Gray wolf re-listed

Will the wolf survive? Chances for one endangered species have improved dramatically following a federal court order that restores protections stripped by the Bush administration.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled that the administration went against the Endangered Species Act by declaring Great Lakes gray wolves as a “distinct population segment” and removing them from the endangered list.

In restoring protection, the Associated Press reported, the judge blocked new state policies allowing people in the region to kill wolves that attack farm animals or pets.

A week earlier, on Sept. 23, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service petitioned a different court to return gray wolves in the northern Rockies to the endangered list in response to a ruling that bars public hunting in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.