LANDER - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in a "mad dash" to complete a new wolf delisting rule before the Bush administration steps down, according to Gov. Dave Freudenthal's office.

The Fish and Wildlife Service failed to stand behind Wyoming's wolf management plan in court this year, even though the agency approved of that plan last year for scientifically sound reasons, the state of Wyoming charges.

Now the federal agency is proposing to delist gray wolves in Idaho and Montana only, leaving them "endangered" in Wyoming - a "politically driven" decision that has nothing to do with science, according to Freudenthal.

The governor's office released its official comments this week on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's latest proposal to remove gray wolves in the Northern Rockies from the federal endangered species list.

The governor's office argues that "the (Fish and Wildlife) Service repeatedly has allowed politics and public relations concerns to influence its decisions."

The federal agency has demanded the Cowboy State change its wolf management laws, according to Freudenthal, and in so doing the agency has abandoned its congressional mandate to follow the "best science."

The Bush administration removed wolves in this part of the country from Endangered Species Act protection in March, handing over management of the animals to Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. That decision was challenged in federal court as soon as legally possible by 12 conservation and animal rights organizations.

In July, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Montana sided with the conservation organizations and issued an injunction against the rule, saying the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to ensure genetic exchange between the three main wolf populations in the three states, and had flip-flopped on Wyoming's "dual status" plan, by first rejecting it and then accepting it, without justification for the change.

All three states created trophy game zones for wolves, but Wyoming was the only state to establish a "predator" area for the animals where they could be shot on sight by anybody, without limits.

Wyoming's predator area was one of the items of concern cited by Judge Molloy in his injunction ruling. He also cited other problems with Wyoming's plan.

In October, at the request of the Fish and Wildlife Service, judge Molloy "vacated" the 2008 delisting rule, essentially making it void. At the end of that month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reopened the public comment period on its previous plan to delist wolves.

In this current proposal, which is the same as the agency's 2007 plan, states must have a federally approved wolf management scheme.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has said it will no longer accept Wyoming's plan unless the state alters its dual status classification for the canines. The governor's office issued a sharp rebuke to that decision in its published comments this week:

"Based upon non-binding, cursory legal analysis of the state's wolf management scheme in a preliminary injunction issued by (judge Molloy), the Service now has reverted back to a politically driven decision-making process in an attempt to promulgate a new delisting rule before the close of the current administration."

The governor's office also implied that the current public comment period is something of a sham:

"To assure that this mad dash to adopt a new delisting rule will be completed before Jan. 20, 2009, the service already has decided to delist the gray wolf in Idaho and Montana, but not in Wyoming, even though the public comment period on the proposed rule has not been completed."

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is accepting public comments on its latest wolf delisting proposal through Friday.

The classification of wolves as trophy game in the northwest corner of Wyoming, where the vast majority of the animals live, and as predators everywhere else, is written into state law.

Although there has been talk amongst some lawmakers of changing the statutes to designate wolves as trophy game animals statewide, such a switch would face strong resistance from many lawmakers, and could only be done with approval from both the state House and Senate, which do not meet again until next year.

The Fish and Wildlife Service's demands that Wyoming change its wolf management statutes by early January are both "legally indefensible" and "logistically impossible," according to the governor's office, given that the Legislature does not convene until mid-January.

"The Service is using the demand for statutory changes as an excuse to justify removing (Wyoming) from the final delisting rule, so that the Service can complete the rule-making process by its self-imposed January 2009 deadline."

Ed Bangs, the gray wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday he hadn't yet seen the comments, and he wasn't prepared to address specific claims made by Freudenthal's office.

"I think Wyoming needs to do whatever it thinks is in its best interests. We'll just take those comments into consideration as we look forward to trying to make a final decision," Bangs said. He added: "At this point going back and forth tit-for-tat is not where we're at in this thing; we're going to do what we think we need to do."

Many Idaho and Montana residents have voiced frustration in the past because the Cowboy State, they believe, has been holding up the wolf delisting process by refusing to change its dual status laws.

Representatives for the governors of Idaho and Montana, however, declined to comment on the possibility of the federal government moving forward with wolf delisting without Wyoming.

"Our position is that we feel wolves should be delisted, and we're going to work within the system to try to see that that happens so that we can manage them like any other big game predator," said Jon Hanian, spokesman for Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter.

A spokeswoman for Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer declined to comment for this story.

Contact environment reporter Chris Merrill at (307) 267-6722 or chris.merrill@trib.com