Oregon Public Broadcasting

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has upheld a Bush administration decision to move the gray wolf in Idaho and Montana off of the Endangered Species List.

Conservation groups say they’re disappointed and plan to appeal the ruling, as Inland Northwest Correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports.

In the last days of the Bush administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommended that the wolf be delisted. Then a few days into office, the Obama administration said it would postpone that decision.

Environmental groups had hoped having a new president would reopen the discussion about how to manage wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Now Secretary Salazar calls the wolf recovery a success story in Idaho and Montana and will take the animal off of the Endangered Species List. The wolves will remain protected in Wyoming.

With the decision, Suzanne Stone from Defenders of Wildlife isn’t pleased.

Suzanne Stone: “We had real high hopes that Secretary Salazar that the Obama administration just claimed that they would do this week: that they would use the available science to determine species conservation and delisting.”

Her group will again challenge the delisting in court.

The state of Idaho, on the other hand, is pleased. State officials say they will manage wolves like they do any other big game species. That includes plans for an annual wolf hunt.