Rocky Mountain states plan open-season hunt in effort to reduce wolf population

Government biologists claim the wolf population has grown so fast in the region that the choice now is between livestock and wolves

The wolves have been taken off an endangered species list, writes SUZANNE GOLDENBERG in Washington

A CLASH of civilisations as old as the colonisation of the American west – wolves versus humans – has entered a new, more violent phase as two Rocky Mountain states have moved to allow the first open hunt in years of an animal once driven to extinction in the area.

Montana and Idaho are going ahead with plans for an open- season hunt against wolves in September, in which licensed members of the public can take part. The decisions follow a ruling this year by the Obama administration, criticised by environmentalists, to remove wolves from the list of endangered species in the Rocky Mountain states. US interior secretary Ken Salazar was endorsing a decision made under the Bush administration.

Montana wildlife commissioners voted this week to allow hunters to kill about 75 wolves, amounting to about one-sixth of the state’s population. Officials in Idaho are this month to decide their quota, but earlier proposals called for 250 wolves.

Federal and state government biologists claim the wolf population in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho has grown so rapidly since reintroduction to the region in the mid-1990s that the choice now is between pets and livestock, and wolves.

Ed Bangs, the wolf recovery co-ordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, said there were now about 1,650 wolves in the three states.

Critics say the US government based its hunt decision on science that is decades out of date, heedless of protecting genetic diversity. They stress the danger of inbreeding if populations dwindle too much or if wolves survive only in isolated pockets.

Michael Robinson, a conservationist for the US Centre for Biological Diversity, said the recovery plan for the wolves of the Rocky Mountain states, which dated from the 1980s, planned for only about 10 breeding pairs for each state.

“That is completely inadequate to avoid inbreeding and fatal genetic defects,” he said, adding that the US government already had measures to protect humans from wolves and selective hunting was permitted where ranchers claimed risk to their animals.

Government wildlife officials killed 265 wolves in the Rockies last year, including 21 entire wolf packs, Mr Bangs said. – (Guardian service)