Feds threatened with lawsuit over endangered wolf deaths

This September 2014 photo provided by the Endangered Wolf Center shows two red wolves at the center in Eureka, Mo. Center officials said Tuesday, July 21, 2015 that the red wolf population in the wild, all in eastern North Carolina, has dropped to about 50 from 100 in the past five years. A national summit is planned to consider how to help the endangered wolf. (Endangered Wolf Center via AP)

Posted: Tuesday, September 1, 2015 

Associated Press 

RALEIGH (AP) — Wildlife advocacy groups say federal officials violated the Endangered Species Act by allowing landowners to kill red wolves on their property.
A letter to the government Tuesday by the Southern Environmental Law Center says two killings of endangered wolves have been allowed since 2014 after only cursory non-lethal efforts.

The letter says the government has also failed to conduct a required review of the world's only wild population of the wolf in North Carolina. It threatens to sue.

In a news release and separate letter to a landowner, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the kills were authorized after trapping efforts failed to keep the animals off private land.

The federal government has been studying the feasibility of the effort to restore the red wolf to the wild.

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