The Defenders of Wildlife is highlighting the USDA’s Wildlife Services’ plans to wipe out hundreds of wolves in the upper Rocky Mountains. The Endangered Species Act ruling doesn’t protect wolves from the organization originally responsible for exterminating all the wolves in the region in the 1940s.

A Montana TV station – KBZK – conducted a poll of it’s online readers and asked the question: should wolf hunting be restored?

Despite the decision to return the Endangered Species Act protections to gray wolves, Idaho is still seeking ways to kill more than 300 of their wolves. A plan powered by politics, not science.

With Wyoming’s unreasonable wolf management plan now putting a halt to Montana and Idaho’s strategies, both states are now scrambling to find ways around the restrictions the ruling now puts on them.

The decision determined that it is contrary to the rules of the Endangered Species Act to give the wolves in Montana and Idaho different protections that those wolves that make their home in Wyoming, a state which is refusing to put together a wolf management plan which satisfies the minimum requirements of the Federal government.

May 2010 saw the Montana FWP Commission narrow down and approve three different quotas for the 2010 wolf hunt – July 8, 2010 sees a meeting where the Commission is expected to announce which quota they plan to use.

This week represents a pivotal time for America’s wolves as Judge Molloy considers the arguments in a court case which could lead to placing wolves back on the Endangered Species List.

There have been a number of meetings held around Montana regarding the proposed Montana wolf hunt plan which calls for the quote to be doubled or even tripled. The meetings served as rallying points for the increasingly active anti-wolf movement.

According to an article from the Associated Press, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has authorized the killing of 33 wolves, of which 15 are already dead.

A radio-collared female wolf, which was providing important statistical information, was struck and killed by a car. She was not only scientifically important, but also a mother.