US tribes demand emergency protection for wolves
MADISON, Wis. – Dozens of American Indian tribes asked the Biden administration Tuesday to immediately enact emergency protections for wolves, saying states have become too aggressive in hunting the animal.
Groups representing the tribes sent a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland asking her to act quickly on an emergency petition they filed in May to relist the wolf as endangered or threatened. They also asked Haaland, a member of Laguna
Pueblo in New Mexico and the first Native American to lead a Cabinet agency, to relist the wolf on an emergency basis for 240 days, ensuring immediate protection.
The groups say that states have enacted “anti-wolf” policies that present “a real potential of decimating wolf populations.”
The letter notes that wolves play a key role in a host of American Indian tribes’ cultures and accuses the federal government of failing to listen to their concerns about removing the wolf from the endangered species list in January.
Wolves across most of the lower 48 states were stripped of federal Endangered Species Act protections in the final days of the Trump administration. Wolves in the Northern Rockies region – including Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and portions of Washington state, Oregon and Utah – lost protections a decade ago under former President Barack Obama.