Tom France told a public lands conference in Missoula last week that he was disappointed 17 other environmental groups sued to block the federal government's plan to reduce protections for gray wolves.
He called the federal wolf recovery program in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming a success story, and cautioned that the lawsuit "threatens to undermine public support for endangered species protection."
Ben McNitt, a national spokesman for the group, said Tuesday that France acknowledges making the remarks last week, but that they had "brought on a bit of confusion and controversy ... and we felt it was important to make the group's position clear."
France is quoted in the statement as saying the Wildlife Federation agrees with other groups that the federal wolf recovery plan has failed to return wolf populations to a significant portion of the animal's historic range.
France was out of his office Tuesday and not available for comment.
Bill Snape with Defenders of Wildlife, one of the groups that sued last week, said he had complained to the federation after seeing news reports of France's remarks.
"I expressed my less-than-happy views in private and they will remain private," Snape told the Missoulian newspaper. He declined to elaborate.
A coalition of environmental groups sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Oct. 1, challenging the federal government's decision to downgrade protections for the gray wolf.
The lawsuit claims the agency violated the Endangered Species Act in April, when it changed the gray wolf from an endangered to threatened species.
The suit was filed in Oregon in part because wolves introduced in Idaho have been sighted in that state, though there have been no confirmed sightings since 2001.
Environmental groups are afraid the current federal policy means wolves won't be restored throughout their historic range in the Pacific Northwest, the southern Rockies and the Northeast.
In the group's statement, France said that while the National Wildlife Federation is "pursuing a different legal course" than other conservation groups, it agrees that the federal government has not met its obligations under the Endangered Species Act.
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