Wolf Status Faces Protests
By Greg Burton
The Salt Lake Tribune
Wildlife advocates have notified federal officials of their plans to challenge Interior Secretary Gale Norton and her department’s downlisting of the endangered gray wolf — which officially took effect with Tuesday’s publishing of the final rule.
A reduced protection status for the wolf means in most regions of the United States “problem” wolves that have attacked or are about to attack domestic livestock can be shot on sight.
Prior to the downlisting, only federal wildlife officials could remove, harass or kill gray wolves, which were one of the first animals protected after the Endangered Species Act passed in 1972.
“It saddens us to have to take this step, when we’ve made such a tremendous start toward real, sustainable wolf recovery,” said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, which filed a 60-day notice of appeal.
“By backing away from wolf protection before the job is finished, Secretary Norton is endangering everything her agency has achieved so far. It may be April Fools’ Day, but we’re not going to fall for it.”
Under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) new management rule, the gray wolf is now considered “threatened” in the northern half of Utah. The wolf remains “endangered” — the highest ESA protection status — south of Interstate 70 and U.S. Highway 50.
Tuesday’s downlisting precedes what the FWS expects to be a complete delisting by 2005.
“It’s clear that wolves are no longer endangered — they are threatened,” said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery manager for the FWS in Montana. “We hope to remove them within the next year or so.”
Although gray wolf sightings in Utah were confirmed late last year, the federal government’s Rocky Mountain recovery program is exclusive to Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. There are no known breeding pairs in Utah, Bangs said, although lone wolves continue to roam here.
In Montana, Idaho and Wyoming there are about 700 gray wolves and the agency has met its recovery goals of 30 breeding pairs for three years in a row.
The new rule downlists the gray wolf in the Rocky Mountains, Pacific Northwest, Great Lakes and Northeast and precludes federally backed recovery in northern California, Oregon, Washington, northern Colorado and Utah.
In areas such as northern Utah where the gray wolf is now designated threatened, private individuals are still forbidden from killing wolves for sport or mistakenly killing wolves thought to be coyotes. Violators face a $100,000 fine, up to a year in prison and the loss of hunting, grazing and trapping permits.
If the gray wolf is completely delisted, state officials would assume management responsibility. Utah wildlife officials support delisting of the gray wolf and have suggested organizing a wolf hunting season to control populations.
Bangs supports the concept.
“The service has strongly recommended public hunting as a valuable management tool,” he said. “There is no reason hunting should not be allowed on a recovered species.”
Schlickeisen said it’s much too soon to defer management of the gray wolf to the states and Defenders of Wildlife intends to press its case in court.
“Secretary Norton’s antagonism to the mission of her department and to saving America’s wildlife is now well established,” he said. “We intend to prove in court that in her ceaseless efforts to benefit the Bush administration’s political supporters at the expense of American’s wildlife and wild lands, she has once again broken the law.”