Fish & Wildlife Service extends comment period on wolf proposals

As a result of delays caused by the lapse in federal appropriations, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has rescheduled dates for the remainder of a series of public hearings on two proposed rules — one to list the Mexican wolf as an endangered subspecies and delist the gray wolf elsewhere, and the other to revise the Nonessential Experimental Population of the Mexican Wolf. Comment period deadlines also are extended until December 17 to allow these hearings to take place within the public comment periods on the proposed rules. 

The hearings will take place
on November 19 in Denver, Colorado, 
November 20 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 
November 22 in Sacramento, California. 

There will also be a public information meeting and hearing in Pinetop, Ariz., on December 3. Each hearing will include a short informational presentation. 

The hearing in Albuquerque will be at the Embassy Suites Hotel, 1000 Woodward Place, Sandia room. The public will be allowed access at 5 PM, the hearing starts at 6 PM. The Informational meeting and hearing in Pinetop, AZ, will held at the Hon-Dah Conference Center, 777 Highway 260, Pinetop, Arizona 85935 (3 miles outside of Pinetop at the Junction of Hwy 260 and Hwy 73). The Pinetop public information meeting is from 3:30-5:00 PM, followed by a public hearing for recording comments from 6:00-8:30 PM.

The hearings are part of the Service’s continuing efforts to provide an open, comprehensive public process for the two proposed wolf rules and will provide the public a forum by which to register their views. A formal notice of these hearings and the extension of the comment period will appear in the Federal Register on October 28.

To learn more about the proposed rules, view the draft Federal Register notice with the details of the public hearings, and for links to submit comments to the public record, visit www.fws.gov/home/wolfrecovery.

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