Gray wolves, which were removed from the list in February, then put back again in late September, are a contentious issue in Wyoming, which was the last of the three states surrounding Yellowstone National Park to finalize a wolf management plan.
In July, the U.S. District Judge in Missoula, Donald Molloy, blocked plans for public wolf hunts in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho pending resolution of a lawsuit by environmentalists who feared that hunting would depopulate the area’s reintroduced wolves. In his ruling, Molloy was especially critical of Wyoming’s wolf management plan, which allowed wolves to be hunted for sport or shot as predators in most of the state.
In late September, the Fish and Wildlife Service asked Molloy to vacate the agency’s February finding that more than 1,400 wolves in the region no longer needed federal protection. The judge said the decision by the Fish and Wildlife Service last year to approve Wyoming’s plans for maintaining just eight breeding pairs instead of the 15 the federal government once required was “problematic.” He added that the decision, which reversed the federal government’s earlier rejection of the Wyoming plan, “represents an agency change of course unsupported by adequate reasoning.”
At the time, Wyoming Attorney General Bruce Salzburg listed the state’s options as filing suit against the federal government, allowing government management of wolves in the state, or making the Legislature come up with a new wolf management plan.
By returning the wolf to the Endangered Species List, the Fish and Wildlife Service would have to essentially start over and re-evaluate the status of wolves, which could take months or even years. The agency would again open the issue to public comment before returning with a new decision.
Wolves have been a bitterly contested issue since their reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park in 1995.
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