While pondering wolves, the Wyoming House of Representatives examined bills on Friday morning while considering potential litigation, conservation groups and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency that appears to be calling the shots. The 2009 Legislature has five wolf-related bills to choose from or amend.\

Melanie Stein of the Sierra Club advised going with House Bill 21, and a Wyoming Game and Fish commissioner agreed with her.

Under HB 21, the entire state would be classified as a trophy game area or zone.

Members of the House Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee met in Cheyenne and heard testimony from Wyoming Attorney General Bruce Salzburg and Game and Fish officials. A few other officials and members of the public from several spots in the northwestern part of the state were connected to the legislators via video links.

Montana and Idaho could be heading toward wolf delisting, but Wyoming could be left out in the cold unless the state drops its dual status of wolves, in which the state would maintain a trophy-game area and a predator zone. In the latter, wolves can be shot on sight.

Stein said Wyoming should drop dual status. Leaving Wyoming out of the delisting process is a clear message by the service, she said.

Salzburg said a final draft ruling from the service may arrive soon to delist wolves in Idaho and Montana, but not Wyoming.

He said the draft revised final rule says Wyoming must designate wolves as trophy-game animals in order to be delisted, and the state must manage for at least 15 breeding pairs and 150 wolves.

District 5 Wyoming Game and Fish Department Director Bill Williams said transforming the entire state to a trophy-game area would be the most expeditious means to get management of wolves back in Wyoming hands.

Williams offered an anecdote about a Wood River rancher who recently lost three steers to wolves. Two of the cows were killed within the designated trophy zone, but one steer died in the predator zone.

Under Wyoming's erstwhile trophy/predator zones, the Wyoming Game and Fish could compensate the rancher for the lost steers in the trophy area, but not the predator area.

Under the Obama administration, Williams said he believes delisting will not occur in Wyoming with dual classification.

But Rep. Pat Childers, R-Cody, chairman of the House Travel, Recreation and Wildlife Committee, said U.S. District Judge Donald Malloy did not actually object to dual status when he granted a preliminary injunction against delisting wolves last summer.

“In our estimation, House Bill 21 does not serve the livestock industry of this state,” said Bryce Reese of the Wyoming Wool Growers Association.

“Do you want wolves or do you want ranchers?” Reese asked the legislators. “We would urge you to stay the course.”

If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delists in Idaho and Montana, but not Wyoming, “We will sue,” said Reese. “We will challenge that in court.”

“All they have to do is say ‘Endangered Species Act,' then they trump everything,” said Dr. Taylor Haynes of the Independent Cattlemen of Wyoming.

Haynes said the Legislature should declare the entire state outside Yellowstone a predator zone.

“We'll be sued no matter what we do,” he said.

“This is a classical jurisdiction case or issue,” said Jim Allen, president of the Wyoming Outfitters and Guide Association.

Allen said each state has legal authority over its wildlife.

In 1994, wolves were re-introduced in Yellowstone National Park. The Wyoming Legislature called wolves a nonessential experimental population.

“I would hope that we can declare this experiment a huge failure,” said Bob Wharff, executive director of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife.

Childers said Friday the Legislature is not leaning toward any particular wolf bill.

“We will be hearing the bills in committee on Wednesday morning,” Childers said in an e-mail Saturday. “My personal conclusions are to either do nothing or pass a slightly-modified committee bill.”