By Angus M. Thuermer Jr., Jackson Hole, Wyoming
A conservation group is asking the National Park Service to eliminate potential wolf hunting in the 24,000-acre Rockefeller Parkway between Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks.
The National Parks Conservation Association is petitioning the agency to launch a “rulemaking process” to review which species could be hunted in the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway, the group’s Jackson representative said Wednesday. The Park Service has the authority, and duty, Sharon Mader said, to conduct such a review.
“The Park Service to this point has been negligent,” Mader said. “This fills that gap.”
The state of Wyoming has not issued licenses for wolf hunting in the parkway but has claimed authority to do so. Hunting is allowed in the parkway for elk and waterfowl, according to state seasons and license restrictions.
Gov. Matt Mead didn’t immediately react to the announcement Wednesday. He will reserve comments until he has evaluated the petition, spokesman Renny MacKay said.
Six wolf packs that use part of Grand Teton National Park as their home range were targeted last year during the state’s first wolf hunt, Mader said.
“A good number were killed in this year’s hunt,” she said. The deaths had “a significant impact” on park wolves, she said.
“Only the Park Service has the authority and overall park management expertise to make the final decisions on wolf hunting and other management issues in these special places,” Mader said.
The parkway provides a “spiritual and physical connection” between Yellowstone and Grand Teton, Mader said, quoting congressional documents. It is a unit of the National Park Service and, while not a full-blown park, falls under agency jurisdiction.
As such, the Park Service is required to make its own rules about which species can be killed there, Mader said.
The issue arose last fall when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service turned over wolf management to the state. Before that, wolves were protected by the Endangered Species Act.
In handing off authority, Fish and Wildlife published a map that put Yellowstone beyond hunters’ reach but did not exclude Grand Teton or the parkway. While hunting wolves in Grand Teton is not allowed, the transfer raised questions about the parkway.
Fish and Wildlife “chose to turn their backs on the parkway,” Mader said. “It put into question the Park Service authority to manage wolves on their own lands.”
Such authority is clear, she said. Laws that created the parkway allow hunting, she said.
“It’s also clear that federal law that governs the National Park system clearly gives the National Park Service the ultimate authority over wildlife on its lands,” she said.
To exercise that authority, the agency must begin rulemaking, Mader said. The agency would consider elk and waterfowl hunting as part of that review, she said.
The group is asking only that wolf hunting be banned, however. Mader’s fear is that Wyoming, while it currently has no plans to allow hunting in the parkway, might permit it some day.
Wyoming also might seek to allow hunting of grizzly bears should that species lose Endangered Species Act protection, as is expected in the near future.
“The Park Service should have taken these steps when wolves were delisted,” Mader said.