Cascade Volcanoes • Entered by Laurie Kerr on June 22, 2024
Washington Wolves Comments
June 22, 2024
Participants and Hours
| Pre Planning hours | 1 |
| Post Admin hours | |
| Activity Hours | 4 |
| Participants | 1 |
| Total Hours | 5 |
Key Issue: Wildlife Protection
Activity Type: Advocacy (rallies, lobbying, meeting decision makers, letters/calls/emails)
Key Partners: Center for Biological Diversity/Loo Witt Sierra Club/Defenders of Wildlife
Measurable Outcomes
Outcome 1: Advocacy actions (1 comments)
Outcome 2: Advocacy actions (10 comments)
Short Description of Activity
Laurie attended the hearing with Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife Commission to provide testimony on why wolves should not be downlisted from endangered to sensitive in Washington State.
Reflection/Evaluation
The Commission was very attentive and encouraging and said they liked my testimony. My comments are attached. What I learned from the event was that the proposal was based upon modeling and not data collection. There just isn’t enough data on wolf recovery in Washington State at this time to use data points. So the data numbers are not sufficient to provide accurate modeling through 2070, although this is what the USFW biologists from UW are trying to do. This is a serious flaw in the data collection. Downlisting wolves from endangered to sensitive also skips the category of threatened. One of the commissioners was an attorney and he quoted the WACs as saying that either the wolves must be de-listed or remain currently as threatened as the wording of the WACS does not allow for downlisting. So many of these issues need to be addressed before the 9-member commission can come to a vote in July.
I will be anxiously awaiting their decision.
The testimony was long and was provided both by zoom and in person. I testified in person. Each person had only 2 minutes of time to talk. Most people were in opposition to the downlisting but there were about 5 people in favor of it for hunting reasons.
I also was able to obtain 10 postcards signed in support of the Owyhee campaign.
Photos/Uploads
Upload 1 |
Photo Captions
1- Laurie’s Wolf comments