Wolf advocates and opponents met on the street and in the courtroom Monday morning as U.S. District Judge Don Molloy listened to arguments over imminent wolf hunting seasons in Montana and Idaho.

The hearing took place just as wolf hunting licenses went on sale across Montana. On Tuesday, Idaho's wolf hunt begins.

Molloy issued no decision, but promised one quickly.

The pro-hunt forces arrived at 7:30 a.m. outside the Russell Smith Courthouse for a street-corner rally in favor of keeping wolves off the federal endangered species list. Many of the 30 participants arrived dressed in camouflage or hunter-orange, and a dozen protesters from Idaho wore shirts with pictures of an elk being devoured by wolves.

"Why are we allowing these guys to do lawsuits and run our state?" Kalispell hunter Clarence Grande said, looking at a group of wolf advocates waiting to enter the courthouse. "We're the ones who come up with all the money to manage our wildlife. How about if we send them all the wolves they want and see how they manage them? Why just Montana?"

One of those folks down the sidewalk was Michael Senatore, the Defenders of Wildlife vice president for conservation law. He came from Washington, D.C., to attend Molloy's hearing.

"Wolves on public lands are a national resource, and a federal resource," Senatore said. "Defenders of Wildlife has never been opposed to state management of wolves post-delisting. But the concern here is we don't think, with respect to Idaho and to a lesser extent Montana, that adequate state plans are in place to protect wolf populations. Taking out one-third of the population, from our standpoint, is unreasonable."

The debate followed a similar but more technical path inside the courthouse. A group of 13 conservation organizations has sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its May decision to take wolves off the endangered species list. Monday's hearing was on their request to block this fall's wolf hunting seasons while the larger question is decided.

Idaho's season starts Tuesday in some parts of the state, while Montana will open wolf hunting in three wilderness areas on Sept. 15. Wolves remain federally protected in Wyoming.

Attorney Doug Honnold spoke for EarthJustice, the law firm representing conservation groups opposed to wolf delisting and the pending hunts. He argued that FWS broke its own endangered species rules by allowing Montana and Idaho to have local control of wolves while Wyoming's wolves remain on the endangered species list.

The wolves in all three states should be managed as a single population to survive, and current state plans weren't strong enough to do so yet, he said.

"If you had a million wolves, without adequate state regulatory mechanisms to protect them, all would be lost," Honnold said. "That result is flatly prohibited by the Endangered Species Act."

Honnold also claimed that hunting 220 wolves in Idaho and 75 in Montana would cause irreparable harm to those recovering populations. Whether hunters actually killed that many wasn't the point: Honnold compared it to a state having the authority to dam a river that is home to endangered fish. It's the legal power to harm a species, not the unknown outcome of a hunt, that the Endangered Species Act prohibits.

U.S. Department of Justice attorney Michael Eitel countered that the Endangered Species Act requires the recovery of a threatened species, then management to maintain the recovered population. And in this case, wolf populations in the three-state area are healthy, and Montana and Idaho have set up reasonable and rigorous management plans that should be allowed to go forward, he said.

Eitel challenged Honnold's idea that killing individual wolves equaled irreparable harm. The bigger issue, he said, was if overall wolf numbers stayed in a range where they could reproduce and keep their gene pool vigorous.

"The wolf is recovered in Idaho and Montana," Eitel said. "It remains endangered in Wyoming. Fish and Wildlife can protect a species where it is threatened. We don't believe this is somehow scaling down protection."

Montana Assistant Attorney General Martha Williams added that state Fish, Wildlife and Parks commissioners deliberately picked conservative quotas for their first wolf hunt. Last year, government shooters killed 110 wolves in Montana because of livestock attacks. One hope for the wolf hunt is that it would reduce the number of livestock conflicts.

"We see the implication of fair-chase hunting as the final step - one tool among others," Williams said. "The gray wolf is a success story, and Montana wants to keep it that way."

Idaho Assistant Attorney General Steven Strack added that his state is growing frustrated with a constantly growing threshold of acceptable wolves.

"We started this process back in 1994 with a goal of 100 wolves," Strack said. "We've had to watch as the population increased and we had measurable impacts on elk herds. Now we have more than 800 wolves - eight times the recovery goal of 1994. We've demonstrated we're not hostile to wolves, but the targets keep moving on us."

"I understand people's frustration," Molloy replied. "But isn't my obligation to apply the rule of law? Frustration is part of litigation, given the fact the process is difficult."

With that, Molloy asked both sides what the end-game of this case should be. Whether he granted an injunction on the wolf hunt or not, the losing side would likely appeal. That meant even more time (and possibly wolf deaths) passing before the actual merits of the case is heard.

He wondered if allowing a hunting season would give wildlife managers more hard data to test management plans, or allow additional damage to an already broken law.

In his rebuttal, Honnold said his clients believe the safe wolf population number is between 2,000 and 5,000 individuals, and that the region is too close to that to start going backward now with hunting seasons. Furthermore, research gained from the hunts wouldn't have any bearing on whether FWS broke the delisting rules back in May, which was EarthJustice's original charge.

"As I stand here today, the wolf is delisted," Honnold said. "There's not a law that says you can't kill all the wolves. We're arguing about delisting and we believe injury to individual members is irreparable harm."

"I will get out an order as quickly as I can," Molloy concluded.

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• Wolf protesters, advocates trade claims outside courthouse