It all began on a summer day in 1993. A Pennsylvania hunter, at the urging of his guide, shot and killed a young wolf as it fed on bear bait in the Maine woods north of Moosehead Lake. Both hunter and guide were successfully prosecuted by the federal government. The killing of this animal proved that there was at least one wolf living in Maine and it suggested that there might be others to come. So began Maine’s modern-day wolf wars.

The latest battle has been won, for the time being at least, by wolves and wolf advocates. It took place last week in a Vermont courtroom when United States District Judge Judge J. Garvan Murtha heard oral arguments and decided that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had violated its own policy, the Administrative Procedures Act, and the Endangered Species Act when it issued a Final Rule in 2003.

The rule combined 21 states from the Dakotas, to Missouri to Maine into one eastern distinct population segment (DPS), and in doing so, the federal government deemed that wolf recovery in the entire eastern DPS had been successful on the basis of recovered populations in just three states, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

The federal government gave no consideration to the fact that wolves had not recovered in the Northeast or, in fact, in most of their former range. Had the rule not been challenged, it likely would have been the death knell for wolf recovery in the Northeast.

This legal victory re-opens the door for a federal wolf recovery effort in the Northeast – a door that the Bush administration had tried unsuccessfully, and illegally, to close. Contrary to claims of wolf opponents, wolf recovery doesn’t necessarily mean reintroduction. There is growing evidence, in the form of increasing numbers of wolves killed by hunters and trappers, that they are trying to recolonize the tens of thousands of square miles of potential wolf habitat in the northeast United States and southeast Canada. In addition to two animals killed in Maine, in recent years wolves have been killed in New York’s Adirondack mountains and in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, a few miles from the U.S. border.

Why is Judge Murtha’s decision good for wolves and for Maine? First and foremost, wolves are a keystone species and are an essential component of a healthy ecosystem. Wolves co-existed with their prey in what is now Maine for thousands of years. Our extermination of the wolf destroyed the natural predator-prey relationships and likely caused negative ripple effects throughout the ecosystem.

Chronic wasting disease (CWD), an illness much like mad cow disease, is rapidly spreading through ungulate populations across western states and Canadian provinces and was recently found in wild white-tailed deer in New York state. Because wolves take primarily sick, weak or otherwise unfit prey, their return may help to limit the spread or occurrence of CWD and other diseases that afflict wildlife and, in the case of Lyme disease, humans as well.

Wolves will help to control Maine’s deer, moose and beaver populations. High ungulate populations can damage forests and hinder their regeneration. Beavers flood countless acres of valuable forestland and damage roadways and private property. The natural control that wolves would provide will restore nature’s balance and may, as has been documented in Yellowstone National Park, improve habitat and increase biodiversity.

Wolf recovery will benefit Maine’s economy by increasing ecotourism. Millions of dollars are spent in places like Wyoming, Minnesota and Ontario by ecotourists who go to the woods to see wolves or hear their howl. Wolves will be an economic driver that will bring people to the North Woods to the benefit of guides, sporting camps and rural communities. As consumptive use activities such as hunting continue to decline in economic importance, nonconsumptive use activities such as wildlife watching will continue to grow.

Judge Murtha’s order does not require the federal government to restore wolves to the Northeast or tell them how to do it. It does not require the federal government to reintroduce wolves to Maine or any other Northeast state. It does, how-ever, require them to reconsider their decision to get out of the wolf business and to make a decision in accordance with federal law.

In his order, the judge also reminded the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that their own Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf has as a goal, “maintain(ing) and re-establish(ing) viable populations of the eastern timber wolf in as much of its former range as possible” and it outlines a three-point plan to “re-establish (a) wolf population in Adirondack Mountains (New York), northwestern Maine/adjacent New Hampshire, and/or northeastern Maine.”

Wolf recovery in the Northeast has been delayed through political maneuvering for too long. It’s time for the federal, state and provincial governments to begin working together to help allow the wolf to return to its rightful place in the ecosystem. Doing so will be good for wolves and for Maine.

John M. Glowa Sr. is founder and board member of The Maine Wolf Coalition Inc. MWC was a plaintiff in this case.