A recent federal court ruling has made it clear that Wyoming holds the key to removing wolves from federal protection in the Northern Rockies.

Unfortunately, it's also clear that Gov. Dave Freudenthal and other state officials have no plans to use that key to resolve the issue.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula, Mont., earlier this month denied a request from environmental groups seeking to stop wolf hunts in Idaho and Montana. At the same time, he said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to retain federal protection for wolves in Wyoming while delisting them in Idaho and Montana appears to violate the law.

What that means is that although Idaho and Montana have sound wolf management plans that include regulated hunting, removal of the wolf from Endangered Species Act protection in any of the three states won't be upheld until Wyoming adopts a similar approach. And because Wyoming isn't willing to do that, the court battle over wolf delisting will drag on for many more years.

In light of Molloy's decision, Freudenthal should have recognized that altering Wyoming's wolf management plan offers the most direct pathway to delisting. If Wyoming were to designate wolves as trophy game and manage them as it does mountain lions and bears -- instead of allowing wolves to be shot on sight by anyone across most of the state -- the federal government would accept the state's plan. Delisting would proceed in all three states, and environmentalists would find it much more difficult to challenge the action in court.

Instead, the governor showed no sign of trying to persuade the Legislature to change the wolf management plan and pursue out-of-court resolution. In fact, he said that if the state can't manage wolves as it sees fit, it may be better to allow the federal government to retain responsibility.

"To some degree, if we cannot get a favorable resolution where the state should spend its money trying to manage the wolf, then fine, we'll just let the feds manage them," Freudenthal said.

That curious statement reveals a couple of things.

First of all, it indicates that the current federal wolf management in Wyoming -- in which federal agents respond to reports of livestock depredation and kill the offending wolves -- must be working pretty well. If wolves were truly decimating the state's elk herds and putting dozens of ranchers out of business, the governor wouldn't be so willing to let the status quo continue.

Secondly, the statement seems to show that the governor doesn't have high hopes that the state will prevail in its attempt to force the federal government to accept the state management plan.

The fact of the matter is that wolves are causing problems for some ranchers in Wyoming, and that statewide trophy game management of the predators would best address the situation. In addition to being given the ability to protect their animals, all livestock owners would be able to access state funding to compensate for their losses to wolves. That's not the case under the current state plan.

Considering their increasing numbers, there's definitely a place for regulated wolf hunting in Wyoming. Where state officials go overboard is in insisting that unlicensed hunting be allowed over most of the state. It's unrealistic to expect that federal judges would sanction taking a species off of the endangered species list and giving it absolutely no level of protection over much of its historical range.

But state officials seem unwilling to take a pragmatic approach to the wolf issue.