More Wolves Makes No Sense, Racicot Insists Montana Governor Calls On Agency To Halt Plans To Capture 30 More Wolves

Montana Gov. Marc Racicot says the transplanting of additional wolves in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho makes no sense, and federal wildlife officials are jeopardizing what success they’ve already had with wolf recovery.

He called on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to halt plans to capture 30 more Canadian wolves and reassess its blueprint to recolonize the Northern Rockies with wolves, an endangered species.

His criticism was in a letter to the wildlife service on Friday, addressed to the field services director in Helena, Kemper McMaster.

Racicot’s salvo came on the same day that federal predator control officials and biologists from Yellowstone confirmed a lone wolf from one of three Yellowstone packs had killed sheep on a ranch south of Emigrant in the Paradise Valley. They said it was the first instance of livestock predation since wolves were moved to Yellowstone a year ago.

McMaster told The Billings Gazette that he forwarded Racicot’s letter to Ed Bangs, leader of the federal wolf recovery effort.

Bangs said the agency has no plans to suspend its plans.

“We believe this is the fastest, cheapest and least controversial way to achieve wolf recovery,” he said.

This year’s first wolves may arrive in the United States as soon as the end of next week, Bangs said.

Racicot said the plan makes no sense.

Even though Montana wolf populations are expanding so fast biologists can hardly keep track of their numbers, the state has few options to manage the populations because wolves remain a federally designated endangered species, he said.

And wolves cannot be removed from the endangered species list until their numbers increase in Idaho and Wyoming as well.

“This means Montana bears the brunt of wolf recovery,” Racicot wrote. “Montana is caught in the awkward situation of being dependent upon wolf reintroductions to build wolf numbers as a prerequisite to delisting, yet no matter how many hundreds of wolves inhabit Montana, unless recovery goals are met in Wyoming and Idaho, we cannot delist wolves here.”

Racicot asked that the threshold for wolf delisting in Montana be “decoupled” from the thresholds in Idaho and Wyoming.

“This would enable us to be more in control of wolf management and in control of our future,” he wrote. “There is simply no incentive for our citizens to bear the burdens of wolf reintroduction because we cannot assure them that delisting will actually occur in Montana based on our efforts.”

Ten years ago, he said, no wolves existed in Montana. Now, at least eight packs have naturally repopulated areas of western Montana.

At the same time, the federal government is spending scarce dollars to import more wolves.

“It simply does not make sense to spend a quarter of a million dollars to reintroduce a species that is naturally expanding its range and numbers every year,” Racicot wrote.

The Fish and Wildlife Service already is having trouble keeping its word, Racicot said. He recalled complaints from ranchers near Fishtail, who said federal biologists did not warn them as agreed that a Yellowstone wolf pack was nearby.