Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young stunned a House committee hearing on Thursday when he suggested allowing wild wolves to roam free in certain congressional districts so they "wouldn’t have a homeless problem anymore."
His controversial comment came during a confrontation with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell at a House Natural Resources Committee panel on her agency’s budget, according to
The Washington Post.
Young has said that Jewell and members of her department have made decisions without consulting the states they would ultimately affect, the newspaper reported.
Young is an advocate for taking gray wolves off the endangered species list, even though wolves can be hunted and killed in his home state. And he poked fun at a letter from 79 members of Congress urging Jewell to protect the gray wolf population.
"How many of you have got wolves in your district?" he asked. "None. None. Not one. "They haven’t got a damn wolf in their whole district."
Young, who is famous for his brusque manner, continued, "I’d like to introduce them in your district. If I introduced them in your district, you wouldn’t have a homeless problem anymore."
A spokesman for Young told the Post that said the "analogy was purposely hyperbolic to stress the point that these predators pose serious threats to wildlife management and their listing has damaging impacts to local communities."
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