Yet as flawed as the recovery plan might have been from the advocates’ perspective, it also contained a provision that Honnold hoped might be his ace in the hole. Just reaching the three-hundred-wolf threshold wouldn’t be enough to delist the wolf, according to the plan. Evidence of “genetic exchange” among the three separate wolf populations in the Northern Rockies—Greater Yellowstone, central Idaho, and northwestern Montana—would have to be established as well. This meant that Fish and Wildlife needed to document wolves dispersing from one core area to another and breeding in their new homes
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