Great Lakes timber wolves scheduled for delisting
John Myers, Forum Communications
Deputy U.S. Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall on Monday are scheduled to announce that Great Lakes timber wolves will be formally removed from the federal endangered species list.
The decision, in the works since the Clinton administration proposed the idea in 1999, will be posted soon in the federal register and will become official within 30 days.
Pending any lawsuits, wolves in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin could lose federal Endangered Species Act protection by March. That will put management of wolves back in the hands of state natural resource agencies and Ojibwe tribes, which already have prepared wolf management plans.
Some say the move signals a great success, showing the federal law works to bring back species from the brink of extinction. When wolves first gained protections in the 1970s, only about 300 wolves remained in the contiguous U.S., all of them in the Superior National Forest and on Isle Royale.
Now, there are more than 3,000 wolves across the northern half of Minnesota, with another 500 each in northern Wisconsin and Michigans Upper Peninsula.
This is an amazing milestone for our country and for conservation,” said Walter Medwid, executive director of the Ely-based International Wolf Center. The educational organization doesnt support or oppose delisting.
To think that just a half-century ago, our official government policy was to destroy every single wolf, and that they were very successful at that policy, and now we had a government policy that worked to bring them back,” Medwid said. Thats pretty amazing.”
But others say the time isnt yet ripe to drop wolf protections. Lawsuits challenging the decision are expected.
There are still signs that the states cant guarantee wolves wont be pummeled back into the dark ages,” said Bart Semcer, fish and wildlife policy expert for the Sierra Club in Washington, D.C.
The government on Monday also will announce plans to delist wolves around Yellowstone National Park. The so-called northern Rocky Mountain distinct population area includes all of Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and eastern Oregon and Washington. More than 1,000 wolves now live in that area after a reintroduction effort in Yellowstone in the 1990s.
Lawsuits have been prepared to block the Rocky Mountain delisting. Environmental groups say state wolf management plans in Idaho and Wyoming allow for wolf killing that could force the animal back into extinction in the area.
Under the federal plan, wolves would still be protected in the Northeastern U.S. if they ever infiltrate the region, and in the far Northwest and Southwest U.S. The federal government monitors formerly listed species for five years.
State wolf management plans in the Great Lakes call for limited trapping of wolves by government experts, especially in areas where livestock and pets have been attacked. They also allow landowners more leeway in shooting threatening wolves. The states so far have not established sport hunting or trapping seasons, and theres no call for the return to imposing a bounty, poisoning wolves or destroying wolf dens.
In Minnesota, government trappers already kill about 200 wolves a year where livestock and pets have been killed. That program is expected to continue in Minnesota and begin in Wisconsin and Michigan even as private citizens regain some rights to kill the animals.
Well never be without controversy with this animal, by its very nature. The question is, what will our response be? If you look at the science and the facts, the reality is we should be able to live with this animal,” said Adrian Wydeven, wolf biologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.”
But wolves can adapt to a lot of habitat if we allow them and, from time to time, they are going to cross the line and interact poorly with people. Whats changed is that we now seem ready to respond with an appropriate response and not all-out war against a species.”