The Wyoming Attorney General said Friday will file a lawsuit next Tuesday to challenge the recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's ruling that rejected the state's wolf management plan.

"The Endangered Species Act requires listing and delisting decisions to be based on science," Bruce Salzburg told the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation at a symposium about the law in Casper.

But the Fish and Wildlife Service, a division of the U.S. Department of Interior, decided in early March to leave the gray wolf in Wyoming on the endangered species list for political and public relations reasons, he said.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, however, delisted wolves in Montana and Idaho.

It also stated Wyoming's regulatory plan was insufficient to ensure the continued survival of the state's share of the recovered wolf population. The "dual classification" plan proposed management of wolves as trophy game in about 12,000 square miles in the greater Yellowstone National Park area, and classified them as predators - meaning they could be shot on sight - elsewhere.

In early April, Salzburg filed a letter of intent to challenge the decision. Tuesday marks the end of the period to file the lawsuit, he said.

Conservation groups said in early April they intended to sue the Department of Interior, too, saying the federal protections in all states are inadequate.

Besides challenging the assertion that Wyoming's management plan is inadequate, Salzburg will claim the Department of Interior's final rule places a larger management burden on Wyoming compared to Idaho and Montana, he said.

The federal government requires each of the three states to maintain 15 breeding pairs and 150 wolves.

But it requires Wyoming to manage at least seven breeding pairs and 70 wolves outside the national parks, Salzburg said.

Because Yellowstone National Park has averaged nearly 11 breeding pairs, that brings Wyoming's requirement to 18 pairs, he said. "Maybe the Fish and Wildlife Service believes Wyoming needs a good spanking."

So in light of the apparent success wolves in the greater Yellowstone area, Salzburg wants to pose a question to the federal government: "Is the trophy game area sufficient for habitat and for prey here to maintain Wyoming's share of sustainability?"

If so, why should wolves be protected elsewhere, he asked.

Another speaker, Cheyenne lawyer Harriet Hageman, said litigation is important but it's not enough to challenge the federal government which has not been forthcoming about the damage caused by wolves.

The wolves in Wyoming are a "nonessential experimental population" that would have no effect on their alleged endangered status if they were all removed, Hageman said.

The federal government, through the activism of radical environmental groups, brought them from Canada ultimately to end grazing on federal lands, she said. "There was no intent from the beginning to confine them to Yellowstone National Park."

Those in agriculture need to create a public relations machine as good as those of the environmental movement, Hageman said.

"Start pushing back," she said. "It will get ugly, but it's worth it."

Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592, or at tom.morton@trib.com. Read his blog at tribtown.trib.com/TomMorton/blog.