The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Friday that it’s reopening the public comment period on its proposal to remove gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains from the list of animals protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The proposal is similar to one that was expected to be rejected by a federal judge earlier this year. However, the new request for comments is putting more emphasis on issues raised by U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula, including maintaining federal protection for wolves in the state of Wyoming.

“We’re still offering the same two options; one is delisting the whole Rocky Mountain DPS (distinct population segment) and the other is delisting it except in Wyoming,” Ed Bangs, who handled the reintroduction of wolves for the USFWS, said on Friday. “This is like the 2007 proposal, plus we’re providing a lot of new information on our Web site and asking people to specifically look at what the judge was interested in — genetics and Wyoming.”

Conservation groups said the newest proposal still doesn’t address what they see as a fundamental problem for delisting the wolves in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and portions of Utah, Oregon and Washington.

“The bottom line is that there simply are not enough wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains to justify delisting this population yet,” said Louisa Willcox, senior wildlife advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It’s frustrating to be so close to sustainable wolf populations in the region and to have the Bush Administration try to rush a slipshod delisting proposal through before it leaves office.

“It reverses course in yet another attempt to undo one of the great conservation success stories.”

But Carolyn Sime, wolf coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said it’s important to get the delisting back on track so states can manage wolves as needed. She was clearly frustrated at attempts to tie the delisting to the Bush Administration.

“We’ve always had a commitment to protect this species; that doesn’t mean that wolves will not die or that we don’t intend to include a public harvest as a management plan,” Sime said. “Politicizing this is dismissing the sincerity of Montanans to do the right thing.”

On Friday, FWP issued a press release Friday saying that wolves killed 16 domestic sheep and a calf in separate incidents near Dillon; three domestic cows near Wisdom; and two domestic goats and one guard dog near Helena, in the past two weeks.

FWP, which is managing wolves in Montana under an agreement with the federal government, authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services to shoot some of the wolves that attacked the domestic livestock, and to collar other members of the packs.

They collar the animals to try to get a better idea of a pack’s movement. The state authorized killing a wolf in almost each of the recent cases for what’s typically one of two reasons — either to reduce the pack’s size or to instill a fear of humans.

“The collars help us understand how many wolves are in a pack and where they’re going,” Sime said. “With lethal control, we try to get the problem animals. We’re focusing our efforts where damage is occurring.”

Wolves were listed in the Endangered Species Act in 1973 after being hunted to near extinction in the lower 48 states. But reintroduction and recovery work started in 1995 have increased their population to upward of 1,500 wolves in the northern Rockies.

Montana’s management plan calls for a minimum population of 100 wolves with at least 15 breeding pairs, and the state currently has about triple that number.

Last February, U.S. Fish, Wildlife and Parks announced plans to remove gray wolves from federal protection, and Montana and other states were poised to institute a hunting season this fall. But 12 conservation groups filed a lawsuit protesting the move, saying it was premature, and in July, Molloy granted a temporary injunction, stating that the management plans would irreparably harm the wolves’ reintroduction.

Specifically, Molloy said he feared that low genetic diversity, brought on by a lack of connection among various wolf packs, would lead to inbreeding that would diminish reproduction. He also took umbrage with Wyoming’s management plan, noting that in half the state, wolves generally would be able to be shot on sight. Molloy noted that the USFWS approved Wyoming’s wolf management plan in 2007, but it suffered from the same deficiencies as a plan rejected by the federal government in 2003.

In September, the USFWS asked Molloy to vacate and remand the final delisting rule back to the federal government for additional consideration, which the judge did on Oct. 13. At this point, the wolves remain protected by the Endangered Species Act.

According to Bangs the 283,000 comments submitted during the initial comment period last February will be reconsidered and don’t need to be resubmitted.

What they are seeking comment on is:

• whether recovery goals should be revised to clarify that the genetic exchange can be satisfied with natural migration or managed genetic exchange;

• what additional protections, management or regulatory mechanisms might be needed to ensure that genetic exchange;

• what portions of Wyoming should be managed as a trophy game area, and how the state should manage wolves in those areas;

• whether existing state regulatory mechanisms are adequate;

• if Wyoming should be eliminated from delisting;

• and how hunting seasons might impact wolf populations.

More information is available online at at http://westerngraywolf.fws.gov.

The public has until Nov. 28 to submit their comments to the Federal Rulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov or via U.S. mail: Public Comments Processing, Attn: RIN 1018-Au53; Division of Policy and Directives Management; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; 4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 222; Arlington, VA 22203.

On the Web

Click here for more information on gray wolves.

Reporter Eve Byron: 447-4076 or eve.byron@helenair.com