Plans for wolf-hunting seasons in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming have been halted after a judge issued a preliminary injunction on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) decision to remove the species from the endangered species list. The decision, made on July 18, came as the first step in a lawsuit filed by environmental organizations that claim the wolf populations in the northern Rocky Mountains have not sufficiently recovered to warrant removal from the list. The injunction immediately provided wolves with the same Endangered Species Act protections they had prior to the delisting and will remain in effect until a final decision is made on the lawsuit, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.

Gray wolves in the northern Rockies were officially removed from the endangered species list in March 2008, after the FWS determined that their populations had met recovery goals, and approved state management plans were sufficient to maintain adequate population levels. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming's state management plans all included provisions to manage wolves using regulated hunting. As reported in the July issue of the Outdoor News Bulletin, each state had detailed hunting season plans ready to finalize, with harvest goals totaling just under 500 wolves in the three states.

Environmental groups felt the delisting was premature. They filed suit in U.S. District Court shortly after the delisting went into effect, contending that the FWS failed to meet some of its own criteria to warrant wolf removal from the list. Specifically, the groups claimed the FWS did not prove that genetic exchange is occurring between the region's core recovery areas, that Wyoming's state management plan was approved despite retaining provisions the FWS had rejected previously and that the FWS failed to consider states' liberal defense of property laws when the state plans were approved. The groups requested the injunction, claiming that the wolves would not survive increased human-caused mortality, which they believed would occur under state management.

In granting the injunction, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy ruled that the environmental groups were likely to succeed in several of their claims. His ruling stated that, in particular "the Fish and Wildlife Service acted arbitrarily in delisting the wolf despite a lack of evidence of genetic exchange between subpopulations; and it acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it approved Wyoming's 2007 plan despite the [s]tate's failure to commit to managing for 15 breeding pairs and the plan's malleable trophy game area. In both instances, the Fish and Wildlife Service altered its earlier position without providing a reasoned decision for the change based on identified new information."

The environmental groups believe that Judge Molloy's finding?that the continued killing of wolves while the suit is pending could do irreparable harm to the population?is suggestive of what is to come in the final decision. However, the FWS and the agencies and organizations that supported the suit for delisting argue that wildlife populations must be managed as a whole and should not focus on the killing of individuals. Human-caused mortality could increase postdelisting to an additional 24 percent of the wolf population without decreasing the total population because holding a wolf population static requires a take of 28 to 50 percent each year.

The environmental groups disagree. "The delisting of wolves was inappropriate and illegal in large part because existing state management plans are inadequate to ensure the long term conservation of wolves in the region, allowing far too many wolves to be unnecessarily killed," stated Suzanne Asha Stone, northern Rockies wolf conservation specialist for Defenders of Wildlife.

The judge's ruling focuses significant attention on the potential for genetic exchange between wolves in the Greater Yellowstone core recovery area and wolves in the northwestern Montana and central Idaho core recovery areas. According to the decision, the FWS's 1994 environmental impact statement defines recovery as 30 breeding pairs with 300 individual wolves in a metapopulation, with genetic exchange between the subpopulations. However, the decision cited a 2007 genetics study commissioned by the FWS that contends that a metapopulation does not yet exist because genetic exchange is not occurring between populations of Greater Yellowstone and the other recovery areas.

"In this case, the Service has not sufficiently justified or explained its change of course," wrote Molloy. "The obvious shift focuses exclusively on the wolves' success in meeting the recovery criterion of 30 breeding pairs and 300 wolves. The genetic diversity requirement for viability is pushed to the back burner of consideration with no explanation of its precipitous drop in importance. The Service instead suggests the 30/300 criterion is the magic tipping point at which the wolves will no longer be endangered."?? Contrarily, the FWS contends that documented genetic exchange is not necessary if the possibility of exchange can occur. It believes that the potential for genetic exchange has been achieved because of documented wolf dispersal between the core recovery areas.

The court also focused on the approval of Wyoming's state management plan approved by the FWS, which the court and the plaintiffs contended was little different than the plan rejected in 2003. According to the ruling, the fact that Wyoming classifies wolves as predatory animals in 90 percent of the state, allowing unregulated take of animals in that area, calls into question whether Wyoming can clearly commit to managing 15 breeding pairs within the state. Additional arguments in the decision claim that the Wyoming's depredation-control law would allow the killing of wolves, "doing damage to personal property," which, in the court's view is too subjective. The FWS and Wyoming, however, assert that the 10 percent of the state in which wolves are classified as trophy game animals is the most suitable wolf habitat and is adequate to sustain the state's share of the wolf population. In addition, the FWS believes that the state has committed to maintain 15 breeding pairs regardless of the population within national park units.

According to an FWS release: "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its partners are evaluating legal options regarding the [c]ourt's order and the ongoing litigation over the agency's delisting of the northern Rocky Mountain wolf population. The Service believes gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains have recovered and no longer need the protections of the Endangered Species Act."

?In the next phase of the suit, the court will review more detailed, administrative records, something the FWS believes will substantiate its delisting decision.

Ed Bangs, former wolf coordinator for the FWS commented, "If you look at injunction issues, courts tend to rule in favor of endangered species?call it an abundance of caution. I think the administrative record will address all the concerns the court had." (jas)