Wildlife advocates hail Rocky Mountain wolf ruling

HELENA, Mont. — Wildlife advocates say a ruling to restore Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves throughout the Northern Rocky Mountains buys time to create a better plan than the one the judge rejected, one that ensures their numbers don't dwindle again.

Meanwhile, state wildlife officials in Montana and Idaho were reviewing Thursday's ruling that blocked them from carrying out their wolf management plans and their preparations for wolf hunts this fall. State officials said they were considering their options, including an appeal.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy's ruling knocked down a U.S. Fish and Wildlife decision last year that kept federal protections in place in Wyoming, where state law is considered hostile to the animals' survival, but turned over to Montana and Idaho wolf management responsibilities within their borders.

Molloy said in his ruling that the entire Northern Rocky Mountain wolf population either must be listed as an endangered species or removed from the list, but the protections for the same population can't be different for each state.

Separating the protections may solve a tricky political issue, but it does not comply with the Endangered Species Act, Molloy ruled.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Tom Strickland said the ruling means that the federal protections will be in place for all three states until Wyoming brings its wolf management program into alignment with Idaho's and Montana's

"Since wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains are now again subject to ESA protection, in the days ahead we will work closely with Idaho and Montana to explore all appropriate options for managing wolves in those states," Strickland said in a statement.

Gray wolves were listed as endangered in 1974, but following a reintroduction program in the mid-1990s, there are now more than 1,700 in the Northern Rockies, which includes all of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, along with portions of Washington, Oregon and Utah.

Matt Skoglund of the National Resources Defense Council, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said a true recovery number would be at least 2,000 wolves in the region.

"We're real close to recovery. We've got 1,700 wolves in the Rockies. But we're not there," Skoglund said. "We want to see a plan in place that ensures genetic connectivity among the subpopulations and ultimately guarantees a sustainable wolf population."