SAVING THE NORTHERN ROCKY MOUNTAINS GRAY WOLF

Thanks mostly to federal predator control and conflicts with the livestock industry, the gray wolf was extirpated from the West by 1945. Today, after centuries of fear and superstition, research has given the wolf a new image as a social creature with an indispensible role in ecosystems — and Endangered Species Act protection has given it a new chance to thrive. Unfortunately, the beautiful carnivore is still persecuted by federal predator control and poachers, and wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains have a long way to go before recovery.

The worst blow to northern Rockies wolves came in February 2008, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would completely remove their federal protections, leaving wolf management to individual states that refused to take the animal’s conservation seriously. Immediately after the announcement took effect, wolves began falling victim to bullets — so a coalition of groups, including the Center, filed suit. In July, after more than 100 northern Rockies wolves had already been indiscriminately shot, a federal judge restored the wolves to the endangered species list pending resolution of the Center’s suit — and in September, the Service withdrew from the suit altogether. Unfortunately, the administration renewed its attack on northern Rockies wolves little more than a month later, again proposing to delist the predators.

Even before the 2008 delisting, northern Rockies wolves had no easy time. In 2003, the Fish and Wildlife Service prematurely demoted them from endangered to threatened Endangered Species Act status, sparking a suit by the Center and allies, which ultimately won back the wolves’ rightful endangered standing. The Center has also forced the U.S. Department of Agriculture to agree to assess the environmental effects of a sheep-grazing station near Yellowstone National Park, which threatens wolves’ ability to successfully migrate between the Park and central Idaho; such migration is vital to ending the genetic isolation of Yellowstone wolves.