SEATTLE — The gray wolf, virtually exterminated in the West in the early 20th century, will be hunted once again in Idaho beginning today after a successful reintroduction program saw populations of the predator bloom across much of the northern Rocky Mountains.
Though a federal judge has been asked to intervene, new state laws call for wolf hunts to begin today in two parts of Idaho, followed by hunts in much of the rest of the state and in Montana later this month.
Protected under the federal Endangered Species Act since 1973, when they were nearly extinct in the continental United States, wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park and parts of Idaho in the 1990s and have since formed a large number of hunting and breeding packs that are beginning to range as far as Oregon.
The federal government concluded that the wolves, which now number about 1,650, had recovered, and lifted the endangered-species protections this year.
A coalition of environmental groups went to court Monday in Missoula, Mont., to ask U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy to block the hunts, arguing that allowing them to go forward could threaten the wolves' survival by eliminating key connecting corridors among the various populations in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
"We had expected at this point to be celebrating the recovery of the gray wolf in the northern Rockies. Instead, after decades of recovery efforts, tremendous support and investment from the American public . . . and one of the most successful wildlife restorations in history, the future of the gray wolf in the Rocky Mountains is once again in jeopardy," Suzanne Stone, northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife, one of the plaintiff groups, said in a statement.
The judge did not say after Monday's hearing whether or when he would act, and unless he does, the hunt proceeds as planned, said Ed Mitchell, spokesman for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
"It will be legal to hunt in two of our 12 zones," Mitchell said, referring to the mountainous Sawtooth region west of Sun Valley and the rugged wilderness of northern Idaho near the Montana border.
As of midday Monday, the state had sold more than 10,700 tags to hunters.
The hunt allows the harvest of up to 220 wolves in Idaho and up to 75 in Montana from now until the end of the year. In areas where deer and elk populations are particularly threatened by wolves, some hunting is to extend through March 31.
