Montana cattle ranchers are pitted against environmentalists in a stalemate over the management of the state's wolf population, and frustration over that stalemate has prompted Montana's Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer to send a defiant letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
"As usual in Washington, D.C., they confuse motion for action and nearly nothing is happening. Meanwhile, we have these wolves that are denning right now, and there will be another 30-percent increase in their numbers this year,” Schweitzer told Fox News.
He has asked that the state be allowed to manage the wolf population to decrease its impact on cattle, which have been increasingly killed in wolf attacks.
"Or get off your hind end in Washington, D.C., and fix the Endangered Species Act so it works in Montana," he told Fox News.
It’s been nearly 10 years since federal officials proclaimed the endangered gray wolf in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming had biologically recovered. Sixty-six captive wolves had been reintroduced into the wild. By 2010, their numbers had increased to 1,700 in the Intermountain West. In 2008, the species was removed from the Endangered Species List in Idaho and Montana for the first time.
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