Saying he was acting to protect the interests of livestock producers and hunters, Montana's Democratic governor told the Obama administration today that his state would now ignore federal protections for the gray wolf and begin removing whole packs that prey on cattle and elk.

In his letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Gov. Brian Schweitzer also said state game wardens would not investigate or prosecute ranchers north of Interstate 90 who kill or harass wolves attacking their livestock, the Associated Press says.

Ranchers in southern Montana and Idaho already are allowed to shoot wolves that harass or kill their cattle, sheep or other animals.

To "protect" elk herds in the Bitterroot Valley and allow them to "recover," the state will begin culling wolves "by whole-pack removal," the governor wrote.

Schweitzer's defiant directive follows a legislative move last week by the state's U.S. senators, also Democrats, who introduced legislation to return control of gray wolves to Montana. And it came on the day that wildlife biologists reported that the elk herd around Missoula has nearly doubled over the past few years.

Schweitzer wrote that while "almost everyone acknowledges that the Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf population is fully recovered," he is "profoundly frustrated by the lack of any actual results that recognize Montana's rights and responsibilities to manage its wildlife." He said that Montana has "done everything that has been asked" but that the federal government has ignored the state's "exemplary efforts" at complying with the Endangered Species Act.

In 2008 a federal judge in Missoula put the gray wolf back under federal protection in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Last year she ruled that wolves could not be delisted in Montana and Idaho as long as Wyoming remained under federal management.

Tuesday, the Washington Cattlemen's Association sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to force the agency to review protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states.

Once on the brink of being wiped out, an estimated 1,700 gray wolves roam parts of five states. During the past decades, federal officials have relaxed rules against killing them. In that time, federal wildlife agents or contract hunters have killed more than 1,000 wolves that attacked livestock.