Federal wolf plan open for public comment Friday 

The plan, first promised last June and announced again last week, would have the most impact on Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan where established populations of wolves currently exist but where a court order has retained Endangered Species Act Protections for them.

The federal plan, developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in recent months, would “delist” wolves across all the contiguous U.S., even where they do not exist, although acts of Congress already removed federal protections for Rocky Mountain and other western wolves.

Comments on the plan must be made within 60 days of publication — by May 14. Information on the plan, called a federal rule, along with instructions on how to comment, can be found at www.fws.gov/home/wolfrecovery/.

It will be the fourth straight administration to pursue a formal wolf delisting, with each effort so far thwarted by wolf protection groups and federal courts that deemed the previous efforts improper on unwarranted.

Livestock farmers and some hunting groups support ending federal protections for wolves, saying the animals have become too numerous and their numbers need to be culled to reduce wolf-human conflicts.

Wolf supporters say that, while the animals are indeed thriving in the upper Great Lakes region, state agencies moved too fast to kill too many wolves once federal protections were withdrawn in 2012. Critics also note that wolves have not recovered across a broad portion of their original range, as the federal Endangered Species Act appears to call for.

The Fish & Wildlife Service, part of the U.S. Interior Department, has tried multiple times — through the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations — to delist wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, saying the big predators have fully recovered here after brushing with extinction in the 1960s and 1970s.