Strange things are afoot in Oregon. According to Zach Urness at the Salem Statesman Journal, "State biologists said Tuesday that wolf numbers are high enough to justify removing them the state list, while Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill to prohibit the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife commission from listing wolves as threatened or endangered."
I urge readers to view Zach's complete article here.
While Zach is obviously enjoined, for reasons of journalistic ethics, from speculating on the coincidence of these two ostensibly separate developments, I am not, and while nothing is certain, it seems very likely that it is no accident that the ODFW announcement happens to coincide with the Republican push in Salem to permanently remove Oregon wolves from endangered species protection.
My personal and completely unsubstantiated guess is that far from working in collusion with Republicans in Salem, the ODFW is taking what it sees as a partially preemptive action by providing a sop to those who might wish to force the issue legislatively.
After all, to further borrow from Urness, " Wolves in western Oregon are still protected by the federal Endangered Species Act. And even with the delisting, wolves in Oregon would still be managed under the state's Oregon Wolf Plan, which emphasizes non-lethal control to manage wolves and only allows lethal control in certain circumstances."
According to Michelle Dennehy, ODFW Communications Director, "Even with the delisting, we still have a comprehensive wolf plan and still would have protections in place."
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