State officials fret over federal provision that could halt wolf delisting
RON SEELY
A federal plan to remove the gray wolf from endangered status is likely to fail because of confusion that would be created by a provision that separates wolf populations in Wisconsin and other Upper Great Lakes states into two species, officials with the state Department of Natural Resources warned Thursday.
Cathy Stepp, DNR secretary, and agency experts expressed their concerns during a panel session in Minocqua on Thursday.
Stepp said delisting the wolf is of crucial importance to the state because of a dramatic increase in the number of livestock and pets being killed by wolves in northern Wisconsin. Removing the wolf from the federal endangered species list would give the state more flexibility in killing or controlling problem wolves. Currently, the state has to rely on federal agencies to remove problem animals.
“The DNR completely understands the gravity of the circumstances around the state,” Stepp said. “This is something that is affecting people all across northern Wisconsin. There are livestock depredations and safety concerns.”
But Stepp and others said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has included a provision in its proposal to delist that would separate wolves in Wisconsin and elsewhere into two species — gray wolves and eastern timber wolves. Adrian Wydeven, a wolf biologist with the DNR, said the state has always classified and managed wolves in the state as gray wolves, a single species. He added that it is nearly impossible to distinguish between the two types of wolves.
The threat to the proposed delisting comes from the possibility that states with recovering wolf populations would have to count the numbers of each species — a near impossibility, according to Wydeven — and that one of the two species could be classified as not being large enough to warrant removal of protection.
Wydeven is skeptical about the presence of two wolf species in the state. “They’re the same kind of wolf we’ve had in the state since 1978,” he added. “They look the same. They occupy the same range. And they’ve always been managed as one species.”
Bill Horn, legislative director of the United States Sportsman’s Alliance, who was also on Thursday’s panel, said separating the wolf population into two species would make it easier for opponents of delisting to sue and stop the process. Three previous efforts to delist have been halted by such lawsuits.
Because of the difficulty distinguishing between the two species, Horn said, opponents could more easily challenge whether a state has actually met population recovery goals for one or the other of the species.
“A lawsuit attacking delisting is likely to succeed,” Horn said. “It’s a hanging curve ball for anti-delisting opponents.”