A TINY ROLLBACK OF GREENIE NONSENSE

Idaho and Montana will get more authority to manage gray wolves under a new rule adopted by the federal government, wildlife officials announced Monday. The rule, which takes effect Feb. 2, gives the states and private landowners more control in curbing wolf attacks on livestock, domestic animals and wild game herds. Ed Bangs, wolf recovery team leader for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the new rule would especially help private landowners by allowing wolves to be killed without prior written approval if ranchers can prove the animals are harassing livestock. "Under the old rule, the wolf had to have its teeth in the livestock," Bangs said. "Under the new rule, it has to be a foot away, chasing them."

Wolf kills still must be backed by physical evidence, such as bitten livestock or broken fences and trampled vegetation, Bangs said.

The agency reintroduced the gray wolf into central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in 1995. The wolves have thrived and now exceed the population goals set by wildlife officials, with about 825 animals living in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. But before the wolves can be removed from protections under the Endangered Species Act, each of the three states must have management plans approved by the federal government. Idaho and Montana plans have been approved, but Wyoming's was rejected and that state is suing. The wolves cannot be removed from the endangered species list until that dispute is resolved.

Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton told a telephone news conference that the new rule reflected the plans of Idaho and Montana. It also gives the states more authority to kill wolves that are reducing big game herds. Bangs said the new federal guidelines would likely "result in removing about 10 percent of the population, which is still well within what the population is able to stand."

Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne (R) said the rule was a welcome change. "The old rule . . . was written to protect 25 to 40 wolves when they were initially reintroduced. The dynamic has changed, so management must also change," Kempthorne said.

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Anti-biotech fanatics: "The 'new biotechnology,' or gene-splicing, applied to agriculture and food production is here to stay. More than 80 percent of processed foods on supermarket shelves -- soft drinks, preserves, mayonnaise, salad dressings -- include ingredients from gene-spliced plants, and Americans have safely consumed more than a trillion servings of these foods. But opposition continues to genetically improving plants by use of these precise and predictable techniques, largely due to a drumbeat of misrepresentations by antibiotechnology activists. Some of these radicals, like Greenpeace, make no secret they intend to stop at nothing to eliminate gene-splicing from agriculture, while other groups claim not to oppose gene-splicing but only to want it 'properly' regulated."

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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