Yes, Obama confirmed a Bush administration position that will make it open season on wolf populations in Montana and Idaho. Having populations in the hundreds is hardly what most would consider strong numbers in such large areas. Siding with the ranchers and game hunting operations over the environment is a major disappointment.
The states of Montana and Idaho are going ahead with plans for an open-season hunt against wolves in September, in which licensed members of the public can take part.
The decisions follow a ruling earlier this year by the Obama administration, widely criticised by environmentalists, to remove wolves from the list of endangered species in the Rocky Mountain states. The interior secretary, Ken Salazar, was endorsing a decision by the Bush adminstration.
Montana wildlife commissioners voted yesterday to allow hunters to kill about 75 wolves, which is about 15% of the state's population. Officials in Idaho will meet later this month to decide on their quota. But earlier plans called for hunting of up to 250 wolves.
Federal and state government biologists claim the wolf population in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho has grown so rapidly since the species was re-introduced to the region in the mid-1990s that it has become a choice between ranchers' family pets and livestock, and wolves.
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