Wyoming's Wolf Management Plan May Endanger Delisting

by Patricia Dowd

Grey Wolf Photo by Tracy Brooks - Mission Wolf/USFWS

As gray wolf populations reach sustainable levels in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, the states are now challenged to develop management plans ensuring the wolves' continuing viability. This will enable the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to de-list the wolves from Endangered Species Act protections and grant the states the authority to manage wolves within their borders.

During the 2003 session of the Wyoming State Legislature, Wyoming passed a controversial wolf-management bill into law. Although Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) biologists recommended that wolves be managed as trophy animals statewide, their expertise and advice were pushed aside by politics.

House Bill 229 classifies wolves as trophy game animals in the northwestern part of the state, specifically Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Parkway and contiguous wilderness areas in the Shoshone and Bridger-Teton National Forests. In the rest of the state, wolves are classified as predators, allowing them to be killed for any reason.

HB 229 manages for 15 wolf packs in Wyoming, seven packs outside Yellowstone and the state's northwestern boundary and eight packs in the rest of the state. (See WOC's 2003 Legislative Report for more information on HB 229.)

After HB 229 was passed, the WGFD was handed the task of creating a wolf-management plan that ref lected state statute - not an easy assignment.

During a Wyoming Game and Fish Commission meeting in July, commissioners adopted a state wolf-management plan that parrots HB 229's guidelines and fails to ensure viable wolf populations in Wyoming. Despite overwhelming public comments calling for the protection of wolves, the commission moved forward with a plan that has a number of troubling provisions. For example, the plan contains no funding mechanism to cover the WGFD's estimated $615,900 annual price tag for managing wolves; establishes arbitrary boundaries outside of which wolves are not protected; and manages wolves for minimum numbers, which sets a bad precedent for managing other wildlife species in Wyoming.

Before wolf management can be turned over to the states, the USFWS must approve Wyoming's, Idaho's and Montana's wolf plans. As we went to press, all three state plans had been sent out to independent wildlife managers and scientists for peer review. The peer review process must be completed by November 1. All three plans will then be sent to the USFWS for consideration.

Unfortunately, thanks to the legislature's insistence on establishing a dual-status classification for wolves, it appears that Wyoming's wolf plan may well fail to meet USFWS guidelines for removing wolves from protections offered by the Endangered Species Act. USFWS officials are concerned with the ambiguity of HB 229's statutory language and have recommended that it be amended. The agency's recommendation appears to be that both the goal of fifteen packs within the state as a whole, and seven packs outside the parks will be required for delisting. As passed by the legislature, HB 229 called for at least seven packs of gray wolves outside of the Parks or at least fifteen packs within the state.

In response, the legislature's Joint Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee will work on amending HB 229 at its meeting in October and recommend new language to legislators during the 2004 Budget Session.

Idaho and Montana propose to manage wolves using the same sciencebacked methods they use to manage other big-game species, while Wyoming's politics-based plan is an insult to sound wildlife management. Thus, Wyoming could well stand in the way of wolf delisting and impede progress in passing wolf-management responsibilities to the states.

Patricia Dowd is state issues coordinator for the Wyoming Sierra Club.