In a move that has caught conservationists off guard, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week that it is reopening the public comment period on its proposal to remove the gray wolf in the northern Rocky Mountains from the endangered species list.
The move appears to be a renewed effort to remove federal protections for wolves in the region after a previous decision to do so was overturned in court.
According to a Fish and Wildlife Service news release, the public will have until Nov. 28 to submit their comments on the plan. Comments can be sent to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov or by U.S. mail to: Public Comments Processing, Attn: RIN 1018-Au53, Division of Policy and Directives Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 4401 N. Fairfax Dr., Suite 222, Arlington, VA 22203.
Through a notice in the U.S. Federal Register scheduled for publication this week, the Fish and Wildlife Service is asking the public to provide comments and any additional information on the original 2007 proposal to delist wolves. The agency is seeking additional information on a variety of topics related to the delisting.
More details are available in the Federal Register notice, posted along with associated materials at the Fish and Wildlife Service's northern Rocky Mountains wolf Web site at http://westerngraywolf.fws.gov.
On July 18, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula issued an order immediately reinstating Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains. In particular, Molloy said the Fish and Wildlife Service acted arbitrarily in delisting the wolf despite a lack of evidence of genetic exchange between sub-populations in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. On Oct. 13, the court granted a request by the Fish and Wildlife Service to remand the final delisting rule back to it.
In a news release from Defenders of Wildlife, the group's president claims the agency is trying to push the delisting rule through before the Bush administration leaves office in January.
"Rushing to ram this flawed and repackaged rule does not give the Fish and Wildlife Service time to address the flaws underscored by the court when it rebuked the agency earlier this year," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife. "The Fish and Wildlife Service is merely repackaging a severely flawed rule instead of taking a fresh look at the management of wolves in the region."
At this time, the northern Rocky Mountain population of gray wolves remains under the protection of the ESA in all of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, as well as in eastern Washington and Oregon and parts of north-central Utah. Management of the northern Rocky Mountain population of gray wolves is now governed by the same ESA protections in place before wolves were delisted earlier on March 28 of this year.
"The service is committed to ensuring that wolves thrive in the northern Rocky Mountains and will continue to work with the states and the public to advance the recovery of the species," said Steve Guertin, regional director for the agency's Mountain-Prairie Region.
According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, the minimum recovery goal for wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains is 30 breeding pairs and at least 300 wolves for three consecutive years, which was attained in 2002 and has been exceeded every year since. Gray wolves were previously listed as endangered in the lower 48 states, except in Minnesota, where they were listed as threatened.
Wolves in the Midwest were delisted in early 2007, but that decision was also reversed in court earlier this month.
