“Grey wolves should be recovered in multiple, connected populations throughout the United States.” Or so says a petition filed by the Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity against Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 
My first thought is, “Why do we need more wolves? We already have way more then we all need.” But then, after a second or two, I think, “Why shouldn’t everyone else have them, too?”
Misery likes company, and I can think of a few states, like California or New York, that deserve a few wolves. Wolves and San Francisco, Calif. would really go together – we’ve seen all kinds of human wildlife there, how about some real wildlife? Why don’t we fence some wolves in along the U.S./Mexico border and make sure they stay hungry? How many people would cross into the United State then? But, there wouldn’t be many going back into Mexico, either.
The Center’s petition asks for a national recovery plan for the grey wolf under the Endangered Species Act that would establish wolf populations in “suitable habitat” in the Pacific Northwest, California, the Great Basin, southern Rocky Mountains, Great Plains and New England. Well, why stop there? Why not in the Great Smokey Mountains and other parts of the Southeast U.S., which are well-timbered, as well as parts of Florida and New York?
Just think of all the management and population control the wolves could have in the wild horse areas of Nevada, or in the feral pig areas of the southern states. Hawaii is having problems with feral pigs in some parks – let’s dump some wolves off there, too.    
The Center’s spokesman says, “It’s time to develop a national recovery plan to facilitate true recovery of the grey wolf. The existing recovery plans for wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains and upper Midwest are out-of-date and apply to a small fraction of the wolf’s historic range.” He also says, “Science teaches us that we need far more wolves that range across a much wider swath of the continent than the current minimalistic approach.”
My first thought is that I agree with him 100 percent, but in reality I don’t wish the wolf on anyone. However, it would be good to have them in areas back East, where there’s not much livestock, to let people see the damage they really do. They would realize that where there are wolves, there is almost single-species management. Wolves don’t have to be kept in the West, where most people only want to see them while on vacation. Those people need to see up-front the damage they do to pets, wildlife and livestock.
Also in the past week the Center filed a suit against the BLM and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stop El Paso Corp. from building its natural gas pipeline from Wyoming to Oregon. They say it would harm many species of fish located in the numerous rivers the pipeline would cross. It will be interesting to see how that plays out, considering El Paso’s recent actions.   
Dennis

Last week the news broke that El Paso Corporation has set up the “Sagebrush Habitat Conservation Fund” in partnership with the Western Watersheds Project and the Oregon Natural Desert Association.
This partnership consists of an exchange, and at the heart of it lies the Ruby Pipeline, a new line routed from Opal in western Wyoming to Malin, Ore. The deal consists of $15 million given to Western Watersheds by El Paso Corporation, and $5 million to the Oregon group. In return, the groups will drop any appeals to the proposed pipeline, which might have delayed construction on the $3 billion project.
Western Watersheds says they will use their share to buy up federal grazing permits, purchase private property or obtain conservation easements. It would be interesting to see the agreement between El Paso and Western Watersheds, as I can’t believe El Paso just handed them the money without some sidebars to guarantee where the dollars will be spent. But, if the action gets Western Watersheds off their back, maybe they did. What would stop any other organization from jumping in and appealing the pipeline, now that they know El Paso is an easy mark? There has to be more to it than what we have read.
First off, one cannot just retire a grazing permit. It would take action by Congress to change the law governing federal grazing. In fact, just this past week a change that issue was in a budget bill, and Congressman Mike Simpson of Idaho led the defeat of the action 10-1 in committee. The environmental community is trying to get it changed, without success so far, but the BLM will already allow a file for non-use on some federal permits for a number of years for conservation purposes.
Western Watersheds is in business to shut down public lands grazing, period. It doesn’t matter if they use the sage grouse, water quality or El Paso’s dollars to get it done. I don’t think they really care about the habitat, the economics of communities or the loss of recreation.
El Paso has really stepped in some poop here. The bad public relations this has caused with ag and energy organizations will certainly do some harm. As one noted federal lands spokesman stated, “We should be lobbing grenades instead of water balloons.” Yet, we seem to just sit by and cuss what’s happened. Those who ranch or do business on federal lands feel beat up with all that’s happening.
So, now we have a new way of doing business: to get dollars for your cause, threaten to take action against a proposed development on federal lands and you’ll get bought off. I wonder how this will play out with the new wind energy development and the proposed transmission lines headed west. Everyone is talking mitigation, a word that got its start in the gas fields of western Wyoming. Is that just a nice word used by the Wyoming Game and Fish and others for blackmail, or is there a value exchanged for a value? Is it ok for the Game and Fish to do it, and not Western Watersheds, because of how they propose it? Nationally, even HSUS has learned it’s a useful tool to fund their organization.
Chicago-style politics at their best have found the West.
Dennis