The revised Plan generally recommends continuing the eastern timber wolf recovery program as it has been carried out under the direction of the 1978 Plan. Those activities have resulted in a healthy wolf population in Minnesota, as well as small, but growing, wolf populations in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Plan still contains provisions to establish additional populations of wolves in the northeastern United States. However, only one viable wolf population is required outside of Minnesota to satisfy the Plans recovery criteria. The Service is not likely to begin wolf reintroduction in other states as long as the Wisconsin-Michigan wolf numbers are increasing.
The revised Plan recommends the Service improve the Federal wolf depredation control program to cope with a growing Minnesota wolf population. Over the past few years, wolves that prey on livestock and other domestic animals have become a problem in some locations. The Plan recommends strictly controlled preventive trapping at carefully selected sites, and livetrapping and relocation of problem wolves at other sites where the depredation control program currently does not operate at all. The Plan also recommends that the Service refine the boundaries of the Minnesota Wolf Management Zones to more accurately match habitat conditions. All of these recommendations deal with aspects of the eastern timber wolf recovery program that are dictated by existing Federal regulations. This means there will be further opportunities for public review and comment on any proposals put forward to carry out these recommendations.
The revised Eastern Timber Wolf Recovery Plan can be reviewed at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Offices in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Boston, Massachusetts; Atlanta, Georgia; Service facilities throughout northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and at most U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, and state department of natural resource offices in those areas, as well. Individual copies of the revised recovery plan can be obtained by contacting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of Endangered Species, Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, 1 Federal Drive, Fort Snelling, MN 55111-4056.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 93-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System which encompasses more than 530 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 66 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resource offices and 78 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces Federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Aid program that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies. For further information about the programs and activities of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Great Lakes-Big Rivers Region, please visit our home page at: http://midwest.fws.gov
