Saturday, Sep. 20, 2008

Government holds off on gray wolves listing

By The Associated Press

BILLINGS, Mont. -- The government is planning to retreat for now from its attempt to take gray wolves in the Northern Rockies off the endangered species list, a federal wildlife official said this week.

Ed Bangs with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the government in the next week expects to withdraw a rule that declared wolves fully recovered. That rule, issued in March, would have allowed public hunting for the region's approximately 1,500 wolves.

Wildlife agencies in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming already have started preparations for such hunts. But they had been in doubt since July, when U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy blocked the states from going forward pending resolution of a lawsuit by environmentalists.

"Hopefully they'll go back to the drawing board and come up with a new plan that better protects wolves," said Earthjustice attorney Doug Honnold, who had filed the lawsuit on behalf of a dozen environmental groups that argue wolves in the region remain imperiled.

The decision to withdraw the recovery rule is subject to final approval by the Department of Justice. Molloy also would have to sign off before it could take effect.

The action comes as the population of gray wolves in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho apparently has shrunk for the first time in over a decade.

Biologists aren't sure why their midyear estimate of the regional wolf population came in with about 350 fewer wolves than they had expected. The estimate was 1,455 animals, down slightly from an estimate of 1,513 wolves at the start of 2008.

Wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone in the 1990s and they've been reproducing rapidly ever since. The regional population had been growing at about 24 percent a year.

A disease outbreak is one possible explanation for the decline. Another is that wolves have spread into most of the suitable habitat in the region.

In his July injunction against the planned hunts, Molloy raised concerns about whether genetic exchange between wolves -- through breeding -- was adequate to ensure their continued recovery. If not enough exchange between different populations of wolves is taking place, as one study indicated, wolves could suffer from inbreeding.

Molloy also questioned Wyoming's lack of regulations on the killing of wolves across most of the state.

Outside Yellowstone National Park and adjacent areas, wolves are classified as predators under Wyoming law, allowing them to be shot on sight.

Bangs, coordinator for the government's Northern Rockies wolf recovery program, said he still believes there are enough wolves to merit public hunting.

But he said the government had failed to explain its reasoning.