MILWAUKEE |
(Reuters) - Thousands of gray wolves in the Midwest will soon be
stripped of federal safeguards under the Endangered Species Act, the
government said on Wednesday, in a move that could open the animals to
state-licensed hunting.An estimated 4,000 wolves in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and parts of adjacent states are due to lose their status as either endangered or threatened species on January 27, 2012 under the newly issued U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule.
Some environmental groups criticized the action as likely to jeopardize the wolf's recovery, but federal wildlife managers said the animal's population had grown robust enough to hand control of the iconic predator back to the states.
A review of the Great Lakes wolf population found the species has exceeded its recovery goals in recent years, Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe said in a statement.
The agency estimates there are now 2,921 wolves in Minnesota, 687 in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and 782 in Wisconsin.
The announcement comes nearly eight months after a separate population of some 1,200 wolves in Montana and Idaho were removed from the endangered species list through an unprecedented act of Congress.
That action marked the first time a specific creature was delisted by legislation rather than through a process of scientific review laid out under the Endangered Species Act. It also applied to several dozen wolves in Oregon, Utah and Washington state.
The government has proposed lifting protections for another 350 wolves in Wyoming.
Wolves were once hunted, trapped and poisoned to the edge of extinction nationwide. But their recovery in the Midwest and Northern Rockies has brought them into renewed conflict with ranchers, farmers and sportsmen who see the wolf as a threat to livestock and big-game animals, such as elk and deer.
BACK TO THE BRINK?
Environmentalists say wolf impact on cattle herds and wildlife has been overstated. They fear removal of Endangered Species Act protections could ultimately push the wolf back to the brink.
"We're very disappointed. We think this decision is a mistake," said Howard Goldman, the Minnesota state director for the Humane Society.
"This may have a devastating impact on the wolf population. We don't see any basis for a public hunt, recreational killing of wolves for sport."
The Fish and Wildlife Service briefly de-listed the wolf in the Great Lakes region twice before, in 2007 and 2009, but both those moves were rolled back under court challenge from the Humane Society and other groups.
Goldman said the Humane Society would consider going back to court after reading the full decision, slated to be formally published on December 28.
Once the Midwestern wolves are delisted, individual states will assume regulation of them. Wolf management plans adopted by each state have set minimum population targets at about half of the current numbers and may pave the way for public hunting of the animals in the future.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources plans to permit private trapping of wolves by landowners in affected areas, and shooting of wolves on their property when they are found to be preying on or menacing livestock.
Governor Scott Walker has directed his Natural Resources Department to be ready to implement Wisconsin's wolf management plan by February 1, said agency head Cathy Stepp.
The gray wolf originally was classified as an endangered species across the lower 48 states and Mexico, except in Minnesota, where the animal was listed as threatened.
An estimated 7,000 to 11,000 wolves roam much of Alaska but are so abundant they have never been federally protected.
(Additional reporting by Mary Slosson and Laura Zuckerman; Editing by Steve Gorman and Jerry Norton)
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US Gray Wolves Rebound But Face Uncertain Future
December 21, 2011
(credit: Jupiter Images)
The Obama administration Wednesday declared more than 4,000 wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin have recovered from widespread extermination and will be removed from the endangered species list.
Coupled with an earlier move that lifted protections in five western states, the decision puts the gray wolf at a historical crossroads — one that could test both its reputation for resilience and the tolerance of ranchers and hunters who bemoan its attacks on livestock and big game.
Wednesday’s announcement could open the door to hunting for wolves in the Great Lakes. However, no seasons have been set and federal officials say they will continue monitoring the population for five years. Similar actions are planned for most remaining Western states and the Great Plains.
The legal shield that made it a federal crime to gun down the wolves is being lifted in many areas even though wolves have returned only to isolated pockets of the territory they once occupied, and increasing numbers are dying at the hands of hunters, wildlife agents and ranchers protecting livestock.
Since being added to the federal endangered species list in 1974, the American wolf population has grown fivefold — to about 6,200 animals wandering parts of 10 states outside Alaska.
Wolves “are in the best position they’ve been in for the past 100 years,” said David Mech, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in St. Paul, Minn., and a leading wolf expert. The animals’ long-term survival will “depend on how much wild land remains available, because wolves are not compatible with areas that are agricultural and have a lot of humans. There’s just too much conflict.”
Also Wednesday, the Obama administration put off a decision on protections in 29 Eastern states that presently have no wolves. The Interior Department said it still was reconsidering its prior claim that wolves in those states historically were a separate species, which effectively would cancel out protections now in place.
Since 1991, the federal government has spent $92.6 million on gray wolf recovery programs, and state agencies have chipped in $13.9 million, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
“We are ready to declare success in those areas where wolves are now secure, turn over management responsibility to the states and begin to focus our limited resources on other species that are in trouble,” said Gary Frazer, assistant director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s endangered species program.
The government still plans to nurture a fledgling Mexican gray wolf population in the desert Southwest. It’s also weighing whether to expand protections for small numbers of the animals that have slipped into the Pacific Northwest from Canada.
However, there are no plans to promote their return elsewhere. Federal officials say it’s not the government’s job to return wolves to their previous range as long as the population is stable.
In Montana and Idaho, where wolves can now be legally hunted and trapped, officials are seeking to sharply drive down wolf numbers this winter to curb attacks on farm animals and elk herds.
Some scientists and advocates say the hunts offer a preview of what will happen when the federal safeguards are lifted elsewhere. The government, they say, is giving up the recovery effort too soon, before packs can take hold in new areas. Vast, wild territories in the southern Rockies and Northeast are ripe for wolves but unoccupied.
“The habitat is there. The prey is there. Why not give them the chance?” said Chris Amato, New York’s assistant commissioner for natural resources.
But federal officials are grappling with tight budgets and political pressure to expand hunting and prevent wolves from invading new turf. They insist the animals best known for their eerie howl, graceful lope and ruthless efficiency in slaughtering prey will get by on their own with help from state agencies.
North America was once home to as many as a couple of million gray wolves, which are prolific breeders. But by the 1930s, fur traders, bounty hunters and government agents had poisoned, trapped and shot almost all wolves outside Canada and Alaska.
The surviving 1,200 were clustered in northern Minnesota in the 1970s. After the species was added to the endangered list, their numbers rocketed to nearly 3,000 in the state — and they gradually spread elsewhere.
Today, Wisconsin has about 782 wolves, Michigan 687 — far above what biologists said were sustainable populations.
The success story is hardly surprising in woodlands teeming with deer, said John Vucetich, a biologist at Michigan Tech University. But even in such an ideal setting, the wolves were able to return only when killing them became illegal.
“What do wolves need to survive?” Vucetich said. “They need forest cover, and they need prey. And they need not to be shot.”
Shooting already is happening — legally or not — as adventurous wolves range into new regions such as Michigan’s Lower Peninsula and the plains of eastern Montana.
Those sightings are unsettling to farmers because packs have killed thousands of livestock nationwide during their comeback.
If marauding wolves begin taking out livestock, people may quietly take matters into their own hands — “shoot, shovel and shut up,” said Jim Baker, who raises 60 beef cattle near the village of Atlanta, Mich.
Wolves “could wipe me out in a couple of nights if they wanted,” Baker said.
Since the late 1980s, more than 5,000 wolves have been killed legally, according to an AP review of state and federal records. Hundreds more have been killed illegally over the past two decades in the Northern Rockies alone.
Ranchers in some areas are allowed under federal law to shoot wolves to defend their livestock. In the northern Rockies, government wildlife agents have routinely shot wolves from aircraft in response to such attacks. Often that involves trapping a single wolf, fitting it with a radio collar and tracking it back to its den so the entire pack can be killed.
Biologists are confident that neither legal hunts nor poaching are likely to push wolves back to the brink of extinction.
Idaho has been the most aggressive in reducing wolf numbers, offering a 10-month hunting season that sets no limits. State officials say they intend to reduce the population from 750 to as few as 150 — the minimum the federal government says is needed in each Northern Rockies state to keep the animal off the endangered list.
Studies indicate plentiful habitat remains in other regions, including upstate New York, northern New England and the southern Rockies of Colorado and Utah. But experts say the Fish and Wildlife Service’s plan would mean that any wolves wandering into those states could be shot on sight unless protected by state laws.
“Wolves, next to people, are one of the most adaptable animals in the world,” said Ed Bangs, a former Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who led the effort to return wolves to the northern Rockies. “The key with wolves is, it’s all about human tolerance.”
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