Final Rule Designating the Northern Rocky Mountain Population of Gray Wolf as a Distinct Population Segment and Removing This Distinct Population Segment From the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service, we or us), hereby establishes a distinct population segment (DPS) of the gray wolf (Canis lupus) in the Northern Rocky Mountains (NRM) of the United States (U.S.) and removes this DPS from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. The NRM gray wolf DPS encompasses the eastern one-third of Washington and Oregon, a small part of north-central Utah, and all of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Based on the best scientific and commercial data available, the NRM DPS is no longer an endangered or threatened species pursuant to the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended (Act) (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.). The NRM DPS has exceeded its biological recovery goals, and all threats in the foreseeable future have been sufficiently reduced or eliminated. The States of Idaho (2002) and Montana (2003) adopted State laws and management plans that meet the requirements of the Act and will conserve a recovered wolf population into the foreseeable future. In 2007, following a change in State law, Wyoming drafted and approved a revised wolf management plan (Wyoming 2007). We have determined that this plan meets the requirements of the Act as providing adequate regulatory protections to conserve Wyoming's portion of a recovered wolf population into the foreseeable future. Our determination is conditional upon the 2007 Wyoming wolf management law (W.S. 11-6-302 et seq. and 23-1-101, et seq. in House Bill 0213) being fully in effect and the wolf management plan being legally authorized by Wyoming statutes. If the law is not in effect (discussed in more detail below) within 20 days from the date of this publication, we will withdraw this final rule and replace it with an alternate final rule that removes the Act's protections throughout all of the DPS, except the significant portion of the gray wolf's range in northwestern Wyoming outside the National Parks.