Dear Editor:

When gray wolves were restored to Yellowstone, our country began the process of restoring a decades-old wrong. In the years that have since passed, wolves in the northern Rockies have begun to recover. But recent actions by Montana and Idaho that seek to kill up to 90% of the wolves in their states threaten the future of this ongoing recovery.

Today, hunters in Montana can sit just feet outside of Yellowstone National Park and gun down as many as 10 wolves each. In Idaho, private contractors have been hired by the state to trap and shoot nearly all of the wolves in their borders. Montana will soon allow the use of deadly and indiscriminate neck snares that strangle the animal unfortunate enough to come across them.

The Biden Administration has the tools to stop this slaughter. In August, the former director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service under President Barack Obama wrote a Washington Post op-ed imploring Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and President Joe Biden to act and issue emergency protections for gray wolves. He outlined exactly how and why they must act.

Biden and Haaland are entrusted with the caretaking of our natural spaces and the species that live on them. Their inaction to date is inexcusable.

Please join me in writing to the Department of Interior at doi.gov and asking that they finally act to protect wolves in the northern Rockies before it is too late.

Michael Thomas

Woodruff