Commission stays with wolf timeline
By JEFF GEARINO Star-Tribune staff writer
CHEYENNE — Wyoming’s Game and Fish Commission decided Wednesday to stick with
its timeline and not delay the adoption of the final state wolf management
plan, despite Game and Fish Department objections.
Commissioners brushed aside agency suggestions during a commission meeting in
Cheyenne that it should wait until the Legislature can change state law to
allow for a dual classification of the wolf statewide before adopting a final
management plan.
“I think we can still mesh this plan with any statute that comes out of the
(legislative) process,” Commissioner Kerry Powers said. “Let’s adhere to that
Feb. 24 date (the commission) set up years ago.”
The commission Wednesday affirmed a department recommendation to seek a change
in state law that would classify the gray wolf as a predator in some parts of
the state and as a trophy game animal in Yellowstone National Park recovery
areas and in nearby forest wilderness areas.
Under the department’s proposed statute change, the department would be
responsible for managing wolves in areas where the animal is classified as a
trophy game animal and the Wyoming Department of Agriculture would manage
wolves in areas where the animal is classified as a predator.
Commissioners again reconfirmed their commitment and desire to have a final
wolf management plan ready to be adopted at their scheduled Feb. 24 meeting in
Casper.
The commission rejected the agency’s recommendation that the plan be delayed
until the law is changed.
Instead, the commission voted to keep the Feb. 24 date for adoption of the plan
unless the legislative debate carries beyond that day. If that occurs, the
meeting will be rescheduled, commissioners decided.
“We developed this plan around this timeline, and I’d hate to throw the baby
out with the bath water,” Commission President Doyle Dorner said.
Dorner noted that it was the commission’s “aggressive timeline” for developing
the plan that has, in part, speeded up the delisting process for the gray wolf
in recent months.
“We’re negotiable to some extent … but I’d rather keep the timeline and
change it only out of necessity … let’s change that date if necessary as we
get closer,” he said.
But Larry Kruckenberg, Game and Fish special assistant for policy and
development, said the final plan will have to include the current legal status
of wolves when written by the department.
“We have to know how the management scenarios with the other agency (the
Agriculture Department) unfolds … but the problem is they haven’t unfolded
yet,” Kruckenberg said. “How do we put together the final plan until then?” he
asked.
State Endangered Species Act (ESA) Coordinator Jody Levin echoed the
department’s recommendation to delay adoption of the final plan and said “it
would certainly help us if that date is pushed back.”
She said the “worst-case scenario” would be for the Legislature to decide the
issue in the final week or on the final day of the session after the final plan
is drafted by the department.
“We don’t want a process that is no longer in tandem (with proposed bills),”
Levin told commissioners.
“We’re asking you for as much flexibility on this as possible,” she said. “This
is a free-floating document right now until we get the details worked out …
but it’s still adhering to the basic principals of the dual classification
(proposal).”
On Tuesday, the department presented the commission with a special report on
the draft gray wolf management plan that analyzed the public comments submitted
during the recently completed comment period.
The report contained 18 department recommendations based on the public comments
— including two related statutory changes and 12 related revisions to the
management plan itself.
The House chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and
Cultural Resources interim committee, Rep. Mike Baker, R-Thermopolis, told
commissioners Tuesday he has drafted a bill that parallels the agency’s dual
classification proposal.
Baker said he expects to see a draft bill on the dual classification proposal
by the end of the week and a final bill through the House by Feb. 10. He said
he hopes to have a “completed and accomplished” bill through the Legislature by
the end of February.
Baker’s draft bill does not designate in statute where the trophy game and
predator areas will be. The department recommended in the report the areas that
should be designated in the final wolf management plan and by commission
regulation.
Under the draft plan document, wolves would be classified as trophy game
animals in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, the Rockefeller Jr.
Memorial Parkway and the wilderness areas of the Shoshone and Bridger-Teton
national forests. The wolf would be classified as a predatory animal everywhere
else.
The plan said the reintroduction of wolves in 1996 and 1997 focused on the
large tracts of public land within the area. The draft plan said the state’s
wolf management efforts will continue to focus on that area of the state once
wolves are delisted.
Kruckenberg told the commission the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is
taking a two-step approach to the delisting process.
He said the USFWS will seek to downlist the wolf within the next few months
prior to seeking a delisting petition that will seek to remove the final
federal protections under the ESA.
“From our perspective, downlisting first is not going to have a great deal of
impact on Wyoming, but it will help Montana … by giving them a great deal of
flexibility initially in terms of taking,” Kruckenberg said.