Wolves are in the news again.

A recent frontpage headline in the Bangor Daily News proclaimed, “Judge tells feds to aid wolves in the Northeast.”

According to the AP story, a U.S District Court judge in Vermont issued a ruling that orders President Bush to “step up efforts to restore the gray wolf to Maine.”

The story goes on to report that environmentalists are hailing this decision as a “major victory.”

Is it really?

Should we bar the door, lock up the chicken coop, and keep the 12-gauge handy? Or is this latest court ruling just another meaningless chapter in contemporary wolf politics?

The pivotal battle seems to be swinging on this question: For purposes of wolf management and protection, should the Northeast states be lumped in with states like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, where wolf restoration has been successful?

The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service says yes; the wolf-introduction advocates say no.

Does it matter?

As Gerry Lavigne, Maine’s former deer biologist, pointed out, the gray wolf is doing just fine a little north of Maine, and is free to migrate southward if it so chooses. So even if Maine and the other Northeast states were designated a separate region for wolf protection, the boundary is political, not ecological.

Then there is the critical question of introduction versus reintroduction. The only way that gray wolves can be “reintroduced” to Maine is to first prove that this critter was, indeed, once here roaming our forests.

Otherwise, putting a gray wolf on the ground in Maine would be what is known as an “introduction.”

In a public opinion survey conducted in 1999 by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, a majority of Maine residents said that they opposed a re-introduction of wolves. On the other hand, those same residents would favor protecting any wolves that migrated to Maine naturally.

Our neighbors in New Hampshire enacted legislation that prohibited the introduction (or reintroduction) of wolves to the Granite State.

What should Maine do?

Having watched wolves in the West, I can understand the fascination with these powerful predators, but Maine is not Yellowstone. So far, there is no empirical evidence that the wolves roaming Maine in the early 1800s were gray wolves. Nineteenth-century trapper and naturalist Manly Hardy wrote in his journals about the prevalence of the gray wolf in the 1830s, but University of Maine wildlife research biologist Bill Krohn (who has written a book about Hardy) urges caution.

“Definitions were tricky in those days,” says Krohn. “It is probable that any wolf of that era, whether red wolf, brush wolf (coyote) or what have you, would have been called a gray wolf.”

Maine has yet to solve the genetics puzzle about wolves. It may even be that some of our present-day coyotes carry wolf genes. There are practical considerations attached to wolf introductions that don’t get adjudicated in federal courts.

Where would Maine’s cash-strapped Fish and Wildlife Department get the extra $1 million a year needed to protect and manage a reintroduced wolf population? Does Maine need another large predator in its woodlands consuming 6 pounds of wild meat a day?

Thanks to the feds, we are no longer permitted to control coyote predation on whitetail deer.

This latest District Court ruling in Vermont is another in a series of decisions that whipsaw back and forth in the evolution of arcane wolf politics. According to the Associated Press story, the USFWS may elect to appeal the Vermont ruling. Or it could simply sit tight and wait for a more favorable decision from some other U.S. District Court.

Bottom line: Neither the feds nor a judge in Vermont can force us to put wolves in our Maine woods unless we elect to do so.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].