Recent estimates indicate Minnesota’s wolf population is nearly 3,000 strong. This healthy looking wolf was spotted in the Lutsen area in February 2011.
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar announced this week that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will remove the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act list in Minnesota and the western Great Lakes states. The announcement comes after Klobuchar worked extensively with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to ensure that wolves would be delisted by the end of 2011.
“Removing the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act list and returning wolf management to the states will help restore balance to our natural habitats, while keeping Minnesota’s livestock, pets and residents safe,” Klobuchar said. “I worked closely with Secretary Salazar to secure this much-needed delistment, and today’s announcement is great news for Minnesota ranchers and rural residents.”
Klobuchar, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, has been a leader in the effort to immediately delist the Great Lakes gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act list in Minnesota and the western Great Lakes states. She worked with U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to speed up the delisting process and received a commitment from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that a final ruling to delist will be made before the end of 2011. When it became clear that funding for the federal Wolf Predation Management Program would expire September 30, Klobuchar worked closely with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to find funding for the program until the end of the year.
Recent estimates indicate Minnesota’s wolf population is nearly 3,000 strong – approximately double the threshold required under the Endangered Species Act to ensure long-term survival. In 2010, the Department of Agriculture removed 192 problem wolves that were responsible for the deaths of nearly 100 cows and sheep and 15 dogs.
The federal government has twice before delisted the gray wolf in Minnesota and the western Great Lakes from federal protection. In both instances these decisions were overturned in federal court due to legal challenges relating to procedural processes unrelated to wolf conservation management.
The state will assume management just as federal funding ends for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) wolf depredation program in Minnesota, which traps and kills gray wolves on farms where wolf depredation occurs. Under that program, 150 – 200 wolves causing damage to domestic animals were removed annually.
Under state management, owners of domestic animals will have more authority to control wolves themselves and the state will also offer the services of certified private predator controllers. The degree to which a level of government wolf control similar to that previously administered by USDA Wildlife Services could be continued is an issue that will require additional discussion among state agriculture officials, livestock producers, state lawmakers and the DNR.
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