What really angers me and what media outlets like the L.A. Times are allowed to get away with is beginning an article with a statement that is a complete distortion of facts. They absolutely know exactly what they are doing.
The article’s title is : “Obama agrees with Bush, opens hunting season on the gray wolf” but the opening sentence is this: “Next Monday, hunters in Montana and Idaho and elsewhere in the Rockies will be free to shoot at the gray wolf.” This is a either a deliberate attempt to mislead readers from the facts or a reflection of ignorance and poor journalism.
First of all, the statement is not factual. Hunters in Montana and Idaho or “elsewhere” in the Rockies are not “free to shoot” wolves. Wolves in Montana and Idaho have been designated as game animals through their federally approved wolf management plans. That means hunters can hunt them only if the states decide to offer a hunting season, which must comply with the approved plans. This would involve quotas on the number of wolves that can be killed among other strict rules.
“Elsewhere” in the Rockies, whatever that means, there are no plans to open any territory up so hunters will be “free to shoot at the gray wolf”. Portions of far Eastern Washington and Oregon and a tiny piece of Utah are included in the delisting areas but none of those states plan hunts and will continue to protect the gray wolf.
Wyoming will not be included in the delisting process because the federal government, after once approving Wyoming’s wolf plan, later rejected it.
This kind of reporting is nonsense and needs to be stopped. L.A. Times does its readers a terrible disservice and they need to get their facts strait and then report the truth.
Tom Remington


