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State officials say the wolf hunts will not threaten the populations' stability, but environmental groups are fighting to get the species back under federal protection, saying the wolves never should have been delisted.

"We feel that it's premature to hunt wolves at this time," said Lisa Upson, wildlife advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We're close, but we're just not there yet."

Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies were taken off the Endangered Species List in March after the Fish and Wildlife Service deemed that the species was no longer at risk of extinction, and their management was handed back over to state officials, who have set up plans for wolf hunting seasons this fall. The federal wolf recovery plan calls for Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to each maintain a minimum of 10 breeding pairs.

State officials craft kill quotas

Although none of the state's plans have been finalized, they vary greatly in the number of wolves that could be killed. Idaho, which is expecting a wolf population of 1,060 this fall, has set the highest quota, allowing as many as 428 wolves to be killed by hunting or any other means, while Wyoming, with a wolf population of about 350, has set a much more conservative quota of 25 wolves that can be hunted in the northwest part of the state. Montana officials have proposed a 75 wolf quota for the fall hunting season -- about 18 percent of the state's estimated 2007 population of 422 wolves.

Ed Mitchell, conservation information supervisor with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, said his state is well equipped to handle management responsibilities. "We just want to go about our business with the best possible science and to keep and protect the wolves the same way we do with all other big game animals," he said.

Idaho's wolf hunting season will begin Sept. 15 in some parts of the state and Oct. 31 elsewhere and could continue until Dec. 31 or when 428 wolves are killed, Mitchell said.

Montana has taken a more cautious approach with its plan, which is open to public comment through July 18. "Our wolf season strategy going in at this first year is to be very conservative," said Ken McDonald, wildlife division administrator at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

One reason for that is that Montana's wolf management plan calls for a minimum of 15 breeding pairs, which McDonald says provides the state with "a little bit of a cushion."

In Wyoming, the dates of the hunting season are open for public comment, but the quota has been set at 25 wolves in northwestern Wyoming, according to Eric Keszler, a spokesman for the Wyoming Fish and Game Department. Wolves outside the designated areas are managed as predatory animals.

"We're starting conservatively," Keszler said. But he added that wolves need to be managed because they are very prolific and they kill cattle.

Ranchers welcome hunting season

While livestock losses to wolves are minimal to the industry as a whole, losses to individual ranchers can be significant, according to Wyoming's wolf management plan.

Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, said some livestock farmers in the state have had problems since the wolves were reintroduced in the 1990s.

Magagna lost 71 sheep between 2004 and 2005, from what were likely wolf kills, he said. Since then, he has paid a herder to be with the sheep all the time, which has cost him considerably, he said.

Wolves prowling around livestock affected the animals in other ways, too, he said. Some ranchers are being hurt because their animals are scared. Magagna has heard complaints that cattle are huddling together instead of going out to graze.

"A lot of ranchers will welcome others onto their land to go wolf hunting," he said.

Environmentalists say population not fully recovered

But environmentalists say the hunt will hurt the population, and a coalition of environmental groups is suing the Fish and Wildlife Service for delisting the wolves (Land Letter, May 1).

"Our position is that the wolves haven't yet recovered in the Northern Rockies," said Upson with the NRDC, one of the groups suing FWS.

The groups have also filed for a preliminary injunction to reinstate endangered species protections for the wolves in the meantime, said Craig Noble, a spokesman for the NRDC.

The group says the federal government's standard for a regional population of 1,500 wolves is too low, and a population between 2,000 and 5,000 is necessary to ensure the wolf's long-term viability.

"If we had a recovered population, we would not be opposed to hunting," Upson said.

Mitchell of the Idaho Fish and Game Department disagreed. "The folks who are unhappy about the states having wolf hunts are unhappy with the whole philosophy of wolf hunts," he said.

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