Wyoming wolves still under federal protection

A federal judge has ruled that management of Wyoming’s wolf population will remain under federal control. “I am disappointed in Judge Berman Jackson’s ruling,” Wyoming Governor Matt Mead said in a press release Tuesday. Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson heard arguments on Sept. 30 on whether to reverse her earlier order placing gray wolves back under federal protection. Until Jackson’s original Sept. 23 ruling, in much of Wyoming wolves were classified as an unprotected predator species that could be shot on sight. Jackson’s decision centered around the fact that even though Wyoming promised to maintain 100 breeding pairs in an agreement with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, that number was considered “non-binding.” In her decision, the judge wrote that it was “arbitrary and capricious for the [US Fish and Wildlife] Service to rely on the state’s nonbinding promises to maintain a particular number of wolves when the availability of that specific numerical buffer was such a critical aspect of the delisting decision.” Jackson’s ruling hinged only on legal status of the state’s promise to keep alive 100 breeding wolf pairs, not on whether gray wolf populations had improved or on the fact that wolves could be shot on sight in most of the state...more