Speak Up For the Gray Wolf Today

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The Northern Rockies gray wolf was once a great endangered species success story. Increasing from a handful of individuals in the 1970s to more than 1,500 in 2008, the wolf showed that people can change their ways and learn to live with nature.

Then came the Bush administration.

In March of this year, it stripped away the wolf's protection even though federal recovery objectives had not yet been met. The result was predictable: over 100 wolves were gunned down in four months.

The Center for Biological Diversity and its allies took to the courts immediately, and earlier this month we won an injunction temporarily stopping the slaughter. Agreeing that the wolf should not be removed from the endangered species list until fully recovered — especially when Wyoming and Montana pledged to issue hunting permits as soon as federal protection was lifted — the judge halted the killing at least until our lawsuit is fully resolved.

We're confident we'll win in the courtroom, but we need to win in the political arena too.

The next administration will be more friendly toward wolves (how could it be worse?). Please help us show the Department of the Interior that tens of thousands of Americans want the killing to stop. More than that, they want wolves to be allowed to freely spread from the Northern Rockies to Colorado, Washington, and Oregon. Please sign our petition today, and then pass it on to a friend.

Fill out the form below and let Department of the Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne know that you support real and lasting protections for the Northern Rockies gray wolf today.

Dear Secretary Kempthorne; The Northern Rockies gray wolf has been greatly mismanaged by the Department of the Interior. In turning over management to states such as Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming that explicitly stated their plans to massacre the few remaining wolves, the Department put wolves perilously close to extinction. The current protections, or rather lack thereof, are simply inadequate to ensure a lasting future for wolves in the Northern Rockies. To survive, the wolves require multiple, connected populations and several thousand individual wolves. These wolves are critical to the continued balance in their fragile ecosystems. To allow them to be persecuted and hunted is irresponsible stewardship of the land and appalling behavior. Your agency must: • Keep the Northern Rockies wolf under the protection of the Endangered Species Act until it is fully recovered; • Stop allowing wolves to be slaughtered by hunters and the state; • Ensure that the Northern Rockies wolf population is free to expand into Washington, Oregon, and Colorado. Thank you for considering my comments.

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Gray wolf photo courtesy of USFWS.