Gov. Matt Mead wants state to pass wolf plan

Gov. Matt Mead is calling on Wyoming lawmakers to endorse a wolf management plan that would designate the animals as predators that could be shot on sight in most of the state. Mead and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last year agreed on a plan to end federal protections for wolves in Wyoming. The federal government already has turned over wolf management to state governments in Idaho and Montana. Under the Wyoming proposal, wolves would be subject to controlled hunting in a flexible area in the northwest corner of the state, generally around Yellowstone National Park. They would be left unprotected elsewhere. Wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone and other areas in the mid-1990s. There are now more than 1,600 in the Northern Rockies, including more than 300 in Wyoming.