Folks,

US Senator Orrin Hatch played a MAJOR Role in getting wolves removed from the ESA in Idaho, Montana, and parts of Oregon, Washington and Northern Utah. Senator Hatch has written this editorial about the next wolf war, round two, see his editorial below my comments.

Senator Hatch will lead the fight to keep Mexican wolves from being dumped into Central and Southern Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Current proposed plans would overrun 97.5% of America’s elk populations with wolves. Moose and mule deer are similarly put at risk. This will be disastrous for hunting and conservation in America.

The agenda is to get wolves into Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and connect them with Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. These Mexican wolves will also spread to the heart of Nevada’s best elk and deer hunting. Wolves reached recovery levels in MN, and MI more than 20 years ago, and they are still not in the hands of state wildlife managers. After 20 years of comments, USFWS once again has once again delayed delisting in the Western Great lakes. It has become clear that Congressional Action is THE ONLY SOLUTION to protect America’s wildlife populations.

If sportsmen care about the world class mule deer on the Arizona strip, Paunsagunt, Henry Mountains and Colorado wilderness areas. If they care about Colorado’s abundant elk herds, and Utah’s world famous elk herds on the San Juan, Book Cliffs, Boulder, Pavant, Beaver, Manti and others, if they care about the great elk herds of northern Arizona and New Mexico, it is time to rekindle the fire and get ready for the wolf war round two.

This whole Mexican wolf recovery is a farce from every standpoint. It will be another brass knuckle political and legal fight. No other way about it. The enemies of sportsmen and ranchers are relentless in their agenda, sportsmen must be as well.

SFW State Chapters and SFW members, joined with Mule Deer Foundation, Wild Sheep Foundation and its chapters, along with the Montana chapters of SCI, Arizona Elk Society and many other groups under the banner of Big Game Forever to fight the last wolf war in Congress. These groups were great allies in the West during the last round of wolf delisting. We are continually reaching out to others to join us in the fight. Ryan Benson has been preparing the strategy: legal, biological, and political for this next fight. Ryan will need thousands of sportsmen willing to engage one more time. We did not start this fight, but we will not allow wildlife in America to be unnecessarily destroyed without the united outcry from tens of thousands of sportsmen across America.

For sportsmen who don’t live out west, but dream of coming out one day, we need your help as well. Sportsmen of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming received major help from sportsmen from all over America in round #1, now those same sportsmen need the help from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming Sportsmen in round 2.

If you are not signed up for the fight on the Big Game Forever website, please do so by signing the petition at http://www.biggameforever.org

Don Peay

Big Game Forever

Photo courtesy of mexicanwolves.org

Mexican Wolves don’t belong in Utah’s Dixie (OPINION)

Written by Sen. Orrin Hatch

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an editorial submitted by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and does not necessarily represent the views of St. George News.

When people say the wolf is at the door, they are typically using a popular idiom to indicate they have fallen on hard times. But that expression could become more than a figure of speech in southern Utah if the Obama administration has its way.

With the federal government falling short of its goal to reintroduce 100 Mexican wolves in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Arizona and New Mexico, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now proposing to greatly expand their numbers and place them outside their historic range where the consequences could be dire. And the scientists appointed to look at expanding the scope of Mexican wolf reintroduction efforts have Utah’s Dixie squarely in their political crosshairs.

As part of their proposal to “reintroduce” 750 Mexican wolves, these scientists want to have a self-sustaining population of 250 wolves in southern Utah and northern Arizona – places that fall well outside the predators’ historic range. How can you “recover” Mexican wolves in areas where they have not been?

Now I realize geography covers too much ground to be understood by many in Washington. But I expect better from the Administration and its appointed scientists, who are kowtowing to environmental extremists and ignoring multiple scientific studies that confine the northern extent of Mexican wolves’ historic range to Arizona and New Mexico.

Just as egregious, the agency wants to list Mexican wolves under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as a “subspecies,” which will prevent Utah and other states from managing the predators if they wander outside of their historic range. Utah wildlife officials say this could lead to a re-listing of gray wolves in parts of Utah where they have just been delisted because the ESA requires unprotected species to be treated as endangered if they look similar to protected species such as Mexican wolves.

Furthermore, the ESA prevents a species like the Mexican wolf from ever being delisted and turned over to the states for management until it is no longer endangered in “all or a significant portion of its range.” Since 90 percent of the Mexican wolf’s historic range is in Mexico, which the Administration’s recovery plan does not address, there is virtually no prospect of that ever happening.

So what would be the consequences to southern Utah? Without any means of controlling the Mexican wolf or protecting livestock, the losses to our state’s farming and ranching industry, which accounts for $1.5 billion in sales every year, would be severe. The same is true of elk and other wildlife in southern Utah. The reintroduction of gray wolves in Yellowstone has taken a big bite out of elk numbers there. Placing a similar number of wolves in and around Utah’s Dixie, where elk and big game animals are not nearly as numerous, is irresponsible. Once the elk are gone, the wolves will move on to livestock – just as gray wolves have and continue to do since their reintroduction in 1995 to Yellowstone and northern Idaho.

It is past time for Washington bureaucrats to turn wolf management over to the dedicated state professionals who have a proven track record of managing elk, deer and other wildlife. The federal government has no business foisting Mexican wolves and other non-native species on Utah. I am committed to continue to do all I can to ensure that they don’t.

Mexican wolves clearly do not belong in Utah. State officials say they don’t want them. Neither do ranchers, sportsmen and others in southern Utah – and they are not just whistling Dixie.

– Sen. Orrin Hatch is a member of the Senate Western Caucus

About the Author

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch is the ranking Republican member of the Senate Finance Committee. He also serves on the Judiciary and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committees and Joint Committee on Taxation. Long recognized as a principled conservative, Hatch has been at the forefront of the battle in the U.S. Senate to rein in the ever-expanding federal bureaucracy and costly, burdensome regulations. Recognized recently by U.S. News & World Report magazine as one of America’s top 22 leaders, Hatch’s legislative achievements and initiatives include the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, the Strengthening Our Commitment to Legal Immigration and America’s Security Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Thanks for sending this email and message out to everyone Don Peay and Ryan Benson. We really appreciate everything that you’re doing and will stand behind you and everyone in this fight. – Hunters Against PETA