"[T]oday, I've signed a memorandum that will help restore the scientific process to its rightful place at the heart of the Endangered Species Act, a process undermined by past administrations. . . . For more than three decades, the Endangered Species Act has successfully protected our nation's most threatened wildlife, and we should be looking for ways to improve it -- not weaken it."

-- President Obama, March 3...

Just three days after the president pledged to strengthen and restore scientific integrity to implementation of the Endangered Species Act, Secretary Salazar removed federal protection from gray wolves in the Northern Rockies. In making this decision, he adopted the plan developed by the Bush administration, relying on a flawed legal opinion crafted by that administration. His decision has undermined the protection of the gray wolf and countless other threatened and endangered species.

This misguided action places wolves squarely in the cross hairs of their opponents across the Northern Rockies, allowing as many as 1,050 of Idaho and Montana's estimated 1,350 wolves to be legally killed and jeopardizing the 30-year recovery effort to restore wild wolves to the region. As a result of Secretary Salazar's action, wolves in the Northern Rockies are being hunted prematurely. Already, 210 have been killed, and there are still three months left in the Idaho hunting season...

The Bush administration's legal opinion overturned more than 30 years of interpretation of the Endangered Species Act. By this reasoning, protection of species can now be determined by political boundaries and manipulation, not biology. Adjusting populations in this unscientific way -- carving out areas along state lines, as Salazar did in exempting Wyoming from the areas in which wolves were no longer to be considered endangered -- makes the act subject to political manipulation. This legal sleight of hand is in direct contrast to Obama's pledge to restore scientific integrity to decisions about endangered-species conservation.

Salazar should not have allowed the gray wolf to be delisted without first engaging in a clear and transparent public process and without exploring the ramifications of relying on this flawed legal opinion.