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(Salt Lake City-AP) -- Wolves have begun to thrive across the West and they've just recently arrived inside Utah's border. That's raising concerns about how the animals should be dealt with.
The federal government is about to upgrade the wolf's status from "endangered" to "threatened" and might remove the species from the list altogether.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that now Utah is entering the debate between environmentalists, ranchers and hunters on how to manage the animals.
The state must decide if wolves should be allowed to re-establish themselves there.
In 1995, federal biologists released 31 wolves into Yellowstone and 35 in central Idaho's vast wilderness. There are nearly 700 wolves in the northern Rocky Mountain states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)