From The New West Blog

Feds Retreat on Wolf Delisting

By Matthew Frank, 9-17-08

	Photo courtesy of MFWP.

Northern Rockies wolves were listed, then delisted, then relisted through a July injunction, and now that relisting will be more lasting—at least until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service figures out how it can delist without endangering the species again.

The Idaho Statesman reports today on this latest twist in the wolf’s roller-coaster ride: the federal government plans to withdraw its rule to lift endangered species protections for wolves in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and parts of Utah, Oregon and Washington.

If U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula agrees, a lawsuit filed by environmentalists will end, and federal biologists will get a chance to rewrite the plan to meet objections the judge made. ...

Ed Bangs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s top wolf manager, acknowledged the Bush administration had failed to explain why it was confident it could delist wolves without endangering the species again. Before the agency can issue a new rule, it must address Molloy’s concerns, Bangs said.

“There’s going to be a thorough, fine-toothed comb going through it to decide what we can do better,” Bangs said.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and 11 other wolf advocacy groups demonstrated they would likely win the case on the merits of their arguments, Molloy said in his July opinion.

Molloy made that decision based on the wolf advocates’ claim that wolves in Yellowstone National Park were not genetically mixing with other wolf populations, as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said was necessary. If the wolves don’t interbreed throughout the region, that could leave isolated and genetically threatened enclaves, not a sustainable population.

More.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.