"We have recovered a wolf population," said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service in the western state of Montana.

"The populations are viable, they are in great shape, they have extreme genetic diversity and so the Endangered Species Act did its job to bring wolves back," Bangs said.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) comprises dozens of wide-ranging environmental laws passed in the 1970s to protect imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation."

The gray wolf (canis lupus) was placed on the endangered list in 1974 after the animals were almost eliminated in many US states.

But thanks to conservation efforts its numbers now reach some 4,000 in the Great Lakes region, which includes Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and there are more than 1,300 in the Rocky Mountain states of Idaho and Montana. There are also between 8,000 and 11,000 grey wolves in Alaska.

In all these states wolves can now be hunted again according to strict regulations.

"The states will be able to use regulated hunting to manage wolf populations," said Bangs, adding that "the hunting season will occur this fall, people will be able to buy a license to hunt a wolf."

In northwestern Wyoming, where there are still only around 300 animals, the wolf remains a protected species.

In recent years there has been isolated hunting allowed when wolves briefly came off the endangered list in some areas. Bangs said some 265 wolves were killed last year in the northern Rockies "because of cattle problems but the population still grew eight percent."

But going forward, Bangs said, "instead of having a person like me getting on a helicopter and shoot a wolf after it killed someone's cow, you'll have a hunter with a license to go out in the fall and hunt a wolf with a fair chase."

And he offered reassurances that conservationists would be keeping an eye on the nation's wolf population over the next five years.

"If the states don't do a good job over five years, we put them back on the endangered species list," he vowed.

But environmentalists decried the change as "potentially disastrous" and vowed they would sue to prevent it.

Rodger Schlickeisen, president of the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife said he would begin legal action to force a reinstatement of the wolf's protected status.

"Today's delisting is a potentially disastrous turn for a venture that began in 1995 in such a hopeful and rewarding manner (with) the restoration of wolves to their natural landscape in the West," he said.

"We all expected more from the Obama administration, which repeatedly promised it would consult with conservationists, scientists, and other stakeholders on key issues before making decisions," Schlickeisen said.

The environmental group was especially critical of the Barack Obama administration's Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who it said "rejected our offer to work with him to find the right way to delist wolves in the region and, instead, made his surprise announcement that he was removing federal protections for vulnerable wolves with no transparency at all."

The group added: "We are moving to sue Secretary Salazar as soon as possible to overturn this misguided and unwarranted decision."

"Secretary Salazar's terrible decision leaves us no choice," Defenders of Wildlife continued.

"We will stand up for wolves and endangered species conservation by moving to challenge this delisting in court as soon as the law allows."

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