Delisting endangers wolves It began near here in this high-altitude chaparral. No sooner were gray wolves delisted in March than sportsmen in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming began locking and loading. Wyoming officials declared 90% of the state a "free-fire zone." Hunters from around the state flocked to rural Sublette County to bag a wolf. Rancher Merrill Dana, 57, saw the results right away. Hunters aboard snowmobiles chased wolves across the early spring snow on his sprawling ranch. "The first morning it was opened up, they killed three up here," he said. "Trespassers. We didn't even know they were up here until we heard the snow machines." Dana said he has been offered as much as $2,500 for permission to hunt wolves on his land. He refused. As with many ranchers here, there is no love lost between Dana and wolves. He was mad the interlopers hadn't asked permission to hunt. "I wanted people I know to get them," said Dana, who was among a hunting party that eventually killed a 110-pound male. Through the early summer, an average of a wolf a day was being killed across the region. In all, at least 130 animals died since the delisting, or nearly 10% of the wolf population in the northern Rockies. Then, on July 21, a federal judge stopped the hunt. Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service capitulated and began the process to relist wolves....