Wolves in the Great Lakes region are back under federal protection under a court-ordered settlement announced Monday between the federal government and wolf protection groups.
The change makes it illegal to kill wolves under most circumstances except when someone's life is in danger. It supersedes state laws that had allowed shooting wolves under some circumstances.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Humane Society of the U.S. agreed to the settlement after the groups filed suit to stop the federal government from handing wolf protection back to states.
It's the sixth time in the past several years that wolf management has changed hands.
The federal government moved in 2006 to remove wolves from the endangered species list and give control to state departments of natural resources in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. The agency concluded that wolves had recovered from near-extinction in the 1960s and 1970s and had met the goals to restore their population in the region.
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For two years, wolves were under state management in the three states where, in addition to government trapping of problem wolves, new rules allowed slightly more liberal wolf killing by livestock farmers, pet owners and landowners. Wisconsin officials also were mulling a wolf hunting season in the future, while Minnesota had put that issue off until at least 2011.
But a court order last year, pushed by wolf protection groups, gave wolf management back to the federal government. The court agreed that the government had not followed proper procedures in delisting the wolves.
The government then resubmitted the plan and moved earlier this year to hand control back to the states.
Monday's agreement again puts the feds in control and renders all state wolf laws moot for now.
The agreement doesn't stop the federal government from re-opening public comments and starting the process again to hand control back to the states. But it wasn't clear Monday when or how the government will do that.
"The goal continues to be to delist. We believe the states have been doing a good job in managing wolves," said Georgia Parham, spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agency. "This is kind of the latest bump along the way."
There are about 3,000 wolves in Minnesota and more than 500 each in Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
The settlement comes in response to a federal court motion filed two weeks ago by the Humane Society of the U.S., the Center for Biological Diversity, Help Our Wolves Live, Friends of Animals and Their Environment and Born Free USA.
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"We applaud the Obama administration for restoring federal protections for wolves in the Great Lakes," Jonathan Lovvorn, vice president and chief counsel for animal protection litigation with the Humane Society of the U.S., said in a statement.
He points out that while wolf numbers are high in northern Minnesota, the animals still are present across only 5 percent of their original range.
