The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to stack the deck against gray wolf recovery by disqualifying many of the nation’s leading wolf researchers from participating in the scientific peer review process of a proposal to delist the gray wolf as a protected species throughout most of the United States.
Three of the nation’s top wolf experts have been excluded from the scientific peer review of the plan to remove federal protections from the gray wolf on orders from the U.S. Dept. of Interior-Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS). The scientists were barred because they had signed a letter with 13 other scientists expressing concern about the scientific basis for the federal plan, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
The federal wolf de-listing plan is the subject of an accelerated peer review conducted by a private consultant firm, AMEC, chosen by FWS. Although the peer review is supposed to be independent of FWS, the agency controls selection of the reviewers engaged by the contractor.
FWS exercised that control in blocking at least three of the seven names on AMEC's list of reviewers chosen for their qualifications: Dr. Roland Kays of North Carolina State University, Dr. Jon Vucetich of Michigan Technological University and Dr. Robert Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles. All have published extensively on the wolf and are considered preeminent experts.
Source:
http://dpatterson.blogspot.com/...
Placing wolf protection in the hands of the states has already been shown to be an unmitigated disaster. Hundreds of wolves have been killed in states where they have been removed from the federal threatened and endangered species list.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/...
In my humble opinion, this is the type of political cronyism that ignores science and is destroying the United States. It should sicken anyone who cares anything about this country.