Gray wolves regain endangered-species protections

U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials announced in February that gray wolves would be removed from the endangered species list after what they termed a successful 20-year effort to reestablish the wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Environmentalists sued.

The judge's ruling nullifies plans by Montana, Wyoming and Idaho to hold wolf hunts this fall.

In a strongly worded 40-page order issued late Friday, U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy of Missoula, Mont., called the wolves' delisting arbitrary and capricious, and said it "demonstrated a possibility of irreparable harm" to the species.

The wildlife service "provides no new evidence or research to support its change of course," Molloy wrote. "Congress does not intend agency decision-making to be fickle. When it is, the line separating rationality from arbitrariness and capriciousness is crossed."

The injunction will "ensure the species is not imperiled," reinstating endangered species protections while the case continues to be litigated, the judge wrote.

But his order also will trigger a federal rule that was modified in January to allow the wolves to be killed if they threaten "property." That allows ranchers to shoot wolves when they believe their livestock are at risk.

Wildlife officials said the rule was revised so that states or ranchers could deal with wolves that were affecting livestock if delisting was tied up in court.

That rule is also being challenged in Molloy's court.

Gray wolves once ranged from central Mexico to the Arctic. But by the 1930s, rampant hunting had virtually wiped them out across the American West. In 1974, gray wolves were listed as endangered.

Since then, the federal government has spent about $27 million to revive the wolves' population.

In 1995 and 1996, officials introduced 66 wolves to central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park, aiming to establish a stable population of at least 300 animals. When delisted earlier this year, wolves in the northern Rockies numbered 1,513, the judge wrote. Wildlife service officials say the population is increasing by about 24% a year.