Wyoming and feds discuss wolf compromise
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) – After more than an hour of discussing a compromise wolf management plan for Wyoming, state officials still had concerns about the proposal offered by federal officials that aims to end an impasse that has delayed the process of delisting wolves in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.
Gov. Dave Freudenthal, who led the discussions Monday, voiced concern about who will pay for the plan and the inclusion of private land inside an expanded area where wolves would be managed as trophy game animals.
Freudenthal said he is willing to continue talks, but the state still intends to pursue its lawsuit over the federal rejection of Wyoming’s wolf management plan.
“This is great progress from where we were,” Freudenthal said.
Todd Willins, deputy assistant secretary of the interior, said the federal government will move ahead with the delisting process in January with the assumption that Wyoming will accept some version of the proposed compromise by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Federal and state officials have been discussing the new proposal in some circles for about six weeks. The proposed plan includes expanding the area in northwest Wyoming where the state can manage wolves as trophy game, while allowing the state to manage them elsewhere as predators that can be shot on sight.
In July, the Fish and Wildlife Service cited the predator provision in the state wolf management plan as the primary reason for rejecting Wyoming’s plan.
Mitch King, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Denver-based Mountain-Prairie Region, said Monday that an expanded trophy game area in Wyoming would make the predator provision palatable to federal biologists.
“Frankly, when they get out of this area on the map, we shoot them anyway,” King said.
Wyoming’s wolf management plan is part of state law and must be changed by the Legislature before the state can accept a new plan. The federal government already has approved plans by Idaho and Montana to manage wolves.
Under the federal proposal, the expanded trophy game area extends as far as Cody and Meeteetse and as far south as Pinedale and Alpine. About 25 percent of the area is national park land. Roughly 8 percent is private land.
Abigail Dillen, a lawyer with Bozeman, Mont.-based Earthjustice that intervened on the side of the federal government in an earlier lawsuit with the state, said she has concerns that wolf advocates have not been part of the latest conversation about wolves.
She said it’s critical that sound science is used to establish the trophy game area, though she has not been privy to details of the new plan.
“What matters to people who care about keeping wolves around is whether this plan is biologically sound. That’s the question,” Dillen said. “It’s about whether wolves will be protected adequately. If they are, it’s a real step forward.”
Wolves were reintroduced in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana more than a decade ago. Their numbers have reached 1,200 in the three-state area, exceeding federal expectations.