Dual lawsuits proceed over Wyoming wolves

Two parallel lawsuits will continue to run in Cheyenne and Washington, D.C., over environmental groups' challenges to the federal government's transfer of wolf management to the state of Wyoming. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington this month denied a request from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state of Wyoming to transfer a case to federal court in Wyoming. A similar case is pending in federal court in Cheyenne. Environmental groups in both lawsuits say Wyoming's management plan classifying wolves as predators that can be shot on sight in most of the state is inadequate. They want the courts to restore federal protections. Gov. Matt Mead defends Wyoming's wolf management. He says it's a matter of intense local interest that should be decided in Wyoming courts.