Red Lodge Clearinghouse

The petition, filed last week under the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, requests that FWS develop a recovery plan for the southern Rocky Mountains -- an expansive region including much of western Colorado, northern New Mexico and south-central Wyoming.

"They have an obligation to restore the species in a significant portion of their range, and they haven't done that yet," said Rob Edward, carnivore recovery director for WildEarth Guardians, noting that wolves occupy only about 5 percent of their former range.

While wolves roam in the Southwest and in the northern Rockies, the southern Rockies continue to be a gap in their historical range, which extended from the Arctic to Mexico.

After being exterminated throughout the West, wolves have been reintroduced to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Wolves are native to Colorado but have not been found in the state since the 1930s, thanks to efforts by ranchers, government agents and others to eradicate the predator.

If the federal government moves forward with a reintroduction plan for Colorado, it will likely face stiff opposition from many ranchers and sheepherders.

But FWS spokeswoman Sharon Rose noted that reintroduction of a species is not something that can be petitioned for. A decision on whether the agency should reintroduce a species typically comes during the development of its recovery plan, and the current recovery plan for wolves calls for maintaining populations in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

"We don't have any plans for reintroduction for wolves," Rose said.

Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the current wolf recovery programs in the Southwest, the Midwest and the northern Rockies satisfy the requirements of the Endangered Species Act. "The existing programs cover all the existing wolf genetics in North America," he said.

Although FWS could introduce wolves in other places, Bangs said such reintroductions would not contribute to the viability of the wolf population, since the remaining habitat for wolves in other parts of the country is more sporadic and in closer proximity to humans, increasing the likelihood of conflicts.

The petition identifies numerous threats to wolf habitat in the region -- including roads on public lands and increased development that could further fragment habitat -- and calls for the government to designate critical habitat for the species in the southern Rockies.

WildEarth Guardians focuses particularly on four areas identified by biologists as excellent habitat for wolves in the region because of their high levels of prey and lack of roads: the Flat Tops in northwestern Colorado, the Grand Mesa-Uncompahgre-Gunnison national forests in western Colorado, the San Juan Mountains and the Weminuche Wilderness in southwestern Colorado, and northern New Mexico's Vermejo Park Ranch and Carson National Forest.

Benefits to elk management

Edward argues that wolves could play a vital role in Colorado, especially by thinning overpopulated elk herds in places like Rocky Mountain National Park, where the elk are damaging native vegetation such as young aspen and willows through intense browsing. Without wolves to keep nature in balance, Edward said, ecosystems are spiraling into ever more degraded conditions.

WildEarth Guardians has also sued the federal government over the Rocky Mountain National Park elk management plan, arguing that the National Park Service should have considered introducing wolves rather than relying on hunters to cull its growing elk herd. Managers at Rocky Mountain National Park have said that the goal of the plan is to get the growing herd of 3,100 animals down to between 1,600 and 2,100 elk (Land Letter, March 27).

Edward noted that the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park has kept elk herds in check. "There is good scientific evidence that wolves have had a profound and permanent positive ecological effect on the abundance of aspen, willow and other riparian area plants," he said.

WildEarth Guardians believes that wolf recovery could be accomplished quickly in the southern Rockies, given that the region supports the largest elk population and one of the largest deer herds in North America.

Edward said that if the Fish and Wildlife Service does not take action before the Bush administration leaves office in January, the group will ask the next administration to consider the petition. "Once the major Cabinet appointments are in place, especially with regard to the Interior Department, we plan to meet with the new Interior secretary and new director of the Fish and Wildlife Service and remind them this petition is in the pipeline, and we will continue to expect them to act in a timely fashion on the petition," Edward said.

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