CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A bill to change Wyoming’s wolf management law to end federal protection for the animals in the state cleared its first committee hearing Thursday, even as several lawmakers expressed their frustration that the process of gaining state control has been dragging on for years.
Gov. Matt Mead and U.S. Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar agreed last year on a plan to turn over wolf management to Wyoming. The move would end federal protections for wolves under the Endangered Species Act.
The deal calls for wolves to be protected as trophy game animals in a flexible zone outside Yellowstone National Park but classified them as predators that could be shot on sight elsewhere in the state.
It requires Wyoming to maintain at least 10 breeding pairs of wolves and at least 100 individual animals outside of Yellowstone and the Wind River Indian Reservation.
The federal government could turn over wolf management to the state by the end of September, if the Legislature endorses the plan, Jay Jerde, a lawyer with the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office, told members of the Senate Travel, Recreation, Wildlife & Cultural Resources Committee on Thursday .
Steve Ferrell, the governor’s wildlife policy adviser, warned the committee that any substantive changes to the plan would likely prompt the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to restart the process of soliciting public comment.
Wyoming has fought for years to try to get state control of wolves, engaging in rounds of unsuccessful lawsuits and failed negotiations. The federal government accepted a similar delisting agreement from the state in 2007 only to repudiate it as soon as a federal judge criticized it.
Mead and other state officials have expressed frustration with the growing number of wolves that they say are taking a heavy toll on other wildlife and livestock in the state. The governor said in his State of the State Address that wolf numbers are increasing 10 percent a year.
The federal government reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s. Although the federal agency said at first that it would be satisfied with 150 wolves and 15 breeding pairs in the Northern Rocky Mountains, the agency has steadily increased its assessment of how many wolves are necessary to sustain a viable, breeding population.
The latest figures, released at the end of 2010, peg the wolf numbers in the Northern Rockies at 1,651, including more than 300 in Wyoming. The federal government already has turned over wolf management to Idaho and Montana, and Congress has granted protections that specify environmental groups can’t challenge the wolf delisting there.
Wyoming officials say they want Congress to extend similar protection against legal challenges to the delisting of wolves in their state.
Connie Wilbert, lobbyist for the Sierra Club, told the committee that the organization believes wolves should be classified as protected game animals throughout the state. She said the group doesn’t believe the Wyoming wolves will be sustainable as long as they’re left unprotected in most of the state.
“We don’t believe that classifying wolves as predators in about 85 percent of our state is ethical wildlife management,” Wilbert said.
Rep. Pat Childers, R-Cody, a past chairman of the Wyoming House committee that considers wildlife issues, said he’s prepared to support the current proposal even though the Fish and Wildlife Service has reneged repeatedly on past delisting agreements.
“I hope we at least settle this issue through the Fish and Wildlife Service,” Childers said. “This is totally unreasonable, the way the federal organization is treating the state of Wyoming. I think we’ve made reasonable compromises.”