Wyoming needs to join the pack

God bless state's rights, but the great state of Wyoming has been rudely elbowing its neighbors for the last few years when it comes to wolf management.

And it looks like Montana and Idaho will have to endure more elbowing for some time to come. Wyoming officials announced this week that they intend to appeal a recent court order that dismissed the state's claims that the federal government had wrongfully rejected Wyoming's wolf management plan.

An appeal, of course, is Wyoming's right. The problem here is that Wyoming, Idaho and Montana are joined at the hip when it comes to the formal process of delisting wolves.

Montana and Idaho spent years, and considerable effort, pulling together wolf management plans that met the muster of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Meanwhile, Wyoming developed a plan that gave wolves a dueling status as protected animals in the Yellowstone National Park area but nothing more than nuisance critters that could be shot on sight elsewhere in the state.

That plan was developed and approved by Wyoming even as Fish and Wildlife Service officials said they could never sign off on the plan. Not surprisingly, they rejected it.

And so started the litigation that Wyoming is losing.

In addition to the planned appeal, one Wyoming officials says the state is considering some form of petition to remove wolves in the three states from ESA protections.

Our bet is that petition will be rejected, because the Fish and Wildlife Service's process for wolf recovery and delisting has been in place for years.

Despite Wyoming's intentions and autonomy, that state has completely obstructed Montana's self-determination when it comes to wolves.

The ultimate goal of the Montana plan is to remove wolves from protection under the Endangered Species Act so they can be managed, from pack to pack, in a flexible, responsive manner.

While Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has already assumed some wolf management authority, the department is doing so under a restrictive federal rule book because of the delayed delisting.

That puts Montanans in the driver's seat with a single limitation - the state must maintain sustainable wolf populations, otherwise they'll be back on the endangered-species list.

It would be nice if Wyoming did something to get out of the way.