Idaho ends controversial wolf kill program

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game announced on Wednesday that it will not reinstate a controversial kill program from 2013 that involved the state's hiring a hunter to trap and kill wolves in a national wilderness area, Laura Zuckerman reports for Reuters. The hunter was hired after sportsmen complained that wolves were killing prized elk herds in the federally protected Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. (Idaho Public Television map)

"The state agency last year suspended the program after the hired hunter trapped and killed nine wolves and as conservation groups, represented by the environmental law firm Earthjustice, filed suit in federal court alleging the wolf roundup violated principles of limiting human intervention in national wilderness areas," Zuckerman writes. "The state had wanted to cut by 60 percent the number of wolves in a protected river corridor in the 2.4 million-acre wilderness managed by the U.S. Forest Service." (Read more)