seen as one of the most prominent hires of her time as dean, Kagan persuaded Jody Freeman, an expert on environmental policy who served as the White House Counselor for Energy and Climate Change, to leave UCLA in order to head the program. While these actions don’t give a clear answer to how Kagan would decide important environmental issues, they do show at least a general support of environmental protection.

Kagan further showed her understanding of environmental issues in a letter in the summer 2008 Harvard Law Bulletin. In the letter she spoke favorably of moving past litigation to an interdisciplinary approach to combat what she called “the growing perils posed by greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change.” This way of thinking could hopefully turn into support for a broad range of measures to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Although Elena Kagan is undoubtedly not an outspoken advocate for environmental protection, her limited record should at least provide a sense of optimism. She seems to understand the importance of climate change regulation to the future of our country, and her moderate approach to the issue could help gather the five votes needed to sustain any environmental regulation that reaches the Supreme Court.

Engaging the Public in the Latest Round of Rulemaking on Forest Planning

On May 11 and 12, in Washington, D.C. (actually, Rockville, Maryland) the Forest Service convened the last (for now) of a series workshops on forest planning. This most recent workshop followed a series of workshops throughout the country in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of interested parties gathered together to offer the agency their ideas for improving national forest planning and management. As a party to the Lakewood, Colorado workshop and the most recent workshop in Rockville, I’d like to share a few personal observations and conclusions.

First, the Forest Service deserves substantial credit for initiating this remarkable process. The agency wisely chose to hire an outside professional consultant (Meridian Institute) to organize and facilitate public involvement and the consultant performed admirably. Moreover, recognizing that not everyone has the time, inclination, or interest to participate in workshops, the Forest Service has supplemented this more conventional process, with a web page, blog, live web casts of the workshops, and other electronic resources, in an effort to engage a broader audience.

Second, if the first step to addressing a problem is admitting you have one, then the Forest Service seems well on its way to addressing its problem with planning. While the workshops certainly did not dwell directly on past failures, the unspoken premise for much of the discussion was that forest planning is broken. Agency officials seem to get that. Despite several substantial efforts to develop a workable planning process, going back to at least the early 1980’s, land and resource management plans, as they are called, take far too long to prepare and are too often the subject of appeals and litigation. Moreover, they tend to suck most of the energy (and financial resources) out of the agency, with the result that not much is left to adequately assess project level decisions and to engage in post planning monitoring of forest conditions.

Third, the Forest Service seems genuinely committed to engaging the public and hearing how they might improve the planning process. Numerous agency officials at all levels actively participated in both the regional and national workshops and they genuinely seemed grateful for the public’s sometimes disparate ideas for designing a smarter approach to forest planning.

Fourth, the level of dialogue among participants was, on the whole, quite sophisticated, but it was also welcoming toward the views of those with less direct experience in forest planning. Kudos once again to the facilitator, Meridian Institute, for attracting and convening a diverse group, and for structuring an efficient and effective program for engaging participants with varied backgrounds in the task at hand.

A good process, of course, does not guarantee a good result, and time will tell whether this process will fulfill the agency’s goal of developing a better way to do planning. But the prospects for better forest planning are brighter because of the choice of process, and we owe the Forest Service a debt of thanks for offering other agencies a model for effectively engaging the public in this important decision. Now it’s our turn to offer the agency our best ideas for improving forest planning.

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Mark Squillace is a law professor and the Director of the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado Law School. Some of his views on the substantive issues surrounding forest planning are set out in a post titled Rethinking Forest Planning on the Forest Service’s planning blog.

too many leaks; too few answers

Last month an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded and caught fire. Following the initial explosion the underground pipes from the rig continued to leak oil. This has become the worst environmental disaster, in America, in the last decade, and is threatening to surpass the Exxon Valdez leak of 1989 to become the worst environmental disaster ever in America. The story has been gaining lots of media coverage and the focus of this coverage has been broad. Originally, I was impressed at how many different parts of the disaster the media was trying to cover, including: how it happened, who is responsible, how is it going to be stopped, how will it be cleaned up, who will clean it up, etc., but my optimism quickly faded as it became clear that while there was a lot of coverage about the questions surrounding the disaster, there are few answers to actually be found.

Finger pointing and passing the buck has continued to keep any positive progress on solving the problem from happening. Even after there was a Senate hearing over the cause of the disaster it is still unclear who was responsible. Everyone blames someone else down the line. It was BP’s fault, and then it was a concrete plug that wasn’t correctly poured, or a failure of a safety device and battery. While the blame game continues the leak has still not been stopped. Two attempts to cap the well have fallen short, and there appears to be no other solid strategy to seal off the leaks. It boggles my mind that with all of the attention this problem has received there has not been any new plans made or attempted to stop the leak at the source. Before the cleanup can begin it is necessary to contain the problem. The leak occurred over three weeks ago and it still has not been stopped. I believe that more attention should be turned to why this hasn’t been stopped instead of focusing on other issues, like who is to blame, which is trivial at this point and can be determined at a later time.

An important question yet to be answered is the impact that this event will have on off-shore drilling? President Obama has been pledging to make future changes between the Government and oil industry, but what will these changes entail? This has re-opened many concerns and fears about off-shore drilling, but it may still be a necessary evil because the need for oil has not decreased. It will have to continue, but how will it be improved to prevent another tragedy from occurring?

I am tired of finding all of these reports that provide nothing but more questions. Even my own rants about this issue have added nothing but more questions. Enough time has passed, and I am ready for solutions.

State Roles in Protecting Wildlife: Implication of Greater Sage-Grouse and the Endangered Species Act in Colorado

The greater sage-grouse may be listed as a threatened or endangered species by February 26, 2010. Traditional and renewable energy developers are not thrilled at the prospect of an endangerment listing because it will limit their ability to develop large areas of greater sage-grouse habitat. At the same time, the controversy raises concerns about Colorado’s ability to protect wildlife. Some counties in Colorado do not protect un-endangered wildlife because the state lacks mechanisms for ensuring wildlife regulation. Inconsistent and insufficient wildlife protection can result in endangered species listings, which can be detrimental to industries and local economies.

When deciding whether or not to list or delist species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers efforts made by states “to protect such species, whether by predator control, protection of habitat and food supply, or other conservation practices.” Endangered Species Act § 4 (b). Thus, states’ actions to protect wildlife can stave off an endangered species listing and the accompanying strict federal regulation. In the case of the greater sage-grouse, Wyoming has taken steps to protect the species to avoid listing. Governor Freudenthal issued an executive order directing state agencies to prioritize greater sage-grouse protection in core population areas. Wyoming’s Industrial Siting Council, a fairly comprehensive authority over permitting on state and private lands, administers the strategy.

The greater sage-grouse issue is more pertinent in Wyoming than Colorado because 50% of the remaining population lives in Wyoming. However, the issue raises questions as to Colorado’s ability to protect wildlife in general (including the newly returned wolves). Colorado’s Land Use Act of 1970 and Land Use Enabling Act of 1974 delegated broad discretion to counties, resulting in varying permitting processes and wildlife standards for each county. While some counties self-impose wildlife regulations, others do not require significant wildlife consideration. Even though the Colorado Division of Wildlife prepared some excellent reports on greater sage-grouse conservation strategies, the counties are not obligated to comply with Division of Wildlife recommendations.

Varying approaches by counties (including a total lack of wildlife consideration in some areas) leave gaps in wildlife protection. Because of these gaps in local protection, the federal government is more likely to step in and list species as endangered or threatened. A listing could constrain development in the areas where the species is found thus affecting industry, local economies, and tax revenue. At the same time, revisiting the state’s land use laws could benefit numerous species beyond the greater sage-grouse. Colorado could look at Wyoming’s Development, Information, and Siting Act of 1975, as an example of a program with state level comprehensive authority. Although criticized by some environmentalists, Wyoming’s more comprehensive approach provides a clearer permitting scheme for industrial development, allows interest groups to congregate and engage at the state level, and ensures consideration of wildlife matters. Alternatively, the state could mandate county consideration of sensitive wildlife or maintain backstop authority when counties fail to regulate.

While the state is understandably concerned that the greater sage-grouse will be listed under the ESA, the decision could give Colorado occasion to reconsider its approach to protecting wildlife.
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Cabell Hodge and Christian Alexander

Return of the Wolf!

In 1995, packs of wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park and Idaho under the special, more relaxed rules that apply to “experimental, non-essential” populations under Endangered Species Act (ESA). The wolves have thrived and are now firmly established in both regions.

Last week, owners of the High Lonesome Ranch near De Beque, Colorado called the Colorado Division of Wildlife to confirm the presence of a wolf pack that they believe has taken up residence at the ranch. Workers have reported wolf sightings, scat, and howls on this hunting and fishing preserve in western Colorado. Biologists sent animal droppings to the University of California – Los Angeles for DNA testing and the results are not yet known. Federal officials claim they haven’t yet seen sufficient evidence. But if the presence of wolves in Colorado is confirmed, they will, ironically receive a much higher level of protection than currently exists for Wyoming and Idaho wolves, courtesy of the Endangered Species Act.

Before our society began to truly appreciate the importance of biodiversity, the federal government funded bounty hunters who eradicated all wolves in Colorado by the 1940’s. Similar efforts throughout the country pushed the gray wolf species dangerously close to extinction.

While ranchers and wolves have had a tumultuous history, Paul Vahldiek, owner of the High Lonesome Ranch, says he welcomes the return of the wolf. “It seemed logical to me, based on what happened in Yellowstone National Park, that keystone species like wolves might have a positive effect on biodiversity and restoring the health of aspens on this property,” Vahldiek said.

Others, including rural residents from surrounding states where wolves have been reintroduced, do not share Vahldiek’s enthusiasm, claiming that wolves have devastated livestock herds and threatened human lives. In Idaho, State Representative Dick Harwood, R-St. Maries introduced a bill on Monday encouraging the governor to declare a state of emergency and require the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to use “any means” to reduce wolf numbers.

Wolves and other predators play a very important role in biodiversity. By helping to keep ungulates such as elk and deer on the move wolves may be the answer to the widespread aspen die-off occurring throughout the Rocky Mountains.

Biologically speaking, wolves can live just about anywhere people allow them. As a legal matter, wolf recovery in Colorado will depend on the ESA and the success of the state and federal governments in adhering to the sometimes inflexible requirements in that law. But ultimately, wolf recovery in Colorado depends on the good stewardship of property owners like Paul Vahldiek and on all Coloradoans, whose informed opinion can give the wolf a fighting chance on social and political fronts.
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Judson Brehmer
Project Manager, Red Lodge Clearinghouse