Technically there aren’t any wolves in Utah, although there really are probably a few in northern Utah. Nevertheless, Northern Utah was included in the Northern Rockies wolf delisting.
So was Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington. All these places would highly likely to see wolf in-migration.
I can see only one reason for this — it’s to prevent the recolonization of any adjacent Western States by wolves.
Article in the Salt Lake Tribune. Utah wolves are in line to lose protection. But technically there aren’t any. By Joe Baird
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He has been a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and also its President. For many years he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
I’ve been waiting so long for wolves though. I want to go up to my aunt’s cabin (Bear Lake Utah) and be able to watch for wolves.
I remember attending a wolf hearing back in Wisconsin where the value of lumping the northeastern U.S. with the Midwest management zones was under debate, the focal point being that the low or nonexistent populations in, say, Maine or upstate New York would fall under the same regulations as the burgeoning Great Lakes population (correct me if I’m wrong here).
I’m with Brooke. I’m here in northeastern Oregon, where wolves have been officially reported in the Wallowa Mountains, and I certainly hope measures are taken to ensure recolonization.
It’s obvious that wolves have immense ecological capacity to disperse, and they consistently surprise us with their ability to occupy habitat we might previously have considered unsuitable. We’re dealing here with the human carrying capacity for the species, which, thanks to this legal wrangling, has suddenly become much lower for places like Oregon and Utah.