Reduced Wolf Protection Pleases Ranchers
By BECKY BOHRER
Associated Press Writer
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP)–Ranchers say they are pleased the government has moved to
reduce the protection of the gray wolf under federal law–but the decision met
with frustration from environmental groups.
The Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that gray wolves, once at risk of
extinction, have recovered enough for the government to give them less
protection when they encroach on ranches and other settlements in the West.
While some ranchers hailed the decision, sheep producer Bob Gilbert said he
fears that lawsuits over the downlisting from “endangered’ to “threatened’
will impede their goal of totally removing wolves from coverage of the
Endangered Species Act.
“What we’re seeing is the Interior Department attempting to lull the public
into thinking that something is going to be done to start the delisting
process,’ said Gilbert, a spokesman for the Montana Wool Growers Association.
“The reality of it is, there’s a long ways to go.’
The switch after 30 years to “threatened’ status means the government no
longer considers gray wolves in the lower 48 states to be in danger of dying
out. The next step would be total delisting, which would allow states to manage
them like any other wild animal.
Conservationists said the government should keep working and reintroduce wolves
in regions where the wolves remain scarce, such as the Pacific Northwest and
the Northeast, rather than making the animals less protected.
“The Fish and Wildlife Service has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on
this one,’ said Tom France, the director of National Wildlife Federation’s
Northern Rockies office, based in Missoula, Mont.
The move applies across most of the country. Two populations, one in Arizona
and New Mexico and another near Yellowstone National Park, will continue to be
managed as experimental populations under different rules.
In Oregon, the downlisting will have little effect because of a 1987 state
endangered species law. As a result, Oregon now has stronger protections for
the gray wolf than the federal government, said Ron Anglin of the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The “threatened’ status allows ranchers to kill wolves they catch attacking
livestock. Killing an “endangered’ wolf could draw a $100,000 fine and a
one-year jail sentence.
Some hunters and outfitters in the West, who have opposed reintroduction
efforts, say the move doesn’t change their position.
“The only wolves we want in Idaho is one in the zoo–and neutered,’ said Ron
Gillett. Business at the cabins he rents near Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains has
dropped sharply since wolves were moved into the region and began preying on
deer and elk.
Gray wolves once lived in much of North America, but had nearly disappeared
from the contiguous United States by the 1930s, after being hunted for fur and
targeted by government efforts to control predators.
A recovery effort began in the mid-1990s. There are now about 664 wolves
roaming in 44 packs in western Montana, Idaho and in or near Yellowstone.
Another 2,445 gray wolves live in Minnesota, where they have been listed as
threatened since the late 1970s, and about 600 live in Wisconsin and Michigan.
Nina Fascione, vice president for species conservation for Defenders of
Wildlife, said conservationists may go to court to try to keep federal
protections in place or compel recovery work in other regions. “It’s kind of a
new question: What constitutes recovery?’ Fascione said.
Final removal from endangered species protection won’t come until Montana,
Idaho and Wyoming write acceptable management plans. Federal biologists will
monitor wolf populations for five years after delisting to make sure population
numbers don’t decline.
Gray wolves in Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Colorado, Utah, Texas and
Oklahoma are still considered endangered. But the species was removed from the
endangered species list in the Southeast, where the Fish and Wildlife Service
said they never roamed in the past.
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On the Net:
Gray wolf information: http://endangered.fws.gov/i/A03.html
Gray wolf recovery information: http://midwest.fws.gov/wolf
Yellowstone wolves: http://www.nps.gov/yell/nature/animals/wolf/wolfup.html
National Wildlife Federation: http://www.nwf.org