Beginning Monday, February 10, interested parties will have an additional 45 days to provide information before a final determination is made.
The State Column, Justin Beach
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has re-opened the public comment period on their plan to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list in 48 states.
According to a story in the Guardian, the Fish and Wildlife Service had previously claimed that the north-east and midwest were the native range of a different species, the eastern wolf. The claim, if true, would enable the service to remove protection from the gray wolf in most of the United States, with the exception of a small part of the south-west.
However, it was the unanimous conclusion of a five-person peer review panel that the governments research was insufficient to draw the conclusions the review panel had reached.
“The process was clean and the results were unequivocal,” panel member Steven Courtney, a scientist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California in Santa Barbara, told the Guardian. “The science used by the Fish and Wildlife Service concerning genetics and taxonomy of wolves was preliminary and currently not the best available science.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service, in a press release, announced that they are now re-opening the comment period in order for concerns to be heard.
Beginning Monday, February 10, interested parties will have an additional 45 days to provide information before a final determination is made.
“Peer review is an important step in our efforts to assure that the final decision on our proposal to delist the wolf is based on the best available scientific and technical information,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe. “We thank the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis for conducting a transparent, objective and well-documented process. We are incorporating the peer review report into the public record for the proposed rulemaking, and accordingly, reopening the public comment period to provide the public with the opportunity for input.”
Documentation of the agency’s proposals, peer review submissions and additional details on submitting comments to the service are available at fws.gov/home/wolfrecovery.