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Montana Farm Bureau outraged by wolf decisionMontana The Montana Farm Bureau Federation is outraged by the decision announced today by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to withdraw the rule issued in March that declared wolves fully recovered. "Montana's livestock industry, the states of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, sportsmen, moderate environmental groups and the general public have spent decades and millions of dollars reaching a consensus on wolf management in the Greater Yellowstone Area," said Jake Cummins, MFBF executive vice president. "Today all that work has been thrown out the window and for what, to satisfy the extreme environmental interests of a small group of activists who are falsely asserting that wolves are at risk in the tri-state area." The wolf population by the government's own most recent count now exceeds 2,000. The goal for recovery in the final Environmental Impact Statement published in the mid-90s was 300. In March, when the population was approximately 1,500, the wolf was declared fully recovered. The federal government sought to remove them from the Endangered Species List and environmental groups immediately sued to stop delisting. Over the summer, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy granted a temporary injunction stopping delisting until a trial on the merits. In good faith, the Montana Farm Bureau and several other ag and sportsmen's groups joined the government in defending their decision to delist. "All of us in the ranching and sportsmen's communities, who are most directly affected by this decision, were urged by the government to work with the environmental community to reach a compromise we could all live with," stated Cummins. "We did, at great cost, and now we have been betrayed by this blatant and transparent capitulation of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to the demands of their friends in that same community, who will continue to reap millions of dollars annually in their now endless campaign to protect a predator no more in danger of extinction then they are." 10/6/08 Date: 9/26/08
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