Gray wolf relisted as endangered

Like us on Facebook

Gray wolves were listed as endangered in 1974, but following a reintroduction program in the mid-1990s, there are now about 1,600 wolves in the Northern Rockies region, which includes all of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, along with portions of Washington, Oregon and Utah.

After the federal government delisted the gray wolf in those two states last year, Montana and Idaho introduced hunts to control the wolf population. Montana's kill ended with 73 wolves and Idaho's with 185.

The Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission has asked the state to appeal the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to Montana officials.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter has promised similar legal action.

 "I am thoroughly disappointed and frustrated with the court's decision today returning wolves to federal protection," Otter said last week."This judge has inexplicably dismissed a practical, common-sense solution and proven the Endangered Species Act is irreparably broken. Rest assured we will exhaust all of our options to legally reverse this ill-advised decision."

Officials in both states said that wolf populations are now well over the numbers that would have had them listed as endangered years ago. They also say that a hunt is an effective tool for keeping a predatory species down.

The increase in the wolf population brought livestock losses for ranchers and competition for hunters for big game, such as elk, Montana wildlife officials said.

But conservationists, who brought the suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that led to Judge Malloy's ruling, said that the wolf population is not yet stable enough, and the various state plans not yet as well thought out as they need to be, to merit state, rather than federal, management.

"Our goal is, and has always been, to see the gray wolf off the Endangered Species list and the wolf populations managed by the states," said Cat Lazaroff, communications director for Defenders of Wildlife, one of the conservation groups that brought the suit.

"We think the states are getting closer to forming better plans for wolf management, but they just aren't there yet," Lazaroff said.

She said that the latest scientific research estimates that the current population of gray wolves is about the right size, but needs protection to stay at that level and properly adopt to its environment.

"if Montana and Idaho had been allowed to go on with their state management plans, the law would have allowed them to reduce the wolf population to 300," she said. "That would just not be enough."

Lazaroff said that Defenders of the Wildlife has an educational program to inform farmers, herders and other residents how to co-exist with the wolf population and avoid many of the predatory attacks upon herds.

"People can better protect their herds from wolves, as well as from grizzlies and coyotes, and we are willing to help them learn," she said.

Lazaroff explained that, aside from being creatures of nobility and beauty, gray wolves benefit the Rocky Mountains environment.

"Before the wolves were re-introduced into Yellowstone in 1995, herds of elk had invaded all the river bottoms," she said. "With nothing to fear, the elk overgrazed. Trees could not grow because the elk ate the shoots. They devoured the grasses."

When the wolves returned and began preying upon the elk, the elk returned to their natural habits. Trees could grow again. Beavers and migratory birds returned to Yellowstone.

"The whole environment underwent a change back to its natural balance, because the wolves were back," she said.