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For Keller and others, there's a way to fight back. In order to make the reintroduction project palatable to ranchers, advocates made a key concession. Though all gray wolves in the U.S. are officially listed as endangered, the transplanted wolves are considered an "experimental" population. It's an important distinction; while endangered wolves are protected under almost all circumstances, wolves in experimental populations enjoy protection only as long as they don't present a threat to livestock. Under this definition, the Yellowstone wolves live their lives in a state of permanent probation, safe only as long as they mind their business and stay in their range. Wolves that go AWOL and attack domestic animals can be shot as summarily as their ancestors were.
This provision was always the wolf project's Achilles' heel, and almost immediately opponents exploited it--though not in the way conservationists expected. In 1995, separate suits were filed by a group of petitioners arguing that the wolf program is illegal. Since there is still a small population of indigenous wolves left in the U.S., and since it's impossible to determine whether a rogue spotted outside the park is part of the relocated population, a farmer who kills a wolf--as a few already have--just might be killing a native animal, something the Endangered Species Act forbids.
The argument is a cunning one, and when the dispute reached the court last month, the judge saw things the petitioners' way: the wolves would have to go. Not surprisingly, the reaction has been explosive. "The decision defies common sense," fumes Thomas France, senior counsel of the National Wildlife Federation. "It was an order to take 10 steps backward."
Good decision or bad, at the moment it's the law--and that's grim news for the wolves. The 66 animals shipped to Yellowstone and Idaho have multiplied to 165--90 in Yellowstone and 75 in Idaho. Shipping them back to Canada is not an option, since the territory they abandoned has been claimed by other wolves. Placement in zoos--where wolves aren't popular--is difficult. "The options," says Smith, "could come down to one thing: killing them."
For the moment, that's unlikely to happen. District Judge William Downes, who wrote the decision, stayed its enforcement until the expected blizzard of appeals is exhausted, which could take until well into next year. By that time, the wolves' numbers will surely have increased, making the job of removing the animals all the more difficult--and the battle to protect them all the more fierce. "I will fight with everything I have to keep the wolves in Yellowstone," says Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. After more than a century on the run, the wolves themselves are accustomed to the struggle.
--Reported by Dick Thompson/Washington and Richard Woodbury/Yellowstone