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If you were planning on hunting gray wolf in Idaho or Montana this year, you will now have to risk doing so illegally or find some other way to amuse yourself.

A federal judge last week relisted the gray wolf as an endangered species in Montana and Idaho.

A federal judge last week put the gray wolf back on the Endangered Species list. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, sitting in Missoula, MT, said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service erred when it delisted the gray wolf in the two states.

Malloy said that delisting the wolf must be a decision based on biological factors, not political ones, and must include the entire Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf population, not just selected parts.

In 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service turned over wolf management to wildlife officials in Montana and Idaho, but they kept the animal on the endangered list in the neighboring state of Wyoming. Federal officials did not like a plan, approved by Wyoming legislators, to classify wolves outside of Yellowstone National Park as predators that could be shot.

Having watched the “Wolves; Coyotes” episode of the series Manhunters I find that there are people who spend time in the wilds of nature that are too ignorant for it.

The show seems to be on the side of the wild animals and points out the ignorance of the humans involved. Biologist explain the behaviors and reasons for any attacks. Critical thinking is definitely a must for this show.

But I can’t recommend the show – it is full of ignorance, fear and scare tactics.

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The recent appearance of wolves near Cache Valley has provoked dismay from some, but a broad survey shows most Utahans have a positive view of the predators, with urban residents expressing the most enthusiasm.

Questionnaires distributed across the state in 2003 found that 74 percent of respondents felt favorably toward wolves, and researcher Robert Schmidt said he doubts that has changed much.

TWISP, Wash. — The mother wolf of the state’s first confirmed pack of wolves in 70 years is missing.

The Wenatchee World reports that biologists don’t know where the alpha female wolf has gone and they fear that, at worst, someone killed her. Although there’s also the possibility that the radio collar biologists equipped her with has stopped working. Her radio collar stopped transmitting a signal on May 12.

Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Scott Fitkin says the collars are supposed to work for four years.

The wolf pack, which numbers at least seven, settled in the Okanogan National Forest area, near Twisp in north central Washington. Their presence was confirmed in 2008. Two wolves were collared.

Fitkin says the collar on the alpha male of the pack is still working.

Information from: The Wenatchee World, http://www.wenatcheeworld.com

Associated Press

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) – Gov. Bill Richardson has temporarily banned trapping in on the New Mexico side of an area where Mexican gray wolves have been reintroduced into the wild along the New Mexico-Arizona border.

Richardson ordered the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish to prohibit trapping for six months while it studies what risk traps and snares pose to wolves.

A federal effort to reintroduce the endangered subspecies of the gray wolf into the Southwest began in 1998.

Biologists had predicted a self-sustaining wild population of 100 wolves by now, but the latest count at the end of 2009 found 42.

The program has been plagued by illegal shootings, complaints from ranchers who have lost cattle to wolves and environmentalists who criticize the way the federal government has managed the program.