Endangered species: Feds opt to delist gray wolf

Feds and conservationists disagree on what comprises a healthy wolf population.

Gray wolves, whose howls nearly disappeared from the Northern Rockies almost a century ago, have rebounded so strongly they can be removed from the endangered species list, federal officials said Thursday.

The decision marks a milestone in the saga of wolves, which were given federal protection in 1973 after hunting, trapping and poisoning nearly exterminated them in the Lower 48 states by the 1930s.

Federal and state officials hailed the delisting, calling it an unprecedented success in America's effort to find a place on the modern landscape for its most imperiled species.
They said wolves have filled most of the suitable habitat that has plentiful wilderness and prey and limited livestock and humans in the Northern Rockies.

“This is a significant day in the history of conservation.” said Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett.

But conservation groups vowed to sue the federal government to stop the delisting, which will turn over wolf management to the states of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.

The states' plans include hunting seasons for wolves, which will be regulated like elk, black bears, mountain lions and other game species.

Environmentalists said the delisting would lead to the slaughter of Canis lupus, a keystone predator that is only starting to regain a foothold in fragments of its historic range and to fulfill its rightful role in the region's ecosystem.

“It's a really sad day for wolves,” said Jenny Harbine, an attorney for Earthjustice, which plans to take legal action on behalf of dozens of environmental groups. “Wolves in this region are on the cusp of a biological recovery, but now that they're delisted they're staring down the barrel of state management schemes that ensure they will never achieve recovery.”

The delisting is to be published next week in the Federal Register.

It is scheduled to go into effect in late March, but environmental groups said they may seek an immediate injunction until their lawsuit is filed and ruled on by a federal judge.

The delisting by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service affects Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, where the wolf population has soared to more than 1,500, including at least 100 breeding pairs.

They are descendants of a handful of Canadian wolves that recolonized northwest Montana in the early 1980s and 66 wolves that were reintroduced in northwest Wyoming and central Idaho in the mid-1990s.

Supporters and opponents of the delisting offered dueling science Thursday about whether the region's wolves have enough numbers, habitat and genetic intermingling to stay healthy in a landscape where public sentiment has shifted in their favor but ranchers still consider them a threat to livestock and human safety.

Federal officials said wolves no longer meet the legal requirement of the Endangered Species Act because they have met the recovery goal since 2002. That goal was to have at least 300 individual wolves, including 30 breeding pairs, for three consecutive years in the three states.

The states have agreed to maintain a total population of 450 animals, including 45 breeding pairs, although the actual number likely will be 900 to 1,250 total wolves, federal officials said.

“These wolves have shown an impressive ability to breed and expand,” said Dale Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “They just needed an opportunity to establish themselves in the Rockies.”

But Suzanne Stone, a spokeswoman for Defenders of Wildlife, said recent research shows the region needs at least 2,000 to 3,000 wolves that are connected across the entire region to be considered a healthy, self-sustaining population.

Federal officials said they will monitor the states' wolf populations and management actions for five years. Wolves can be returned to federal protection if their population drops too low.

Federal and state regulations allow wolves to be killed for attacking livestock, and the states also have adopted wolf hunting seasons.

More than $27 million in federal funds and private donations have been spent on wolf recovery in the Northern Rockies since 1974, including $3 million last year.

States will assume most management costs, although some federal funding is available.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to continue funding wolf programs through September for about $3.3 million.

Montana's wolf management is expected to cost about $1 million a year and be funded by public and private dollars, although no dedicated source of money has been identified.

Conservationists say recent studies show the region's wolves are genetically isolated and too few in numbers to create a healthy meta-population.

“Everyone wants to see the wolf taken off of the endangered species list,” said Derek Goldman, a spokesman for the Endangered Species Coalition. “But if that happens before we have balanced, pragmatic management plans in place, we are going to have to go through all of this again and again.”

The region's wolf population has grown 24 percent a year despite a death rate of about 20 percent each year from legal killings by government wildlife agents and ranchers protecting livestock, and illegal killings by poachers, federal officials said.

Ed Bangs, wolf coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the federal and state management plans have safeguards for maintaining a healthy wolf population

“All these claims that the states are going to shoot wolves down to just a handful, it's just not true - it's the proverbial crying wolf,” he said.

Studies show the region's wolf population is genetically healthy, even though individual wolves rarely move back and forth between the Yellowstone area and the rest of the region, Bangs said.

Bangs, who has spent the past two decades navigating the biology and political controversies of wolf management, said he was relieved that wolves were being delisted.

“Wolves are kind of boring,” said Bangs, a wildlife biologist who is more fascinated by wolverines than wolves. “Wolves are just another animal to me. What really fascinates me about wolves is people, their attitudes and values and the nuttiness of how they react.”

Federal officials praised their state counterparts, sportsmen, nonprofit groups, landowners and others for cooperating to promote wildland conservation and elk and deer populations so wolves can return to the landscape.

Montana has at least 422 wolves, including 39 breeding pairs, living in 73 packs.

The state's wolf population has increased about 25 percent annually in recent years, including a 34 percent increase in the past year.

Rod Hudson, a Bitterroot Valley cattle rancher, praised the decision to remove wolves from federal protection.

“That's going to help us a whole bunch,” said Hudson, who wants Montana to reduce its wolf population to 100 animals, the federal required minimum. “There's too many. They multiply so fast the population is going to explode and it's going to be horrible problem.”

Carolyn Sime, FWP's wolf management coordinator, said the delisting decision was momentous for Montana.

“It's hugely symbolic of how the Endangered Species Act is supposed to work and a huge success for folks in Montana who have been living with wolves for 20 years,” Sime said.

The decision will have little effect on how wolves are managed in the state beyond a wolf hunting season, because Montana has been responsible for managing its wolf population since 2004, Sime said.

She said Montana's wolf management plan combines “public concerns and the biological reality” of living with wolves.

“Montanans understand that wolves are here to stay,” Sime said. “You don't have to like wolves or hate them to understand that.”

In a petition filed Wednesday, Defenders of Wildlife and the Natural Resources Defense Council said new wolf populations should be established in other regions, including portions of the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southwest and Northwest. Federal officials said they had no immediate plans to reintroduce wolves into other regions.

Reporter John Cramer can be reached at 523-5259 or at johncramer@missoulian.com