{"id":61452,"date":"2018-11-17T17:29:51","date_gmt":"2018-11-18T00:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/house-passes-bill-to-drop-legal-protections-for-gray-wolves\/"},"modified":"2018-11-18T00:29:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-18T00:29:51","slug":"house-passes-bill-to-drop-legal-protections-for-gray-wolves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/house-passes-bill-to-drop-legal-protections-for-gray-wolves\/","title":{"rendered":"House passes bill to drop legal protections for gray wolves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Republican-controlled House has passed a bill to drop legal protections for gray wolves across the lower 48 states, reopening a lengthy battle over the predator species.<\/span>Dawn Villella\/Associated Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

WASHINGTON \u2013 The Republican-controlled House passed a bill Friday to drop legal protections for gray wolves across the lower 48 states, reopening a lengthy battle over the predator species.<\/p>\n

Long despised by farmers and ranchers, wolves were shot, trapped and poisoned out of existence in most of the U.S. by the mid-20th century. Since securing protection in the 1970s, wolves have bounced back in the western Great Lakes states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as in the Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n

About 5,000 wolves live in the lower 48 states, occupying less than 10 percent of their historic range.<\/p>\n

The Fish and Wildlife Service is reviewing the wolf\u2019s status and is expected to declare they\u2019ve recovered sufficiently to be removed from protection under the Endangered Species Act.<\/p>\n

The House bill would enshrine that policy in law and restrict judicial review of listing decisions. The measure was approved, 196-180, and now goes to the Senate, where prospects are murkier.<\/p>\n

The bill\u2019s chief sponsor, Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., said farmers in Wisconsin and other states are \u201cone step closer to having the legal means to defend their livestock from gray wolves.\u201d<\/p>\n

States should be responsible for managing wolf populations, \u201cnot Washington bureaucrats,\u201d Duffy said.<\/p>\n

Environmental groups and many Democrats slammed the bill as a last-ditch effort by Republicans to push a pro-rancher agenda after losing control of the House in this month\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis final, pathetic stab at wolves exemplifies House Republicans\u2019 longstanding cruelty and contempt for our nation\u2019s wildlife,\u201d said Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based environmental group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American people overwhelmingly support the Endangered Species Act and the magnificent animals and plants it protects,\u201d Hartl said. \u201cWe don\u2019t expect to see these disgraceful anti-wildlife votes next year under Democratic control of the House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Livestock industry associations representing ranchers who have to contend with wolves scaring and attacking cattle and sheep supported the bill. They said in a letter to Congress that wolf populations have recovered to the extent that the animal would have been removed from the endangered species list if not for \u201cactivist litigants\u201d who \u201cused the judicial system to circumvent sound science and restore full ESA protections to these predators.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service said the agency is completing a review of the wolves\u2019 status in the lower 48 states and expects to make a recommendation in coming months. The agency did not take a position on the House bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5,000 wolves live in the lower 48 states<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[108,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-61452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-endangered-species","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61452"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=61452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}