Wyoming makes argument for managing gray wolves

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's rejection of Wyoming's management plan for gray wolves was an "arbitrary and capricious" decision, the state claims, and a federal court should order the agency to transfer wolf management to Wyoming. Wyoming made the argument Monday in a brief filed in U.S. District Court in Cheyenne. The state filed suit in June after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reversed course and decided to leave gray wolves in Wyoming on the endangered species list while delisting them in Idaho and Montana. The agency's main reason for rejecting Wyoming's wolf management was the state's plan to classify wolves as a trophy game species for licensed hunters in the state's northwest corner -- the bulk of the animals' range -- while classifying them as a predator species in the rest of the state, meaning anybody could shoot them at any time. The agency said Wyoming needs to manage wolves as trophy game statewide to assure that wolves survive. In its Monday filing, the state argued that the service's position is not biologically defensible. The best scientific information available proves that the predator classification wouldn't prevent the state from maintaining its share of a recovered population, the state said...read more