Wyoming firm on wolf plan

No one is arguing Wyoming’s gray wolf population hasn’t recovered – yet the state is embroiled in court actions and its wolves are protected. Conservationists and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) say the state’s current management plan isn’t good enough to protect its wolves – and Wyoming is defending that challenge in Cheyenne’s U.S. District Court. At the heart is Wyoming officials’ belief that the state’s plan is indeed good enough, that Wyoming Game & Fish should oversee a “trophy-game area” with the “predator area” where wolves are treated like coyotes. One delisting lawsuit, filed against FWS by Earthjustice on behalf of a conservation coalition, is based in part over what it calls FWS’ “piecemeal” delisting approach when it delisted wolves in April in Montana and Idaho but left out Wyoming. This brought forth the state’s suit against FWS. With ongoing court battles over delisting, current management of Wyoming’s again-protected gray wolves falls to FWS, whose officials had accepted the state’s plan but after being sued, backed away. In the meantime, wolves in effect have almost no one controlling what they do and where they do it, some say. Last week, FWS Wyoming wolf program director Mike Jimenez stated Wyoming residents could shoot wolves physically attacking their livestock – but not if their dogs are attacked on public land. This is part of the FWS’ 10J rule, in effect while Wyoming’s wolves are listed. Thus, Bondurant lion-guide Scott Leeper on Nov. 13 lost three hounds to two groups of more than 20 wolves in the Upper Gros Ventre and could not protect them...read more