This page is designed using Cascading Style Sheets. You are being shown the raw text because the style sheet has not reached your browser. In order to view the page as intended, you will need to upgrade your browser.

Skip to content

Admissions at Northland

Wolves of Wisconsin and Michigan Back on the Endangered Species List.


Duluth News Tribune

Posted Feb. 2, 2005

BY JOHN MYERS

NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

WILDLIFE: Ruling ends the killing of problem wolves in Wisconsin, postpones state management in Minnesota.

 

A federal judge has ruled the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service went too far in 2003 when it reduced protections for timber wolves across much of the nation.

U.S. District Judge Robert Jones in Portland, Ore., effectively restored most wolves to their endangered status under the federal Endangered Species Act.

And Jones' decision appears to reject the federal government's wolf-management philosophy of dissecting wolf population by region, saying the animals need more time to recover in more areas before their future is put back in the hands of state governments.

Monday's decision was made public Tuesday.

"The judge agreed that it defies logic to say that having two healthy wolf populations in the Midwest and Rocky Mountains is the same as having a fully restored population across their historic range," said attorney Brian O'Neill, who represents Defenders of Wildlife and other environmental groups that were plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Attorneys said the ruling will have an immediate effect on wolf management in Wisconsin and Michigan, ending the killing of problem wolves, and probably will indefinitely stall federal efforts to hand wolf management back to individual states -- including Minnesota.

The ruling also will prevent Rocky Mountain ranchers from shooting wolves they see preying on animals.

In April 2003, the Fish and Wildlife Service upgraded the wolf's status across much of the lower 48 states, saying they effectively had recovered wherever populations were viable.

But the judge disagreed, siding with environmental groups. They contend that healthy wolf populations in the Great Lakes and northern Rocky Mountains don't justify the removal of wolf protections in areas such Maine, Oregon, Washington and other states where they once thrived, but where they haven't yet recovered.

Wolves in Washington state receive less protection under the government's 2003 ruling even though nothing has changed to justify the reduction, Jones wrote in his decision. He said the secretary of the interior "projected the success in Minnesota, for example, to a completely unrelated set of circumstances in Maine."

Although Jones did not disagree that wolves have fully recovered in the Great Lakes region, he struck down the entire ruling. It appears to leave an opening for the government to resubmit the Great Lakes population for reduced protection in the future, although that could take years.

Until then, the ruling will have a profound effect on wolf management in Wisconsin and Michigan where, for the past two years, state and federal wildlife managers have been able to trap and kill problem wolves where they have attacked livestock or pets.

Under Jones' ruling, wolves still could be trapped, but they'd have to be released in other areas and not killed.

The ruling does not affect wolf status in Minnesota, where they have been classified as threatened for more than 20 years. Federal trappers will retain the right to kill more than 100 wolves annually.

But the ruling will affect Minnesota and all other areas where wolves roam. It will delay or even end recent Fish and Wildlife Service efforts to upgrade wolves from threatened and remove them from the endangered species list. The government proposed last year to stop protecting wolves and hand wolf management back to individual states and tribes, including Minnesota.

That process could have been completed later this year but now will probably be on hold.

"It essentially sends them back to the drawing board to start over on how they'll manage wolves," O'Neill said.

That's bad news for Minnesota and Wisconsin livestock producers who had hoped their state's wolf plans would allow more liberal killing near farms.

Yet, there's some uncertainty. Ron Refsnider, a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who helped write the federal wolf plan, said agency lawyers still haven't fully digested the ruling.

"We're studying it. We're not even sure it applies outside of Oregon," he said.

But environmental groups were declaring victory Tuesday, saying the ruling will stop the Bush administration from dropping protections for endangered species until there is sound science to support the move.

"This is a great victory for wolf populations within the United States, as well as for all other endangered species that are currently listed under the (Endangered Species Act) and struggling to make a recovery," said Patricia Lane, senior attorney for the Humane Society of the United States.

 

Review state wolf management plans through the following links:

For more information go to Latest Wolf News.