Feds say wolves off endangered list in 2011
By: John Myers, Duluth News Tribune
U.S. Interior Sec. Ken Salazar has pledged to members of Congress that the eastern timber wolf will be removed from the endangered species list by the end of 2011, although the move still would face legal scrutiny.
The promise went to members of Minnesota’s Congressional delegation today and is the latest update in a decades-long saga over how wolves should be managed in the western Great Lakes.
The proposal, which is expected by April, would return management of wolves to state and tribal wildlife agencies and is the next step needed for states to allow trapping and hunting of wolves.
There are about 3,200 wolves in Minnesota and about 700 each in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula — many more than federal officials expected when the animal first received federal protection 35 years ago.
Wolves in the region currently are off limits to trapping, hunting or harassment, except in Minnesota, where federal trappers kill wolves near where livestock or pets have been attacked. State natural resource agencies, livestock farmers and hunting groups — and members of Congress — all have called for an end to federal protections so more wolves can be trapped and shot.
It will be the third such delisting effort for the feds over the past decade, with the first two thwarted by lawsuits and court decisions that have returned wolves to federal protections each time.A final rule could be ready by late 2011 but would still be subject to court challenges.
Pro-wolf groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, have called for the federal government to continue protections here until wolves have been restored across far more areas of their original range. They say the eagerness of some groups to kill wolves shows attitudes have not changed enough to end protections.