Wolves’ protection lifted in Wyoming

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – The federal government will end its protections for wolves in Wyoming, where the species was introduced two decades ago to revive it from near extinction in the United States.

The announcement Friday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will entrust the state with managing wolf numbers and endorses a plan that allows for them to be shot on sight in most of the state, while keeping them permanently protected in designated areas like Yellowstone National Park. Wyoming will take over management of the wolves at the end of September.

The decision of the announcement quickly sparked promises of legal challenges from environmental groups that argue wolves still need protection to maintain their successful recovery. Dan Ashe, the agency’s director, acknowledged the “emotional reaction to wolf hunting” but said it would not be “detrimental to long-term conservation of wolves.”

“Quite the contrary, it will support long-term conservation of wolves as it has other predators like mountain lion and grizzly bear and black bear,” Ashe said.

Wyoming has been chafing under federal wolf protections for years, with ranchers and hunters complaining that wolves kill other wildlife and many cattle.

North America was once home to as many as 2 million gray wolves, but by the 1930s, fur traders, bounty hunters and government agents had poisoned, trapped and shot them to near extinction in the continental United States. An effort to revive their numbers emerged and centered on starting the recovery in Yellowstone.

There are about 270 wolves in Wyoming outside Yellowstone. There are another 1,100 or so in Montana and Idaho, where wolves were delisted several years ago, and still more in Washington and Oregon.