All these wolf bills that alter or amend the Montan Wolf Management Plan need to be dumped. The wolf plan is a management strategy built within the sideboard of Montana law. As Montana law changes with regards to wolves, the Montana Wolf Plan changes.
Here is some background.
That plan was crafted by a group of citizens appointed to the Montana Wolf Advisory Committee. Almost all ranchers and hunters. Hardly the flaming wolf loving crowd.
They spend two years taking public comment, listening to biologists, and arguing among themselves. It was a neat process to watch.
The plan had two objectives:
1. Prepare a stategy for management upon delisting.
2. Prepare safeguards to prevent RE-listing. (The objective affected by these current bills)
The plan that came from this is a great plan, reflective of the values held by Montanans. The plan was accepted by the legilsature at that time (Republican) and the Governor at that time (Republican), the FWP Director and the FWP Commission. It has passed the review of the USFWS, the courts, and everyone who has looked at it.
Here is the danger of making these "feel good" politically-motivated changes.
If the USFWS deems the changes created by these bills to be signficant, they will be required to take a new look at the Montana Wolf Plan. A lengthy process, regardless of the outcome.
When/if they do look at it, they may very well reverse their acceptance of the Montana Wolf Plan in light of these amendments. That puts us right back to 2003, when they started their first review of this plan. Hardly a useful outcome.
So, we have some self-appointed wolf experts in the legislature who will never, in their lives, hear one-tenth of the public testimony that was heard by those who crafted this plan. They want nothing more than to jeopardize the future of wolf management in Montana for their self-serving purposes of political grandstanding.
The height of hypocrisy and ingorance in Helena has exceeded any worst prediction.
The same groups that are trying to kill the Simpson-Tester language that we hope passes in Washington DC today, are the same group sponsoring these stupid wolf bills in the legislature. And they have some legislatures ignorant, egotistical, and spineless enough, to fall for the bait.
I have no use for this over abundance of wolves we now have. I know many who are working hard for Montana and Idaho to get control of wolves and manage under the citizen-crafted wolf management plans. We do not need to mess with what has allowed us to gain this hard fought ground - a very good Montana Wolf Management Plan.
Unfortunately, there are so many who want to torpedo those plans, all in the name of personal posturing and keeping the money train alive.
If you have the inclination, share some of this information with these legislators who think that twenty-minutes of testimorny in a hearing makes them wolf experts. The only thing they have become experts in would be the ability to complicate the simplest of ideas, and to destroy anything of value in their effort to claim the far-fringes of political real estate.
:I wish I could write so easy. Guess I should have spent more time in school, and less time in the hills.
