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Part one of a two-part series. Next week: positions of different conservation and sportsmen’s groups – Eds.


A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official answered allegations from hunters and outfitters Tuesday by acknowledging that the agency has changed the goal for wolf recovery in the northern Rocky Mountains to keep up with the best available science.

The statement from Ed Bangs, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s wolf recovery coordinator, comes before U.S. District Judge from Montana Donald Molloy is scheduled to hear arguments June 15 in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups over taking wolves off the Endangered Species List.

U.S. District Judge Allen Johnson in Cheyenne is presiding over another wolf delisting case brought by the state of Wyoming.

Fish and Wildlife Service biologists are required to change recovery goals for endangered species when necessary, Bangs said in a telephone interview from his office in Helena, Mont.

“The bottom line is, by law, the Fish and Wildlife Service is required to use the best available science,” he said. “We’re mandated if there’s new information that indicates the recovery goal should be lower or higher to look at that.

“If you don’t [change goals based on current science] you automatically will lose if it’s challenged [in court],” Bangs said. “There’s been a ton of research. We’re constantly reviewing the literature.”

Under the Endangered Species Act, a species that is in trouble can be restored and removed from federal protection once biological criteria are met. Sixty-six wolves were transplanted from Canada to Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in 1995 and 1996.

The recovery goal has changed several times since the original 1987 proposal for a total of 30 breeding pairs in three locations in the northern Rocky Mountains – central Idaho, Greater Yellowstone and northwest Montana. Those changes include a more stringent definition of a breeding pair and a buffer, implemented by Bangs, that requires 15 breeding pairs and 150 wolves in each of the three states to ensure that populations don’t fall below the recovery goal of 30 breeding pairs and 300 wolves in the entire region.

Today there are an estimated 1,702 wolves in 242 wolf packs and 115 breeding pairs in the central Idaho and Greater Yellowstone areas and in northern Montana, where they recolonized naturally.

Boundaries have also changed. In Greater Yellowstone, for instance, wolves were originally going to be confined to Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and adjacent wilderness areas. That area has since expanded into public and private lands in the three states to provide increased habitat and chances for genetic exchange among different populations.

“Clearly the ’87 goal ... is not defensible,” Bangs said. “I recognized this the moment I got here.”

As the science around wolf populations evolved, Bangs said, the rhetoric over the wolf issue has fixated on 30 breeding pairs and 300 wolves. However, those numbers are a biological tool, not a hard and fast number.

For instance, some research shows that an average of 14 wolves exist for every breeding pair, a reality that would dictate more wolves in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho than the 300 outlined in the original recovery plan.

“It’s true, 300 wolves were not enough,” Bangs said. “I’m sorry that it’s reduced to these sound bites: ‘They promised only 100 wolves per state.’ That’s not true. Actually, the recovery goal is a pretty complex thing, and it’s based on the current science.”

Pro-wolf conservation groups aren’t immune to the rhetoric over the wolf recovery goal, Bangs said.

“People will argue that the recovery goal should be higher,” he said. “That’s a moral judgement. A population of 45 breeding pairs and 450 wolves will never be threatened. The recovery goal is a population that will never be threatened again. Some people confuse that with ‘I want more wolves around’ or ‘I want fewer wolves around.’”

Bangs said state wildlife managers also must make adjustments when managing any species.

“That’s why we do wildlife research: to improve management,” he said. “That kind of updating of science is why you have biologists and why we have research.”

“It’s true the recovery goal has changed,” he said. “They’re relatively minor tweaks, but they’re significant biologically.”

Bob Wharff, Wyoming executive director for Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, a group that advocates hunting wolves, said the changing recovery goal is “one of the big sticking points with our group.”

“The goalposts continue to move,” he said. “It appeared to me that everyone agreed to specific terms.”

Wharff said those specific terms included a 1994 environmental document that assessed the social and economic impacts of the wolf reintroduction based on the early recovery goals. Since then, the recovery goals have changed, and his group has argued for a new environmental document to address the increased economic impact to outfitters and ranchers.

“We now have outfitters who have gone out of business,” he said. “[Wolves] recovered in 2002. Here it is 2010 and we still can’t get wolves managed under Wyoming’s state plan, which the Fish and Wildlife Service originally supported.”

“Things have changed dramatically,” he said. “We even moved the trophy line to get our plan approved. The state cooperated. The state did everything we were told. It’s our citizens that are paying that price.”

Wharff largely blames environmental groups.

“There was an agreement,” he said. “Environmental groups, they’re the ones who agreed to 300 wolves as a minimum, and now they’re saying anywhere from 5,000 to 6,000 wolves. That’s not sustainable.”

B.J. Hill, an outfitter who has organized rallies to promote hunting wolves, agreed.

“That’s how we’ve all felt,” he said of Wharff’s comments. “The feds accepted [the Wyoming wolf management] plan when we first introduced it to them. Then the environmental groups came along with their pressure. I think if they had stayed out of it, we’d be hunting wolves. We’ve got to get this thing fixed,  because the resources are getting worked over.”

Suzanne Stone, northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife, said the Fish and Wildlife Service originally underestimated how many wolves it would take to recover the population, but she said those early estimates weren’t too far off.

She pointed out that those who reviewed the delisting rule didn’t focus on numbers as the sole measure of recovery.

“They weren’t concerned so much about numbers as they were connectivity between the populations,” she said. “There’s no magic number. But the current delisting rule and state polices allow for numbers so low that they’re completely incompatible with maintaining a healthy wolf population over the long term. Those states want to treat the wolf recovery goal as a cap rather than the bare minimum.”

Stone said the latest research shows the need for a three-state connected wolf population that consists of at least 2,000 animals, a few more than today’s  population.

“Our concern isn’t what’s happening right now, it’s what happens after delisting and the states begin managing for their own population objectives,” she said. “[Bangs said the ESA is supposed to be like an ambulance ride, and the states are supposed to be the hospital. [Protection of the population] was supposed to be taken on with more vigor because the states were better equipped, but that’s not what’s happened.”