Ap. “Bill That Would Drop Protections For Gray Wolves Passes House.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.crom, 16 Nov. 2018, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-dropping-wolf-protection-passes-house_us_5bef4b7ae4b07573881e9981.

 

This article discusses a new bill that recently went through the United States House of  Representatives. This bill would remove the Gray wolf from the endangered species list; the gray wolf would then not be protected by the endangered species act. The Gray wolf had been almost completely eradicated from the lower 48 states by ranchers before it was legally protected in the 70’s. Since then after decades of conservation efforts, the Gray wolf population has grown to about 5,000, still not nearly as populous as it naturally would be. Nonetheless, the republican controlled House of representatives passed this bill, so the bill will go on to the senate. It is a symptom of the long-running hatred of the gray wolves by american farmers and ranchers and the political device of the republican party of apathy towards ecosystems in favor of economic gain.

I was very upset to read the headline of this article. While the wolf has made a significant recovery in the last several decades reaching about 5,000, it is still very much recovering. The ecological benefits of the wolf making a comeback was immense, as we have studied, the food web is an interconnected balancing act, the wolf being reintroduced, reintroduces the very health of the ecosystem. While the supporters of this bill disingenuously say that laws like this should be up to the states, it is clear that this is a blatant and careless act to garner support from middle America farmers, in a time of decreased republican support. This act will move onto the republican controlled senate and most likely be passed, this does not bode well for the health of  our nation’s ecosystems.