Residents of northern Minnesota are invited to attend a public hearing hosted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take comments on the agency’s proposal to remove the eastern population of the gray wolf from the list of endangered and threatened species. The hearings are scheduled for Tuesday, August 31, 2004, in Bemidji and Wednesday, September 1, in Virginia, Minn.
The hearing in Bemidji on August 31 begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Beaux Arts Ballroom--Hobson Memorial Union, 1500 Birchmont Drive NE, at Bemidji State University.
The hearing in Virginia on September 1 begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Mesabi Range Community College, F100—Fine Arts Theater, 1001 Chestnut Street West in Virginia.
These are the first two of three pubic hearings in Minnesota –the third is in Bloomington on October 6 – a total of nine hearings are being held throughout the Great Lakes range of the gray wolf. Minnesota residents may also attend the September 29 public hearing at the Northern Great Lakes Center, in Ashland, Wis.
The agenda for each hearing will be the same and includes an informational open house beginning at 6:30 p.m., followed by a presentation on the proposal and a question and answer session at 7:00. The official public hearing will run from 7:30 to 9:00. People attending the open house will have the opportunity to talk with Service biologists about the gray wolf delisting proposal, ask questions during the question-and-answer session, and provide oral comments on the proposal during the hearing. Written comments will also be accepted.
These public hearings follow a national announcement made on July 16, 2004, proposing the delisting of gray wolves in the Eastern Distinct Population Segment. The Eastern DPS extends from the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas to the East Coast. The southern boundary includes Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and its northern boundary is the Canadian border.
When it proposed delisting gray wolves in the eastern United States, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service noted that wolves in the Eastern DPS have climbed beyond population criteria set out in the species’ recovery plan. Further, the eastern states with gray wolf populations – Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin – have management plans in place to ensure the species’ long-term survival.
For more information on the gray wolf Eastern DPS delisting proposal, see the Service’s gray wolf web site at http://midwest.fws.gov/wolf
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 95-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System, which encompasses 544 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 69 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resources offices and 81 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign and Native American tribal governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Assistance program, which distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies.
