PREDATORS -- Five conservation groups filed a petition Tuesday requesting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to continue monitoring northern Rocky Mountains gray wolves for another five years.
The existing monitoring program, which is required by the Endangered Species Act after protections are removed for a species, is set to expire in May.
Wildlife managers have said wolves have recovered -- one of the success stories of the Endangered Species Act -- and there's little reason to spend millions of dollars to continue monitoring.
The groups say in a media release that they based their request in part on a new study in the journal Science that found the Fish and Wildlife Service and states of Montana and Idaho have underestimated the impacts and risks of aggressive hunting policies for gray wolves instituted since protections were lifted.
Since federal safeguards were first removed in 2009, more than 2,300 wolves have been killed by hunters or trappers in the two states. However, state officials say wolf numbers are healthy and still far above minimums set before the mid-1990s reintroductions of wolves to Yellowstone and central Idaho.
However, Andrea Santarsiere, staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity said wolf hunting is harming the gray wolf population in the northern Rockies. "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service clearly needs to continue to keep an eye on this situation,” she said, adding:
In first removing Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in 2009, the Fish and Wildlife Service said that the required post-delisting monitoring period would be extended for an additional five years if any one of three criteria are met. One criterion requires an extension if a significant change in state law or management would significantly increase threats to the wolf population. Both Idaho and Montana have repeatedly increased hunting and trapping quotas in an effort to substantially reduce wolf populations, which according to the new study are almost certainly resulting in population declines.
State wildlife managers readily point out that wolf numbers have declined in Montana and Idaho in the past few years because they've been working to reduce what they consider higher than desired numbers of the predators.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the wolf population has stayed relatively constant despite hunting, a claim questioned by the petitioning groups. In the release they say:
"Among other problems, Montana has changed its counting methodology after delisting, and Idaho continues to rely on a convoluted mathematical equation that is likely to overestimate the wolf population, making it difficult to accurately determine population trends.
The petitioning groups include The Center for Biological Diversity, Cascadia Wildlands, Friends of the Clearwater, Western Watersheds Project and The WildWest Institute.
