The federal government has killed about 40 endangered wolves in northwestern Montana since the wolf recovery program began in 1987. Environmentalists say that number is far too high. Recently the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Humane Society of the United States, A Hunter's Voice and the Center for Biological Diversity submitted a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services division. The letter details how the agencies have violated the Endangered Species Act by killing dozens of wolves over the past decade in response to livestock predation. The letter followed the federal government's recent proposal to down list wolves throughout the United States, including a motion to reclassify wolves in Montana from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Conservation groups say it is far too early to consider reclassification.
But Ed Bangs, the Wildlife Service's wolf recovery coordinator for the northern Rockies, said the wolf recovery program has been a success. The fact is that when large predators live around people and livestock there are going to be problems. Those problems are only a fraction of what we thought they would be. This year one wolf has been killed and two calves and three sheep have been lost to predation. Conservation groups claim that the agencies do not give enough consideration to non-lethal alternatives when wolves prey on livestock as required by the National Environmental Policy Act.