The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said this morning that it plans to remove the Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf from Endangered Species Act protection, a move that has been expected but which already has a bunch of environmental groups lining up at the courthouse.

The Interior Department is going to find this move far more controversial than when it removed another Western icon -- the bald eagle -- from the ESA list last year.

In making the announcement, Interior Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett noted that there there are currently more than 1,500 wolves and at least 100 breeding pairs in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, which of course is not a bad turnaround for a predator that had nearly vanished from the U.S. last century. Officials added the wolf to the endangered list in 1974.

But conservation groups say the decision ignores the best available science and will put the tenuous populations at risk when states take control of wolf management later this year. Anticipating today's decision, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a petition yesterday calling for FWS officials to prepare a comprehensive recovery plan for wolves throughout the United States.

A coalition of 10 other environmental groups have said they also plan to sue to stop the de-listing. Of greatest concern to the groups is that state management of the species will lead to legalized wolf hunting and trapping as soon as this year. The Interior Department has said that Idaho, Wyoming and Montana must maintain a combined population of 300 wolves and 30 breeding pairs. We're not sure that sounds like good news for the other 1,200 wolfs, especially given the contentious relationship with so Rocky Mountain ranchers.