In 1930, a federal officer shot what was believed to be the last wolf in Yellowstone National Park. Thanks to the Endangered Species Act and an ambitious reintroduction program, some 1,500 wolves have returned to the Northern Rockies, and the howling wolf is once again the icon of western wilderness.

But recently, Interior Secretary Salazar rubber-stamped a Bush-era plan to kick the wolves of the Northern Rockies off the endangered species list and leave them vulnerable to mass killing. In September 2009, a federal judge ruled that wolf hunts in Montana and Idaho could go forward, allowing up to 330 wolves in those states to be gunned down. The loss of so many wolves could be a dramatic setback to wolf recovery. Over this past year, the wolf population of Yellowstone National Park declined 27 percent -- and more than 70 percent of wolf pups in the park died of disease. However, the judge also stated that Secretary Salazar’s decision to strip the wolves’ endangered species protections was probably illegal – which means that NRDC and other conservation groups may win the larger war over wolf protection in the Northern Rockies. That war will play out in federal court in the months ahead, as NRDC fights to compel Secretary Salazar to withdraw this disastrous plan and submit it to the kind of rigorous scientific review that the Obama administration has championed on other issues.