Blue Planet: Welcoming back the wolves

When the Bush administration published a new rule on April 1 reclassifying the North American gray wolf as a "threatened" species instead of "endangered," it was a triumph for conservation.

As a clue to the administration's future policies on species protection and biodiversity, the rulemaking sends a decidedly mixed message. What "downlisting" Canis lupus -- as the uneuphonious-sounding action is called -- does accomplish, however, is helping to define a serious argument that remains about the purpose of the federal Endangered Species Act.

The gray wolf was hunted almost to extinction in the lower 48 states by the 1930s, primarily because it was a threat to livestock. The animal managed to retain a few lonely outposts -- on Isle Royale in Lake Superior, and in and around Glacier National Park. But throughout most of the rest of its range, the wolf was eliminated.

As recently as 1985, the Glacier Park pack remained the only population of wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains. The pack numbered 13 wolves. In 1986, there was the first known denning of a wolf pack in the northern Rockies in well-more than 50 years.

Then, in 1995, after a lengthy controversy, wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park, followed by a second reintroduction nearby in Idaho. Now, only seven years later, the population has grown to at least 433 wolves in the northern Rockies, and there are probably more than 500 -- perhaps a 38-fold increase.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, gray wolf numbers in the western Great Lakes -- estimated at more than 2,445 in Minnesota, 323 in Wisconsin and 278 in Michigan -- have climbed beyond recovery goals for wolves in the eastern United States.

"The bottom line is that it has been a great success. Wolves have taken to the northern Rockies very well, and it is quite an inspiration," David Gaillard, forest predator program associate at the Predator Conservation Alliance in Bozeman, Mont., told UPI's Blue Planet. "The unfortunate thing is that there are other areas where wolves belong, and this latest rule might close the door prematurely to some of those areas."

Hank Fischer, a Montana environmentalist who used to work for Defenders of Wildlife, worked for two decades on the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction program. He also wrote a book about wolves.

"The trick to wolf restoration," Fischer explained, "is that this is an enormously resilient animal -- it almost restores itself if you provide the habitat."

Yet not everyone is happy about the downlisting.

Defenders of Wildlife has notified the FWS that it will file a lawsuit against the action. The reason: the organization maintains downlisting would limit wolf recovery to a few regions, closing it off in other areas that might also be suitable for wolves -- the Maine woods, for instance, or the forests of the Pacific Northwest.

"The important thing is to view this rule in the larger context. This rule is clearly the first step toward this administration's plan to remove all legal protections throughout the vast majority of (the wolf's) historical range," Defenders attorney Mike Senatore told UPI.

"The same day the reclassification rule came out, (the administration) issued two additional notices to move to delisting (removing from the threatened list as well) in basically the two largest distinct population segments -- the eastern and western," Senatore said. The administration, he added, wants to delist wolves from Maine to California, when they have been re-established in only a few areas. "This is simply the first step," he said.

The Defenders position points out an important debate in the interpretation of the Endangered Species Act. Does it require only that a species be saved from extinction, or must it be restored to all of its former habitat?

The government's clear position is the ESA only requires protecting species from extinction.

"Our position is that wolves are doing great in the northern Rockies, and that's where our responsibility ends," Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the FWS, told UPI. "We are not promoting expansion. There are plenty of places where wolves could live. That's not our job."

The ESA, Bangs said, requires the agency to protect animals from extinction. In the case of the gray wolf, they've done that. If there are going to be wolves in "northern Colorado, northern Utah, it isn't a federal responsibility?" he continued.

"Under the ESA we have done our job," Bangs said. "We don't have the legal authority or mandate to start other recovery programs ... the Endangered Species Act worked for what we were supposed to do."

One long-time environmental activist, who asked not to be identified, said although the Defenders of Wildlife might be unhappy about the downlisting, the Bush administration's fingerprints are not on this decision. She noted the rule was first proposed by the Clinton administration.

"A lot of people want to politicize these things," she told UPI. "I think that stuff is bogus. It doesn't have anything to do with the administration."

Hank Fischer said, "It is hard for environmental organizations to switch out of one mode and into another."

If the wolf is delisted entirely from the ESA, management of the predator will be turned over to state wildlife agencies in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, Fischer explained. "There is an awful lot of distrust out there with state wildlife agencies, and the states always provide reasons for them to be skeptical," he said.

However, he added, "The future of wolf restoration has a lot more to do with state governments. Environmentalists are going to have to (work more) with states and private landowners ... We have to wave good-bye to the ESA protections for wolves and shift into a different game. They don't use the ESA to increase elk populations, and they are quite successful at it."

Environmental groups too often are cavalier about the problems wolves can cause for livestock ranchers and other landowners. Yet these people, like it or not, own most of the available wolf habitat. If environmentalists are serious about dispersing wolf populations, they are going to have to persuade the landowners to welcome the animals.

One possibility is to repeat what was done when the wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone. Then, the Defenders of Wildlife established a privatedly funded compensation bank to pay ranchers who lost livestock to wolves.

"I think it's likely we're going to have wolves up and down the Rockies in 20 to 25 years," Fischer said, "but a lot will depend on how successful we are at making them welcome."