County leaders collect wolf info
Associated Press
HELENA – County leaders from Montana sought answers Tuesday from federal
and state officials on the status of gray wolves in the region and what
that means for ranchers and other residents.
“We got some good answers for some questions. But we’re very frustrated
with the delisting process,” said John Prinkki, a Carbon County
commissioner who attended the meeting in Helena.
Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it couldn’t move
toward proposing that gray wolves be removed from federal protection in
the Northern Rockies and some Western states until Wyoming made changes
in its management plan.
For the process to move ahead, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming need to have
plans that would ensure the viability of gray wolves in the region once
the wolves are removed from federal protection. Management eventually
would be passed to the three states.
Prinkki said Carbon County officials organized the meeting, which he
said was attended by state and federal officials and representatives of
a number of Montana counties.
Goals in having the meeting, he said, included learning more about the
delisting process and the process ranchers needed to go through to
report and seek compensation for livestock that wolves kill.
Carbon County commissioners recently passed a resolution designating
wolves as “problem predators as managed by the federal government” in
that county.
David Davidson, a Carbon County commissioner who did not attend
Tuesday’s meeting, said: “We’re just calling them a predator in the
sense that, that’s what they are.”
“We would like to see them delisted and everybody on the same page,” he
said, adding that local residents are worried about wolves moving in and
causing problems.