In another blow to the wolf, the secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar, said Thursday that he had struck a deal with Gov. Matt Mead of Wyoming to take the state’s wolves off the endangered species list and out from under federal protection. Wyoming has long agitated to have the wolves delisted so that hunting could be broadened under state regulations.
Agence France-Presse— Getty ImagesThe gray wolf.
In April, wolves became the first animal in the country to be delisted through legislative action when Congress attached a rider to a budget bill removing federal protection from wolves in the states of Montana and Idaho.
The deal negotiated with Wyoming, announced at a joint news conference, requires the state to maintain 100 wolves and 10 breeding pairs outside Yellowstone Park. But as of the end of 2010, there were only 230 wolves outside national parks. So the accord will essentially allow the state to cut the population outside parks by more than half, environmentalists say.
The deal is still subject to negotiation and public comment in the fall.
The Casper Star Tribune reported that the meeting between Mr. Salazar and the governor was the price of getting
Senator John Barasso, a Wyoming Republican, to lift his long hold on the appointment of Daniel M. Ashe as the new director of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. The appointment was confirmed last week.
Michael Robinson, conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, said his group was not only worried about the imminent slaughter of many wolves but about long-term
repercussions as well. “We are worried that not only will wolves’ numbers be drastically cut but that the Yellowstone wolves will become isolated and subject to inbreeding, decline and extinction,”
he said.
Mexican wolves in the Southwest and gray wolves in the Great Lakes states are still protected by the Endangered Species Act.
An earlier headline with this post misidentified the state in which wolves just lost some protections. It is Wyoming, not Montana.
The headline on an earlier version of this post referred incorrectly to the state affected. It is Wyoming, not Montana.
An earlier version of this post incorrectly said that the deal to lift the wolves' protection was the price paid by the Interior Department to get Senator John Barasso to lift his hold on the appointment of a new head of the Fish and Wildlife Service. In fact, it was the meeting between Mr. Salazar and Wyoming's governor that was demanded by Senator Barasso as a condition of his lifting of the hold.