CHEYENNE -- Gov. Dave Freudenthal says Wyoming can't agree to a pending U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal for managing wolves in the state unless the federal agency gives the state a better way to stop wolves from savaging elk herds over the next several years.

In an interview on Friday, Freudenthal said he's reviewed a proposal that the federal agency submitted to the state this week detailing the agency's plan to create a permanent wolf-management area in northwestern Wyoming.

If the state accepts the federal proposal, there likely would be a period of several years between the time the federal government takes formal action to remove wolves from protection under the federal Endangered Species Act and the time when litigation over that action is completed in the courts.

Mitch King, regional director for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Denver, told Freudenthal's office this week his agency expects that landowners and the federal wildlife managers would continue to address wolves that prey on livestock while litigation is pending.

King said federal law also allows for a "science-based plan" to deal with wolves' effect on wildlife after the Wyoming wolf management plan is approved.

However, Freudenthal said Friday that he's not prepared to preside over the destruction of the state's elk herds while lawsuits drag on in court.

"If they retain the view that, no matter what we do, they're not going to let us manage wolves for wildlife until after all the litigation around delisting is done, it's just not going to happen," Freudenthal said. "Because essentially, that's kind of a death knell for some of the elk herds. Essentially that could be 2011 or 2012 by the time you get through with all that."

"Frankly, if that remains their position, this thing isn't going anywhere," Freudenthal said of the federal proposal. "So we continue to negotiate with them, talk to them."

Wyoming sued the federal government last year over its rejection in 2004 of the state's original wolf management plan. The state's original proposal would allow state game managers to control hunting for the animals in much of the state.

The dispute over wolf management in Wyoming has delayed removing the animals from the federal list of endangered species here and also in Montana and Idaho.

With two weeks of the eight-week state legislative session already finished and no agreement in sight, Freudenthal says he's concerned time is running out for the Legislature to act on a wolf management plan.

Senate President John Schiffer, R-Kaycee, said Friday he hopes that federal negotiators understand the time constraints of the legislative session. "I've told them, 'You've got to give us time to pass a bill if we reach agreement,"' he said.

The federal proposal calls for a permanent wolf management area to extend from Cody south to Meeteetse, around the western boundary of the Wind River Indian Reservation down to Pinedale, west to the Alpine area and then back north to Yellowstone National Park.

Under the proposal, the state would manage wolves inside the permanent area as trophy game that could be hunted with a permit. Wolves outside the area would be classified as predators that could be shot on sight, while wolves within Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and nearby wilderness areas would be protected.

In an interview this week, King said his agency would consider only minor modifications to its proposal to designate the permanent management area.

King said Wyoming would be responsible under the federal proposal for maintaining 10 breeding pairs totaling at least 100 wolves in the state. The state game department has said that as of last year there were about 30 wolf packs in the state, with the population growing at about 20 percent a year.