Since 1989 the Interior Appropriations Acts have given out amounts ranging from nothing to $498,000 for the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone and central Idaho. Most of the money came with strings attached. Congress limited the National Park Service on the money used to study the wolf without an official environmental impact statement. .
In 1990 Congress appointed a wolf Management Committee, comprised of three federal, three state, and four interest group representatives, to come up with a plan for restoring the wolf to Yellowstone and central Idaho. In 1991 Congress asked the NPS, FWS, and the U.S. Forest Service to devise a plan of alternatives on the wolf restoration in Yellowstone and central Idaho. The states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, Animal Damage Control, and the Wind River and Nez Perce Tribes participated in the procedure.
The FWS supported the alternative calling for the reintroduction of gray wolves to Yellowstone and central Idaho, as experimental populations. There were four other alternatives considered. They were: (1) natural recovery; (2) no wolf; (3) wolf management committee (state management); (4) reintroduction of wolves that do not have "experimental population" status. Natural recovery would have encouraged wolves to migrate from Canada to northwest Montana and to continue to Yellowstone and central Idaho. The no wolf alternative would have prevented wolf recovery by removing wolves from all protections under the ESA in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. It also would have removed all funding for the education management, research, and control in the northern Rocky Mountains. .
By reintroducing the wolves as an experimental population the FWS has more flexibility in managing the wolves. Wolves in an experimental population are considered threatened rather then endangered. If the wolf was to be considered endangered more and stricter provisions exist on the wolf.
