CHEYENNE - It's taking way too long for the federal government to remove wolves from federal protection in Wyoming, Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric says.

But an environmental attorney says the state has only itself to blame.

Reacting to this week's federal court ruling rejecting an appeal of the dismissal of Wyoming's lawsuit against the federal government over how wolves should be managed in the state, Skoric accused the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of failing to act.

He said the Yellowstone region, more than a decade after wolves were first reintroduced there, now has more than 1,000 wolves. He said the federal government had set 315 wolves as the goal population.

"We have to ask ourselves, 'How long is this going to go on?'" Skoric said.

But Earthjustice attorney Abigail Dillen said wolves might have been delisted by now if Wyoming had not taken the dispute to court.

"From a legal point of view, I don't think the decision is surprising at all," she said. "From a practical point of view, it is time for Wyoming to get serious about affording wolves some protection outside of Yellowstone National Park. Allowing wolves to be shot on sight outside Yellowstone is not the answer."

Dillen represents the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council, which intervened on the side of the federal government.

Oral arguments before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals court took place in Salt Lake City last month. Attorney General Pat Crank said he got an idea from those proceedings that the appeals court wouldn't rule in Wyoming's favor.

"They were asking a lot of questions why this wasn't some regular advice the Fish and Wildlife Service was handing out rather than a formal agency action as defined by federal law," he said of the rejection of Wyoming's plan.

Wyoming has petitioned to have wolves delisted, and the federal government is expected to decide on that request by July 15. "If they don't proceed forward with delisting, we can seek review of that decision in federal District Court," Crank said.

U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson had said that the Endangered Species Act's requirements for scientific review only would come into play with delisting, or when wolves come up for status review under the act in 2008 - five years after they were downgraded in parts of the West from "endangered" to "threatened."

In a four-page ruling Monday, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld Johnson's decision..

Associated Press reporter Jennifer Byrd contributed to this report.