Independent Peer Reviewers Reject Fish and Wildlife Service’s Gray Wolf Delisting Proposal

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 7, 2014

Contact: Melanie Gade, Defenders of Wildlife, mgade@defenders.org; 202-772-0288

WASHINGTON   – Panel members of the independent scientific peer review committee conducted by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara today told the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service (the Service) that the science behind the proposal to strip federal protections for gray wolves across nearly all of the lower 48 states was not based on the best available.

The following is a statement from Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of Defenders of Wildlife:

“The peer reviewers have now said what we have been saying all along: The Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposal to strip protections for gray wolves in the U.S. is not based on the best available science. This should now make it clear to the Service that delisting the gray wolf is premature and shortsighted.

“During each step of this delisting process, serious scientific questions have been raised about the Service’s proposal.

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