Schweiter is really, really anti-enviro

A day after blocking hungry bison from leaving Yellowstone National Park, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer promoted to ranchers that they should shoot wolves on sight, even where and when not allowed:

Livestock owners in southern Montana and Idaho have authority to defend their property by shooting wolves that attack their cattle, sheep or other domestic animals. And federal agents regularly kill problem wolves, with more than 1,000 shot over the past decade.

But Schweitzer is moving to expand those killings beyond what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has so far allowed, including to parts of Montana where ranchers are not allowed to shoot the predators.

And this was the type of Democrat that Kos, Markos Moulitsas was promoting a couple of years ago, and probably still is.


Time for somebody like the Center for Biological Diversity to haul Schweitzer's ass into court.

Arizona lies like hell about wolves

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission is supporting a proposal by wingnuts from the GOP's U.S. House delegation to remove federal endangered species protections from both Mexican gray wolves in the Southwest and their northern Rocky Mountain cousins.

Why?

So Arizona can help protect them better, of course:

In a statement released Monday, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, which carries out game commission policies, said that if the wolf were delisted, the state would become more heavily involved in planning the species' future and would run wolf reintroduction in a "more affordable, efficient and effective manner."

Ahh, the old cost-benefit analysis lie.

Montana wolves get reprieve

U.S. Fish and Wildlife backs off plans to remove endangered species listing for Montana’s gray wolves.

Interior is on the clock on polar bears and on the hook on wolves

The Department of the Interior has 16 days to stop stalling and decide whether to list polar bears as an endangered or threatened species or not.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken agreed with suing environmental organizations that Interior missed a Jan. 9 deadline to consider listing polar bears. She rejected an Interior request for more time, saying that would violate the Endangered Species Act and congressional intent that time was of the essence in listing threatened species.

Interior said it is considering its options, but you know it’s going to appeal, just to drag this out if nothing else.

Kind of ironic, isn’t it, that this ruling was the same day as Preznit Bush’s press conference, the one in which he again called for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Meanwhile Interior has just been sued over its delisting of wolves in the northern Rockies.

The lawsuit alleges those states lack adequate laws to ensure wolves are not again eradicated from the region. At least 37 were killed in the last month.

The groups are seeking an immediate court order to restore federal control over the species until the case is resolved.

You know, in Montana, a Democratic governor, Brian Schweitzer, could prove he has some environmental cred by working to stiffen laws there, but I’m not holding my breath.