Federal rule to allow more hunting of gray wolves

The rule issued Thursday relies on a revision of endangered-species regulations that allows lethal force against "nonessential experimental populations" like the gray wolf under certain circumstances. The section was created as a compromise with ranchers who were worried about a growing wolf population preying on livestock. Thursday's revision was the third change to the gray-wolf-reintroduction rule since it was written in 1994.

Currently, gray wolves cannot be killed unless they are preying on livestock or on a dog on private property, or are the main culprit behind dwindling populations of animals such as deer, elk and moose.

The rule change issued Thursday would ease the burden of proof to justify a wolf kill. State agencies would only need to show that wolf predation had been one factor among others for a decreasing population of ungulates, such as elk, deer or moose. A wolf threatening a dog also could be killed. None of the rule provisions apply to wolves within national parks or outside central Idaho and the greater Yellowstone area.

A state agency that wants to kill wolves preying on ungulate populations would have to file a lengthy wolf management plan with Fish and Wildlife. Officials in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana said they had no immediate plan to do so.

"The state of Idaho is more interested in delisting than in changes to [this] rule, which is kind of a stopgap, or an interim measure . . . should delisting be delayed," said Steve Nadeau, an Idaho Fish and Game official who oversees the state's wolf program. "We have no plan to use [the rule] unless wolves are not delisted anytime soon."

The new rule is scheduled to take effect in about a month, around the time the delisting decision is to be announced.

Bangs, who helped lead the reintroduction of gray wolves when the tri-state area had about 10 wolves, said that most elk and other hoofed big-game animal populations were not greatly affected by wolves and that more wolves -- about 150 annually -- probably would be killed for preying on livestock.

"This is absolutely not a get-out-of-jail-free card for wolf killing," Bangs said. "This is a highly structured scientific-based process to address real problems. . . . It won't change the [overall] number of wolves, but it will change distribution and in a few areas the number of wolves."

Last January, Republican Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter incensed environmentalists when he told a group of hunters on the Idaho statehouse steps that he wanted to be the first to sign up to kill wolves once they were delisted.

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tami.abdollah@latimes.com