FWS official bravely fights the tide

A top federal wildlife official’s call to withdraw a proposal to protect wolverines under the Endangered Species Act because of the supposed threat of climate change is a welcome breeze of common sense.

Noreen Walsh, a regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, determined that it’s “speculation” to presume that long-range models can accurately predict how mountain snowpack that wolverines thrive in will change.

The retreat and disappearance of glaciers in Glacier National Park, where some of the best wolverine research has been done, has been obvious and well-documented. But it’s also obvious there is no shortage of deep snowpack during the winter months in the Glacier Park area and surrounding high-elevation wolverine habitat.

Listing the wolverine because of questionable climate research would only be used as another cudgel to advance economy-strangling climate-change policies.

The ability of humans to reverse nature, especially through punitive carbon taxes, and get glaciers to grow again is highly questionable. And it’s obvious that saving wolverines through efforts to harness the climate probably wouldn’t pan out as advertised.

It’s also fortunate and commendable that a federal official is recognizing it.

In a recent memo, Walsh came to this conclusion: “Due to the uncertainty of climate models, I cannot accept the conclusion about wolverine habitat loss that forms the basis of our recommendation to list the species.”

If it can be demonstrated that wolverine populations are declining, then more direct conservation measures are far preferable. States can, for example, ban trapping wolverines or, who knows, maybe some form of population augmentation may be possible, similar to the program that has been used to help the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear population.

Or, consider this possibility: The famously tough wolverine may be fully capable of adapting to a changing habitat into the long-term future without our well-intentioned but still dubious help. *Courtesy of the Daily Inter Lake