It looks like the wolf got shafted.
From the Nature blog
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2011/04/budget_deal_dumps_wolf_from_en.html
Budget deal dumps wolf from endangered list
One side story prowling in the background of last week's US federal budget showdown
concerns a policy initiative or 'rider' tagged on to the fiscal debate
that would summarily remove the North American gray wolf from the
endangered species list.
Sponsored in the US House of Representatives by Republican member
Mike Simpson of Idaho, the initiative differs from most other policy
riders that were in contention last week (such as a proposal to curtail
the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate greenhouse gas
emissions), because it survived the hard negotiations that allowed
Congress to avoid a government shutdown at midnight on 8 April. This is
not entirely surprising: the effort to delist the wolf enjoys support
from many Western Democrats, including Senator Joe Tester of Montana,
who issued a statement on 9 April saying: "This wolf fix isn’t about one party’s agenda. It's about what’s right for Montana and the West."
Western politicians from both parties are sensitive to the status of
the gray wolf, once nearly eliminated from the continental US and now
recovering thanks to reintroduction programs which began at Yellowstone
National Park and additional sites in Idaho in the mid-1990s. The
releases have proved controversial with ranchers who regard the
predators as a costly menace to livestock, among other parties.
The delisting — which is expected to pass along with the rest of the
2011 budget later this week — is not the only new wrinkle in the wolf
saga. On 18 March, we told you about a “wolf war truce”
in which green groups, states and the Department of the Interior agreed
on a compromise that would keep the wolf moving towards removal from
the endangered species list, but also protect the wolf in states where
they are still scarce and bring in independent scientists to keep an eye
on the species.
Now, a judge that has already weighed in on wolves in the past — in
2010 he overturned a federal government attempt to delist the wolves —
has nullified the agreement. He says that the law is clear. Scientific
evidence and ESA procedure must dictate when the wolves are ready to
come of the list, not political negotiators.
This Greenwire story gives more details and a link to the judge’s decision.
Stay tuned. There’s more twists and turns ahead as the west struggles
with its “wolf problem.” Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter is toying
with declaring a “wolf disaster” emergency and letting law enforcement
take out some of Idaho’s wolves. As the relevant bill says, “The
uncontrolled proliferation of imported wolves on private land has
produced a clear and present danger to humans, their pets and livestock,
and has altered and hindered historical uses of private and public
land, dramatically inhibiting previously safe activities such as
walking, picnicking, biking, berry picking, hunting and fishing. The
continued uncontrolled presence of gray wolves represents an unfunded
mandate, a federal commandeering of both state and private citizen
resources and a government taking that makes private property unusable
for the quiet enjoyment of property owners.”
There’s a lot to learn from this language. The wolf wars are about
more than just wildlife management, or even primal fear of animals that
can kill us. On one level the wolf wars are about western disaffection
and rural landowners unwilling to be dictated to by Washington
bureaucrats. And while the relationship between the west and the feds
may not be as ancient as that between man and wolf, it is just as
emotionally fraught.