BILLINGS, Mont. — Gray wolves in the western Great Lakes and northern Rockies will be removed from the federal endangered-species list by late February under a plan announced Wednesday by the Bush administration.
Left out of the plan were wolves in Wyoming, where state officials sought a “predator zone” across most of the state within which the animals could be shot on sight. Federal officials said Wyoming law would have to change before wolves there could be taken off the endangered list.
Beyond that exception, Wednesday’s move was largely a repeat of the administration’s previous attempts to turn over control of wolves to state wildlife agencies. Those prior efforts were overruled by courts.
The incoming Obama administration will get a chance to review the latest attempt, but it was not immediately clear whether a change in course is likely.
Interior Department officials trumpeted their decision as a watershed moment for an iconic species first listed as endangered in 1974. “Returning this essential part of our national heritage to so much of our natural landscape ranks among our greatest conservation achievements,” Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett said.
Environmental and animal-rights groups derided the move as a last-minute effort by the Bush administration to strip protections from an animal they say remains at risk. They promised Wednesday to return to court with another round of lawsuits.
In the northern Rockies, a spike in livestock killings caused by expanding wolf populations has brought intense pressure to allow public hunting of the predators.
“We’re the people that have to live with it,” said Eric Svenson of Reed Point, Mont., where officials say a pair of rogue wolves killed two dozen sheep and goats on the Svenson Ranch over the past several months. “. . . People don’t see the damage or hardships that we have to go through when something like this moves in.”
Idaho and Montana already have crafted plans for public hunts. Federal biologist Ed Bangs said those plans entailed killing at most 300 wolves in the first year.
There are no immediate plans for hunts in the western Great Lakes, where the level of animosity over wolves seen in the northern Rockies has been largely absent.
