Bush admin opposes federal pay for wolf kills. By Mary Clare Jalonick. Associated Press Writer
We reported earlier on this when Senators Testor (D-MT) and Barrasso (R-WY) introduced the bill.
The administration’s position complicates things with Defenders getting out of the compensation business, which makes sense to me because they got almost no credit from the politicians for their efforts.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Typical. We want state control but the feds to pay for it.
Tim and I agree on this one! Bush made a good call. No that the states have control, we also have the responsibility to fund wolf management. Not the feds job anymore.
I agree too. If the states want to manage wolves, they have to pay.
And, the states shouldn’t bother paying, either. No more subsidies for the livestock industry for this nonsense. If wolves are a true cost to doing business, so be it. There’s no social responsibility to fund the livestock industry.
Good God! Did everyone just agree that G.W. Bush made the right decision? This might be a first!
While I agree that ranchers should not be compensated for loss of livestock to wolves (especially since many of them graze on federal land), I wonder if this will lead to an excuse for hunting wolves. It seems as if, whenever a business, be it oil drilling or ranching, or whatever industry wants to move into a wildlife area, there goes another habitat.
folks, watch carefully as he covers his weak presidency with whatever he can get his hands on. Wolves, G8, environment issues here, but….
no way will he slow down the profits to his war stocks, eh? Stay the course buffalo chips for everybody.
Well, after all. He’s making such a killing (pun intended) on the Iraq war, how can we blame him for cashing in all he can?
Paintrax,
Many canids can get brucellosis, but it is brucellosis canis, endemic to canids. It does not spread to other kinds of animals.
I appears that brucellosis abortis (the one cattle growers worry about) can occasionally infect canids, but it ends there. They can’t infect anything else. They are like a human who has been infected (undulant fever). Such a person cannot infect other people or any kind of animal.
The idea that wolves or coyotes spread brucellosis to cattle, for example, is popular in some anti-wolf quarters, but the idea has no merit.
There can be a way for this to backfire though.
It could instil more hatred and encourage lethal measures.
Ralph,
Is there any definitive studies that shows the data on brucellosis infection in canids, I have been searching and only found spotty evidence and every other biologist I speak to on the subject, seem very evasive in providing information about this particular subject, specifically I am interested in any information I can find on the abortis strain in canids.