CHEYENNE — One of the five scientists retained by a federal contractor to review Wyoming’s proposed wolf management plan states in a recently released report that he sees shortcomings with it.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week released a peer review of Wyoming’s management plan for the gray wolf. The report follows last summer’s agreement between Gov. Matt Mead and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to end federal protections for wolves in Wyoming.
Their deal, which still needs approval from the state Legislature, calls for the state to maintain at least 10 breeding pairs and 100 wolves outside Yellowstone National Park. Wolves would be protected as trophy game animals in northwestern Wyoming in a flexible area outside the park but classified as predators that could be shot on sight elsewhere.
Wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone and other areas in the mid-1990s. The wolf population in the Northern Rockies has rebounded since then to more than 1,600 animals, including more than 300 in Wyoming.
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