A state senator who represents much of the East Side of Summit County wants wolves removed from the federal Endangered Species List.
Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, has introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 15, which urges Congress to eliminate the federal protection for wolves.
According to Christensen, large wolf populations are impacting livestock, game populations and pets.
Rural economies are damaged when wolves attack other animals, the resolution states.
Wolves have even begun threatening people, according to Christensen.
In Utah, wolves in a small portion of the state have been removed from list. But wolves in most of Utah are still protected by federal law.
Christensen claimed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has repeatedly failed to listen to Utah’s governors, senators and congressmen who have asked for wolves throughout the entire state to be removed from the list.
According to S.C.R. 15, federal wildlife officials “only included a small portion of northern Utah in the potential delisting zone, leaving nearly the entire state of Utah as an Endangered Species classification with no hope or promise of a solution to the wolf problem for decades into the future.”
State wildlife officials have also urged the federal government to remove wolves from the Endangered Species List, Christensen said.
Last week, Sen. Ross Romero, D-Salt Lake City, was the only senator who voted against the resolution.
Romero said he disagreed with some of the language used in the legislation.
“The language in the resolution was inflammatory indicating that those who disagreed that [wolves] should come off the Endangered Species List were extremists,” Romero said in a telephone interview. “I just thought that it was unnecessarily critical of the difference in opinion.”
State lawmakers should not tell federal wildlife officials how to manage an endangered species, he said.
“I think that we shouldn’t be telling the federal government about what should or should not be on the Endangered Species Act,” Romero said. “I think they can determine for themselves based upon their hearings and the information they gather, whether or not it should be delisted.”
Romero said he understands the subject is sensitive to some.
“I certainly understand that it may affect livestock in our rural communities but I think the Endangered Species Act already accounts for compensation for the loss of those livestock and so there is already a redress given to those folks,” he said.
The resolution has been sent to the state House of Representatives.