U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services to Review Protection of Rare Southeastern Alaska Wolf

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will review today whether or not Southeast Alaskan wolves should be listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

"We determined that there was substantial information presented, enough to make us think we probably should do a real status review," said Steve Brockmann is Southeast Alaska coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, via the Alaska Public.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace campaigned for the wolf's listing back in 2011, which eventually gained what's referred to as a "positive 90 day finding" earlier this month for the Alexander Archipelago wolf.

"Well we're thrilled to finally have the finding. It's come over two years late but we knew there was a strong case for pursuing a listing and we're glad to see that the agency's decided that our petition had merit," said Larry Edwards, a forest campaigner with Greenpeace in Sitka (also the site of the Michael Chabon novel, "The Yiddish Policeman's Union").

As the funding limits could potentially delay an actual review for another few years, officials are hoping to enact conservation policies that could increase the wolf's numbers.

"Recently that has been several years before we get that funding so we do have an opportunity here to well really take advantage of the time lag to get some conservation in place so we don't have to list the wolf," Brockmann said. "Honestly the Fish and Wildlife Service would prefer to leave management of the wolf with the state of Alaska where it belongs. We do have a responsibility to list it if it needs to be listed. We intend to work with our partners with the state and the Forest Service to make sure we don't have to do that when the time comes."

The findings kick off a 60-day period starting on March 31st in which Fish and Wildlife hold an open discussion regarding the endagernment of the Southeast wolves, as well as a 12-month status review regarding the decision of whether they should be listed as threatened or endangered, according to ktoo.org.