Wyoming to fight ban on killing wolves

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – With the federal government saying it won’t allow Wyoming to kill wolves to preserve the state’s wildlife herds over the next few years, top state officials said Friday they will continue to fight the federal government in court over wolf management issues.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal and legislative leaders said they were disappointed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s rejection of a state proposal to kill certain wolves.

Wyoming had suggested the federal agency allow the state to kill some wolves to control their take of other wildlife over perhaps the next several years, while litigation over wolves’ status under the federal Endangered Species Act wraps up.

“I never in my wildest imagination believed that we would end up with the Fish and Wildlife Service coming back and saying, ‘you misunderstand it; we are the Fish and Wolf Service,”’ Freudenthal said.

Freudenthal said the federal agency’s position would allow the killing of wolves that prey on livestock in the state, but not those that prey on wildlife.

“What that says is that they have made a political decision, not a science decision,” Freudenthal said. “Because from the point of a view of a wolf, whether it is a calf born of a bovine, or of an elk, it is still lunch.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service last year proposed creation of a permanent wolf management area in northwestern Wyoming as a way to resolve the long-running dispute with the state over wolf management.

The agency last month announced a proposal to remove Rocky Mountain gray wolves from the endangered species list in Wyoming as well as Montana and Idaho. Although the federal agency has approved wolf management plans in Montana and Idaho, it rejected Wyoming’s original management plan in 2004.

Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank said Friday that his office has continued with a lawsuit challenging the rejection of the state’s original management plan even while recent discussions over the proposed permanent management area were going on. He said his office is prepared to continue pressing the lawsuit in court.

In a letter delivered to Wyoming Senate President John Schiffer, R-Kaycee, and House Speaker Roy Cohee, R-Casper, on Friday, Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall states that the federal government wouldn’t grant the state’s request for permission to kill wolves preying on wildlife.

“While I agree that wolves are impacting wildlife populations, after seeking advice from legal counsel, we do not believe we can mutually reach a settlement of the pending litigation that would necessarily ensure the type of substantive relief that is being sought,” Hall wrote.

Mitch King, regional director of the Fish and Wildlife Service in Denver, said Friday that Hall’s letter is the federal government’s last word on the state’s proposal. If Wyoming can’t reach an agreement, he said his agency is prepared to move forward to take wolves off the federal list of threatened and endangered species in Montana and Idaho separately.

“I think what the letter is telling the state is that the Fish and Wildlife Service has gone as far as we can possibly go on this,” King said.