Gray wolf delisting glosses over need to protect other species, too

The gray wolf has long been a cash cow for the Center for Biological Diversity and other environmetal groups, and when Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced in Bloomington Thursday the government's intent to remove the wolf from Endangered Species Act protection and return it to state management, the bank accounts of these organizations stood ready to benefit.

With about 2,700 wolves in Minnesota - about twice the number required for "recovered" status - the state is a poster child for conservation achievements that can be won for certain species under certain circumstances.

In the 1950s, only about 400 "timber" wolves roamed Minnesota, thanks mostly to decades of legal and illegal eradication efforts, including poisoning. Given that wolves throughout time have threatened humans' welfare in fact and in fiction, efforts to kill these animals by whatever means necessary, especially during early settlement, were, in retrospect, understandable, albeit, in many cases, deplorable.

https://www.startribune.com/gray-wolf-delisting-glosses-over-need-to-protect-other-species-too/572917671/