The Endangered Species Act under fire again: What’s at stake
From HumaneWorld.org:
For centuries, extermination was the law of the land for gray wolves in the United States. Driven by fear and ill-informed traditions, hunters, farmers, ranchers, and state and federal employees shot them. Trapped them. Poisoned them. They burned pups in their dens. In Minnesota, the last place in the contiguous U.S. where wolves hung on in significant numbers, the state dropped strychnine-laced meat from airplanes and, as late as 1965, offered a bounty of $35 per dead wolf. The number of wolves fell to 700 or fewer, all in the state’s remote northeast corner.
The species, an estimated 2 million in North America at the time of European colonization, looked as if they might disappear from the lower 48 states. But in 1973, the Endangered Species Act passed with bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Richard Nixon, granting gray wolves protection.
