dan’s outside

Expect to see a string of this stuff during the remaining (mercifully short) year of the environmental disaster known as the Bush administration. A week or so ago it was the opening of sensitive arctic areas to unnecessary oil production, yesterday it was a plan to kill more wolves, and today it was a plan for more corporate welfare for logging firms in Alaska.

About the wolves:

Under pressure from another alpha predator, human hunters (along with state officials eager to keep hunters happy), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has changed a rule in a way that has wildlife campaigners howling.

The complaints are not about the section allowing someone to kill a wolf attacking, say, a dog or livestock. It’s the part about states and tribal governments having the right to allow greatly expanded killing of wolves in “non-essential” populations where local officials determine that wolf packs are taking too big a share of deer and elk herds also coveted by hunters.

What is a “non-essential” wolf. Anyone?