Wolves at the door of new era
By Gary Gerhardt, Rocky Mountain News
March 19, 2003
The federal government took a giant step toward getting out of the wolf business Tuesday when it reduced the status of two populations from endangered to threatened.
Wolf-recovery areas are divided into Eastern, Western and Southwestern. The Southwestern area, extending from Interstate 70 south in Colorado to Mexico, remains under endangered status.
The Southwestern area includes Arizona, southern Utah, western Oklahoma, and western Texas, as well as southern Colorado and New Mexico.
Only 40 animals have been released in central New Mexico and Arizona in the Southwestern region to date.
Joe Fontaine of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that downlisting means wolves reintroduced in the mid-1990s from Canada to Yellowstone and central Idaho will retain their “experimental, nonessential” designation, meaning they can be removed or even shot if they get into trouble with livestock.
It also applies to the naturally occurring packs of wolves that have populated Montana.
The wolves in those three areas now number 664 in 44 packs.
If wolves wander out of the recovery areas into surrounding states as they have done in Utah, Oregon and Washington, they will be protected as a “threatened” species, a more stringent designation.
Fish and Wildlife Service Director Steve Williams said the change in status gives more flexibility to manage wolves.
Within the next two years, the service hopes to delist wolves altogether, putting them under the management of the individual states.
Because Colorado and Utah are the “dividing line” between northern and southern wolves, a strange management dilemma arises, said Steve Torbit of the National Wildlife Federation.
“If they are north of I-70, Colorado authorities have a say in what should happen to them. But if they cross the highway, they become federally protected animals again,” he said.