What’s Behind Judge Molloy’s Questioning of ‘Experimental’ Status for Wolves?

Late last month, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy asked attorneys for wildlife management agencies and environmental groups to answer this question: Can the Northern Rockies wolf population still be considered an “experimental” population, or has there been enough cross-breeding with Canadian wolves to declare there’s no danger of genetic isolation or inbreeding? The answer may be critically important, because the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in the mid-90s was predicated on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calling those wolves an “experimental, non-essential species.” This designation not only allowed wolves to be reintroduced to the tri-state region of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, it also gave the FWS the flexibility to essentially consider the wolves a large-scale experiment in reintroduction. Without that designation as experimental, the wolves would have fallen under the full protection of the Endangered Species Act and could not be so readily killed when they got into conflicts with livestock...more