On September 1, the Idaho Fish and Game Department opened the first legal wolf hunt since the animal was removed from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) last spring, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. Four wolves were killed in the Lolo and Sawtooth wolf-management zones in the first days of the Idaho hunt. The Idaho hunt opened despite a pending decision on a request for an injunction to stop the hunts. The judge on the case ruled late in the day on September 8 that the hunts would not irreparably harm the wolf populations in the two states.

The court's decision paved the way for the wolf season to open in Montana in four hunting districts on September 15. More than 7,000 wolf tags were sold with a harvest limit of 75 animals in that state. Montana's hunt will open statewide on October 25 when the rest of the big game seasons open. The Idaho hunt, that expanded to the Selway and Middle Fork management zones on September 15 and will open throughout the state on October 1, will allow as many as 220 wolves to be harvested statewide.

In April, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) officially classified the wolf population in the Northern Rocky Mountains as a distinct population segment and authorized the delisting of the animals throughout the region except for Wyoming. That state was excluded from the delisting because its wolf-management plan, which would allow unrestricted killing of wolves outside the northwestern part of the state, was not approved by the FWS.

This was the second attempt to remove the Northern Rocky Mountains' population from the ESA. The first, in early 2008, was slated to allow state management, including regulated hunting seasons for the fall 2008 season, before being stopped by a court order (see August 2008 ONB). After the court's decision, the FWS chose to put wolves back on the ESA to re-evaluate the science and allow states to amend their management plans (see October 2008 ONB).

The current decision to delist the animals was contested once again by environmental organizations in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Montana with the same judge who ruled against the hunts in 2008. The groups contended that wolf populations are not adequately recovered and that state management plans would authorize harvest levels that would be too high. This time, however, Judge Donald Molloy refused to grant the injunction, noting that the hunts would not do irreparable harm to the population as a whole. However, Judge Molloy did indicate that the FWS may have broken the law by delisting wolves in all states except for Wyoming, keeping the door open for the species to be put back on the ESA in a later court decision.

"The Service determined that the wolves in the northern Rockies are a distinct population segment. Having done so, the Service cannot delist part of the species below the level of the DPS without running afoul of the clear language of the ESA," Molloy wrote in his decision. ?"Though the record here is incomplete, the earlier delisting case gives rise to an inference that the laudable efforts of the Fish and Wildlife Service resulted in a practical determination that does not seem to be scientifically based?. The Service has distinguished a natural population of wolves based on a political line, not the best available science. That, by definition, seems arbitrary and capricious."

For now, however, the hunts will go on and wolves will remain under state management. ?(jas)