CHEYENNE -- State attorneys are preparing to go to court to appeal the U.S. Department of Interior's recent rejection of Wyoming's wolf management plan, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said Tuesday.

At the same time, state officials have filed a federal Freedom of Information Act request for all U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service documents related to several aspects of gray wolf reintroduction and management.

Freudenthal also plans to write Interior Secretary Gale Norton an outline of the past year's events in which, Freudenthal claims, the federal government changed its initial position supporting the state's wolf management law.

Plus, he said, the Interior Department's scientific review of the state's wolf management plan passed muster with 10 of the 11 federally appointed biologists who studied it, yet the agency still decided to reject the state plan.

Wyoming, Montana and Idaho must craft management plans that the Interior Department believes will provide for a sustainable wolf population before the agency will consider removing the gray wolf from the federal Endangered Species List.

"It is our belief that the actions taken by the department were not based on the scientific reviews but were essentially undertaken on another basis," Freudenthal told a group of agriculture industry representatives Tuesday.

He said the state will relay that message to Norton.

"At the same time, the Attorney General's Office is working on a proper way to characterize this rejection of our plan as final agency action so that it will be subject to appeal under the Administrative Procedures Act and we can proceed to court," Freudenthal said.

State Rep. Mike Baker, R-Thermopolis, and Sen. Delaine Roberts, R-Etna, cochairmen of the Joint Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Interim Committee, backed Freudenthal's plan to work toward suing the federal government over its wolf decision.

Agriculture industry representatives also liked the strategy (see related story, A12).

Baker said the state can either stand its ground, cave in to the latest Interior Department line, or negotiate with the agency to find some middle ground.

Negotiation is not feasible when the Legislature's 2004 session ends in early March, he said, and Interior officials have failed to take a consistent position on the issues.

"I don't know how anybody can negotiate at this point. That's the way I view it," Baker said. "Who's going to negotiate with whom? ... Who am I negotiating with? Who has the authority to say, 'Here's where we stand?' That is very frustrating, very, very frustrating, as you all know."

He and Rep. Bruce Burns, R-Sheridan, plan to draft legislation in an effort to meet the latest Interior demands, Baker said, though he hopes they won't amend the state's current wolf management law.

"So today, in my opinion, we have two options: knuckle under or fight," he said. "I'm voting for fight."

Roberts said he had been accurately called "obstinate" in his stance on maintaining Wyoming's dual classification of wolves as somewhat protected trophy game animals in parts of the state and as predators that can be killed at will in others.

He, too, favored leaving the state's wolf management law as it is, as did Freudenthal.

"The other issue that has been asked about is do I want to see legislation pass and reach my desk which would accommodate the three concerns raised by the recent rejection letter, and frankly, I have no desire to see such legislation reach my desk," Freudenthal said.

Fish and Wildlife Service Director Steve Williams cited three specific concerns in his letter to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department rejecting Wyoming's plan: predator classification, the number of packs the state proposed maintaining, and the minimum pack size.

Freudenthal said that flew in the face of a Feb. 21, 2003, letter from Interior official Craig Manson, who stated that the Fish and Wildlife Service had determined Wyoming's plan to maintain 15 wolf packs in Wyoming, including eight inside national parks, would satisfy conditions for getting a wolf plan approved.

Manson also wrote U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., a similar letter.

"Based on those assurances, the Legislature acted, and I was proud to sign that legislation which we thought had put this issue to rest," Freudenthal said.

But now that the state plan has been rejected, he said, the state is mulling its legal options.

He said Wyoming's position is that the rejection of Wyoming's plan constitutes a final agency action, which would give the state the right to appeal under the Administrative Procedures Act.

"If it works out as we hope it does, it is our expectation to file a notice of intent to sue and to proceed to try to get this decision properly reviewed," Freudenthal said.

He said he is reluctant to formally petition to remove the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List, because that action would trigger an entirely new procedure and a new administrative record to use to decide the merits of the request.

Rep. Pat Childers, R-Cody, said he has spoken with Williams, who plans to be in Wyoming next week when the legislative session begins and may be willing to negotiate details of a wolf management agreement.

"I said, 'Come with your hat that gives you some sort of authority, and talk to us,'" Childers said.

Freudenthal was not optimistic about Williams' visit leading to any resolution of the dispute.

"I'm willing to talk to anybody, but we're going to proceed on this course until we have an incredibly good reason not to," he said.