LIke Buzz, I was also on the fence, but in the last six months I have fallen off the fence.
The process has gone completely amuck. No other way to state it.
This legislation does nothing to change the ESA. It changes the classification of gray wolves being governed by the ESA. ESA stays the same.
I wish the process had been able to work properly. Those who have so much financial gain by fighting and fighting, have exasperated even the most patient of hunters, such as myself.
I will never support re-introduction of any species again. Never, nope. That is a shame. But, given the fiasco this has become, and the blatent abuse by some to use the ESA as a manner of control and revenue generation is nothing I will support being subject to, ever again.
To have got to this point and not have a solution. To have seen hundreds of MT hunters and landowners spend thousands of hours crafting one of the best management plans you could ask for, only to have it all unwind due to a legal technicality of the ESA and the reintroduction agreement, is more than I can stand.
And, it is not like we have a shortage of gray wolves, either south of the 49th, or north. If there were ten gray wolves in some far reach of the world, standing as the last of their kind, I would feel differently.
To reward, both financialy and politically, those who have done nothing to help the process, pisses me off to no end. The plantiffs have done nothing to support wildlife or habitat. They have done nothing to improve the condition of the elk, sheep, moose, etc. Yet, they are given all the financal rewards and the keys to the gate.
These plantiff groups are writing checks that are being cashed on the hard work of hunters and landowners. Time to bounce those checks.
They have spent their wad. They know they are out of ammo and they pray to Christ that they don't have to deal with a Congressional delisting, or that Wyoming's plan would be accepted by the USFWS. What would they do then? They will have to create another cash cow.
It has become nothing about endangered species. It has become, and to some extent, has been for the last twenty years, about control of the landscapes of the west. It is a lack of understanding of the people who must live with the control these groups seek to impose on all who live here.
When the local tolerance for any species is exceeded, things go down hill fast. My tolerance for the process and the wasted money and time has long been exceeded.
Two years ago, I would have purveyed patience. All reasonable attempts have been made to accomodate and follow process. Time for action, before it is too late, if not too late already.
If this will get state control of wolves for MT and ID, sign me up.
