USFWS Dismissed Appeal

Federal officials have said for years that wolves were biologically recovered across Wyoming, but the species has remained on the endangered list there because of a law that allows wolves to be shot on sight across most of the state.

U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson in Cheyenne last year ordered the government to reconsider its rejections of Wyoming's wolf management plan. The USFWS on Monday dropped its appeal of the judge's November order.

In his November ruling, Johnson had said the USFWS was wrong to insist Wyoming change its management plan to give wolves more protection before it would end federal oversight of the species.

The government's decision to drop its appeal does not affect a separate case before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals involving wolves in Montana and Idaho. The predators were taken off the endangered list in the two states in 2009, only to have their protected status restored last year by a federal judge in Montana.

Several bills now before Congress seek to override that ruling and remove wolves of their protections in Montana and Idaho. Other measures would lift protections for wolves nationwide.

The federal government said it wanted a population of at least 300 animals when it started its wolf reintroduction program in the Northern Rockies in the 1990s. Biologists last week announced that there are now more than 1,600 wolves in parts of five states, including at least 343 in Wyoming.

Reprinted in part from Idaho State Journal