What's Happening: Science came down on the side of wolves again in early August when the Idaho Department of Fish & Game released a study showing that canis lupus isn't even having a significant impact where elk numbers are declining. As reported in several state newspapers, Idaho researchers looked at 11 elk herds and found only one where wolves have made a substantive dent, and even those losses were more attributable to habitat decline. This is consistent with information out of Wyoming that says elk-hunter success has remained much the same even in areas where wolves and grizzly bears are present.
Meanwhile, on June 15 the judge who is deciding whether to return Endangered Species Act protections to wolves heard oral arguments in the case in Missoula, Mont. Federal Judge Donald Molloy asked the defendants' lawyers — GYC is a plaintiff — how the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service could justify splitting Wyoming's wolves from Montana and Idaho under the Endangered Species Act (see news stories). "I understand the practical argument. I understand the political argument. Those two things are very, very clear. But what I don't understand is the legal argument. That's not very clear." Molloy is expected to rule on whether to return wolves to ESA protections before the fall hunting seasons. Meanwhile, Montana is revising its hunting regulations in preparation for a possible second hunting season this fall. The state is considering three quota alternatives, each of which will reduce Montana's wolf population. Comments will be accepted on these tentative proposals until June 14. This would be the first time since wolf restoration in 1995 that the state has proposed a reduction in wolf numbers. Idaho officials, too, are looking at reducing the state's wolf numbers, from about 850 to 540. Despite last year's hunting pressure in Idaho and Montana, wolf numbers held steady in the Northern Rockies in 2009. Fifteen years after their restoration in Yellowstone and central Idaho, an estimated 1,700 wolves roam the Northern Rockies (including 115 breeding pairs): 500 in Montana (down slightly), 320 in Wyoming (up slightly) and about 850 in Idaho (about the same). About 455 are in Greater Yellowstone, including 96-98 wolves in Yellowstone. In September 2009, a ruling by federal judge Donald Molloy in Missoula denied an injunction that would've halted the hunts in Idaho and Montana. But at the same time he said conservation groups likely would win on the merits of their lawsuit later. In other words, while asserting he didn't think hunting would do "irreparable harm" to the wolves he suggested that dividing wolf populations among artificial political lines probably wouldn't meet Endangered Species Act standards — meaning the wolves could soon return to full protections in all three states. Read about the wolf plans in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.
The Issue: The return of the gray wolf to the northern Rockies has been one of the greatest conservation success stories and possibly the most controversial. Since the reintroduction in 1995, wolf numbers have steadily increased in the GYE. In 2009, wolves were removed from Endangered Species Act protections in Idaho and Montana, with ESA protections continuing in Wyoming. Under this plan, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service contends that mixing between the two populations of wolves in central Idaho and the GYE does not have to be "natural." Instead wolves could be trucked between states or artificially inseminated. Montana and Idaho established management plans that may not achieve and maintain genetic connections as required by the northern Rockies gray wolf recovery goals. In Wyoming, wolves remain protected under the Endangered Species Act because the state's management plan is inadequate. We are opposed to this illegal piecemeal approach to delisting. Idaho's hunting proposals are so aggressive they threaten Idaho wolf populations in Greater Yellowstone and, thus, threaten connectivity with populations in central Idaho and beyond.
Our Mission: To move toward sound science-based management and to work on the ground with the people who live, work and recreate in Greater Yellowstone to build greater tolerance for a thriving wolf population. So long as hunting is a part of the equation, the focus should be on removing wolves via fair-chase means in areas where they have been known to cause conflicts with livestock. We are also working to increase social tolerance through education and outreach.
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