The West Old & New December Vol. II Issue XII | Page 11

environmental impact statement, the last critical step before reintroduction could be green-lighted, was halted when Congress insisted that further research be done before an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was to be funded.
In 1987, in an effort to shift the burden of financial responsibility from ranchers to the proponents of wolf reintroduction, Defenders of Wildlife set up a “wolf compensation fund” that would use donations to pay ranchers market value for any stock that
was lost to wolf depredation. That same year, a final recovery plan was released. Following a long period of research, public education, and public commenting, a draft EIS was released for public review in 1993 and it received over 150,000 comments from
interested parties. It was finalized in May 1994, and included a clause that specified that all wolves reintroduced to the recovery
zones would be classified under the “experimental, non-essential” provision of the ESA. Though the original plan called for three
recovery zones – one in Idaho, another in Montana, and a final one in the Greater Yellowstone Area – the Montana recovery zone
was eliminated from the final EIS after it had been proven that a small, but breeding population had already established itself in
the northwestern part of the state. The plan stipulated that each of the three recovery ????????????????????????????????????)????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????)?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????%?????????????????????????????????????????)???]???????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????%?????
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