The federal government made it official Monday: Gray wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan have bounced back so successfully from the brink of extinction that they no longer need the protection of the endangered species list.
In announcing the "de-listing" of the wolves, Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett called the move "a major success story for conservation achieved under the Endangered Species Act. ... We have saved this icon of the wilderness. We recognize the comeback of the wolf."
Although the move by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a symbolic milestone environmentally, it does little more than shift responsibility for wolf management from the federal government to the states. And it would be at least five years, if ever, before Minnesota would consider allowing wolves to be hunted.
Also Monday, federal officials announced plans to begin the process of de-listing gray wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.
International wolf expert L. David Mech called the decision on the Upper Midwest wolves "a big conservation victory to be able to announce that the gray wolf is no longer in danger of extinction."
Removing a plant or animal from the endangered species list has been an exceptionally rare event. Before Monday, in the 33-year history of the list, only 16 species had recovered enough to be removed, most notably the peregrine falcon and the American alligator.
But few animals have attained the mythic stature of the wolf. They have been venerated as symbols of unspoiled wilderness and reviled as bloodthirsty predators.
By the early 1900s, a combination of habitat loss, dwindling prey and bounty hunting had reduced the population of wolves in the Lower 48 states to a few hundred in far northern Minnesota and a handful on Isle Royale in Lake Superior.
When the wolf was classified an endangered species in 1974, Minnesota's population had dipped as low as 350. By the time it was considered merely "threatened" in 1978, the population had rebounded to 1,200 and federal officials set a target of as many as 1,400 by 2000.
That goal turned out to be modest. Minnesota now has 3,020 wolves, mostly in the northern part of the state, living in about 485 packs. And as the Minnesota wolves thrived, they also migrated into Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where nearly 1,000 more live.
"The recovery has been far more than was required for biological survival," Mech said. "Everyone agrees we have enough wolves now."
Walter Medwid, executive director of the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minn., said removing wolves from the protection of the endangered species list "means that the pendulum has swung from destroying all wolves to protecting all wolves. Now we're at a crossroads where citizens will have to find the right balance for wolves in the years to come."
Once de-listing actually occurs, 30 days after the decision is published in the Federal Register, responsibility for managing wolf populations will transfer from federal agencies to the three states.
"We're well-prepared for this because we anticipated it happening years ago," said Mike DonCarlos, wildlife research and policy manager for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). "It's been frustrating because it was a long time coming. There were a lot of disputes because of the huge public interest in wolf management."
The de-listing decision took several years to accomplish "because we worked as hard as we could to get everyone on the same page," said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall. "We don't have a long history of de-listing species, and we've been learning as we go."
When the DNR takes over the job of wolf management, it will do so under a detailed management plan created in 2001 that follows a legal framework approved by legislators a year earlier.
The state's plan is designed to protect wolves, monitor their numbers and health while attempting to minimize potential harm to livestock, which remains a flashpoint across northern Minnesota.
Now that the wolves in the Upper Midwest have rebounded so well, "we believe the management of the wolf population is best accomplished by the states," said Interior's Scarlett. Balancing the coexistence of wolves and people "is a difficult balancing act," she said.
Government trappers caught and killed 134 wolves in Minnesota in 2005 in response to 83 verified complaints of livestock predation, according to federal officials.
That selective program will continue and it will remain illegal to kill a wolf, a gross misdemeanor that carries a penalty of up to a $3,000 fine and a year in jail, DonCarlos said.
During the first five years of state management, coinciding with continued federal monitoring of the state's wolf population, hunting and trapping the animals will remain against the law.
After that, it will be up to the DNR commissioner to decide whether to allow hunting and trapping.Minneapolis Star Tribune
