Gray wolves need full state delisting before hitting the road to another state

Governor Inslee has indicated he is open to discussion about sending gray wolves from Northeastern Washington to Colorado. Before we start sending gray wolves outside the confines of our borders – doing nothing for our state’s recovery goals – we should consider updating the rules of recovery to translocate wolves to Western Washington, to reduce pressure on Eastern Washington ranchers and accelerate delisting here.

Gray wolves found their way into Washington state in 2002. The Wolf Advisory Group was formed to create benchmarks for recovery of the endangered species throughout the state. Thos...