After all of the pomp and ceremony of the inauguration was over President Obama went straight to work. It was an emotional thing to watch with so many Americans coming out on such a cold day to see it and experience the events of the day. It made me wish I had been able to go but there is no way I could have survived the day out in the cold like that or standing that long. Obama hit the ground running and one of his first acts was good news for the wolves of the mainland United States. As one of his first things in office President Obama halted plans to allow hunting of wolves until more studies can be done. Wildlife conservationists say the freeze will delay and possibly prevent the removal of gray wolves from the federal endangered species list in Montana, Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, and also in portions of Washington, Oregon, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. The pause will afford President Obama and his new Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar the opportunity to rethink the previous administrations efforts to remove wolves from the endangered species list. I haven’t heard yet how the wolves of Alaska will fare under this but hopefully this will put an end to bounties and aerial killings of our wolves. I can not call that hunting as it is far from a real hunt.It is shooting fish in a barrel type of hunt as they have no chance at all of fleeing. On Jan 14th the Bush administration announced that the Northern Rockies Gray Wolf would be taken off the endangered species list, but this wipes that out. Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity says,”Rather than remove protections from wolves in a piecemeal fashion, in the isolated locations where they have finally begun to recover from past persecution, the Obama administration should develop and implement a national gray-wolf recovery plan that will ensure the survival of these magnificent animals.” This is great news and should be applauded.

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