Wolf proposal excludes Wyoming
From staff and wire reports
A Wyoming wildlife official said Thursday an Idaho proposal to delist the gray wolf in much of the Rocky Mountain region — excluding Wyoming — will not affect the Cowboy State “one way or the other.”
John Emmerich, assistant chief of the wildlife division of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said Wyoming is still following three legal avenues with the federal government to gain control of wolf populations.
“As far as Wyoming is concerned, until something changes with the (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife’s (Service) position, the state is working through appeals and petitions because there hasn’t been any change on their petition,” he said.
Wyoming is waiting for three rulings. In one, the state petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the wolf from Endangered Species Act protection. In another, the state has appealed a ruling by U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson rejecting a lawsuit that sought to compel Fish and Wildlife to accept Wyoming’s wolf management plan and allow delisting to proceed. A third request is for a federal rule change to allow Wyoming to manage wolves with more flexibility.
In early August, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne gave officials with the U.S. Interior Department a plan calling for removing wolves from protected status in parts of Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Washington and Oregon.
“We wanted to get the ball rolling,” said James Caswell, a former national forest supervisor who heads Idaho’s species conservation office, of the plan presented with little fanfare Aug. 4.
It calls for wolves to be delisted east of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and Washington, as well as in northern Nevada, Utah and Colorado. They’d be delisted in much of Idaho and Montana, though they would be managed under existing rules south of Interstate 90 and east of Interstate 15 in both states.
Wyoming wolves would continue to be managed by federal officials.
Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal said he wishes Idaho well in its effort, spokeswoman Lara Azar said.
“He’s never thought it was particularly fair for Idaho and Montana to be lumped into Wyoming’s dispute with the federal government over wolf management,” Azar said.
Some environmental groups were skeptical of the Idaho proposal, in part because territory where Kempthorne calls for the wolves to be delisted includes states where the animal hasn’t even been reintroduced, such as Nevada, Utah and Colorado. That could hamper efforts to establish wolves there, they said.
Suzanne Stone, a Boise-based spokeswoman for Defenders of Wildlife, also said it makes little sense to separate management of Wyoming wolves from those in Idaho and Montana, because wolves travel freely across state boundaries.
Already this year, the federal government has handed Idaho and Montana more authority to manage wolves, including easing rules allowing ranchers to shoot wolves harassing their livestock.
Even so, Idaho wants to take it a step further.
“Getting state management is a nice first down, but delisting is crossing the goal line,” said Jeff Allen, a policy adviser in Idaho helping push Kempthorne’s proposal.
There are estimated to be more than 800 wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming — far more than the 100 officials hoped to have by this year. That success of restoring the population has led many to call for their delisting.
But Wyoming has not developed a plan that meets the Fish and Wildlife Service’s criteria for ensuring the wolf will not become endangered again. Wyoming’s plan, which is now being petitioned and appealed, calls for wolves to be managed as predators in most of the state except the northwest corner. That means they can be killed any time, by any means and for any reason.
Emmerich said the Idaho proposal won’t affect Wyoming, and said he “can’t say it’s good or bad.”
He also said he didn’t think the federal government would accept the proposal.
Another court ruling could also affect the delisting process. On Feb. 2, a federal judge in Portland, Ore., ruled that the Bush administration violated the Endangered Species Act when it relaxed protections on many of the nation’s wolves in 2003.
U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones said the government acted improperly by combining areas where wolves were doing well, such as in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, with places where their numbers had not recovered.
Caswell believes Idaho’s plan identifies specific wolf habitat in the northern Rockies — without making the generalizations that Jones objected to.