Wolf recovery target has changed, feds acknowledge

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official answered allegations from hunters and outfitters Tuesday by acknowledging that the agency has changed the goal for wolf recovery in the northern Rocky Mountains to keep up with the best available science. The statement from Ed Bangs, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s wolf recovery coordinator, comes before U.S. District Judge from Montana Donald Molloy is scheduled to hear arguments June 15 in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups over taking wolves off the Endangered Species List. Under the Endangered Species Act, a species that is in trouble can be restored and removed from federal protection once biological criteria are met. Sixty-six wolves were transplanted from Canada to Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in 1995 and 1996. The recovery goal has changed several times since the original 1987 proposal for a total of 30 breeding pairs in three locations in the northern Rocky Mountains – central Idaho, Greater Yellowstone and northwest Montana. Those changes include a more stringent definition of a breeding pair and a buffer, implemented by Bangs, that requires 15 breeding pairs and 150 wolves in each of the three states to ensure that populations don’t fall below the recovery goal of 30 breeding pairs and 300 wolves in the entire region. Today there are an estimated 1,702 wolves in 242 wolf packs and 115 breeding pairs in the central Idaho and Greater Yellowstone areas and in northern Montana, where they recolonized naturally...more