Wolves remain listed as endangered

A federal judge ruled last week that taking wolves off the Endangered Species List in Montana and Idaho, while a novel approach, was a political move and was contrary to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service policy and the Endangered Species Act.

U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy's 50-page ruling ignored most of the biological arguments made in the case and instead focused on the ESA and its language.

Molloy found that when the Service initially delineated the Northern Rocky Mountain population of wolves, it included Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, noting that Wyoming made up a large part of the wolves' range.

Over the years, Idaho and Montana both came up with state management plans that allowed hunting, but still preserved wolf populations. Wyoming's plan did not.

So the Service delisted wolves in Montana and Idaho.

Molloy found this contrary to the intent of the ESA.

"Even if the Service's solution is pragmatic, or even practical, it is at its heart a political solution that does not comply with the ESA. The northern Rocky Mountain population must be listed or delisted as a distinct population and protected accordingly," he ruled.

The ruling reinstates ESA protection for wolves and all but halts a planned wolf hunt this fall. The autumn hunt was projected to reduce the state's wolf population by 10 to 13 percent.

Last year hunters in Montana took 72 wolves in the state's first hunt ever.

After its release on Aug. 5, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission immediately asked FWP counsel to appeal the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

State officials weren't happy with the ruling.

"If we understand the ruling correctly, Judge Molloy is telling the federal government that because Wyoming still doesn't have adequate regulatory mechanisms to manage wolves, you can't delist the wolf in Montana and Idaho," said FWP director Joe Maurier. "We simply can't manage wildlife successfully in that environment. We must have the ability to manage wildlife, to do our job, to seek a balance among predator and prey. As a practical matter, as wildlife managers, we need the authority to respond to the challenges wolves present every day."

Molloy countered the ESA law was straightforward and that the blame rested on wildlife managers and the politics that have long hounded wolves and efforts to restore them.

"The (ESA) was not intended to sow the dragon's teeth of strife or to plant the seeds of future conflicts that have given rise to this case. The fight about wolves, steeped in stentorian agitprop, ignores the two different mandates of the act: The risk assessments — whether listing or delisting, are designed to prevent the extinction of a species; and secondly they are intended to promote the recovery of the species," Molloy wrote.

The suit to challenge the delisting of wolves was brought by the Defenders of Wildlife, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and 11 other environmental groups.

"This decision is a significant victory for wolves, for the integrity of the Endangered Species Act and for all Americans who care deeply about conservation," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife. "The court's ruling makes it clear that decisions under the Endangered Species Act should be based on science, not politics."

Since the efforts to recover wolves in the Northern Rockies began in the mid-1990s, the wolf population has bloomed. It's estimated there are 1,706 wolves with 242 packs, and 115 breeding pairs in the three states. About 525 wolves were estimated to inhabit Montana in 100 packs and 34 breeding pairs. Locally, there are about five packs of wolves in Glacier National Park and several others in Northwest Montana.

Listed or not, wolves in national parks are protected inside the park's boundaries.

Wolves in Glacier naturally migrated from Canada and were the first wolves to re-establish populations in the state in the mid-1980s.

Wolves in the Yellowstone region were reintroduced by the USFWS in the mid 1990s.