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PUBLISHED Letters to the Editor By SOUTHeast CENTER SUPPORTERS

"Don’t prematurely delist endangered wolves"
The Washington Times, December 2, 2013

The one-sided view of the facts served up in your Thanksgiving Day story (“N.M. students take refuge in bus stop ‘kid cages’ as gray wolf population soars,” Web, Nov. 28) was made clear in the first sentence with the assertion that “by all accounts” gray wolves are thriving in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes regions.

Had The Times interviewed the nation’s top independent scientists who study wolves, these scientists would have said the same thing they have repeatedly said to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Delisting wolf populations and turning management over to state game agencies that already have sanctioned the killing of more than 2,200 wolves risks the creation of isolated, genetically weak and unsustainable populations.

Your piece allows someone who favors dropping wolf protections to assert unchallenged, that all the “facts” support delisting wolves. In fact, the scientific “facts” by which Endangered Species Act protection are by law supposed to be based support maintaining protections for wolves. That’s why in recent years the federal courts stopped politically driven attempts by federal wildlife managers to drop protections for wolves. The facts don’t support doing so.

Citizens who support science-based wildlife management are actually showing up at ongoing federal hearings on wolves mainly to speak up against the glaring lack of scientific support for the premature delisting of wolves. I am a biologist and one of these citizens.

The facts are straightforward. Wolves cause a fraction of 1 percent of livestock losses. Wolves are in no way a risk to humans. Wolves play a well-documented and irreplaceable role in protecting the health of the streams and rivers at the heart of the ecosystems we all depend on for the long-term health of not only our environment, but our economy.

Beth Frattali
Washington, D.C.

© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC.

This article originally appeared here.

 


"TN right to protect crayfish"
The Tennessean, November 24, 2013  

Thank you for the Nov. 18 article, “Endangered crayfish affects work on Concord Road,” describing how workers widening Concord Road are taking care not to harm endangered Nashville crayfish, which play an irreplaceable role in the ecosystems of Mill and Owl creeks.

After reading online comments on the article, it’s clear that most people don’t realize that crayfish are important, because the holes they dig create habitat used by literally hundreds of other species, including bass, catfish, frogs and small mammals. Crayfish also keep our streams cleaner by eating decaying plants and animals, and in turn they are eaten by fish, birds and otters, making them an important link in the food web.

The fact that we’re rearranging the construction schedule of this project to protect these species is a great example of how the Endangered Species Act, which turns 40 next month, helps us to balance our own needs with the needs of plants and animals that maintain the health of the ecosystems we all depend on for our own long-term environmental and economic health.
We are lucky to have crayfish, and fortunate to have the Endangered Species Act, and which to date has prevented the extinction of 99 percent of the more than 1,400 species it protects.

Laura Bradley
Nashville, Tennesee

Copyright © 2013 The Tennessean.

This article originally appeared here.

 

"Let's flex our miscles for mussels"
Kingsport Times, November 13, 2013

Copyright © 2013 Kingsport Times.

This article originally appeared in the Kingsport Times print edition, and is available in PDF format.