The fate of the Northern Rockies’ wolves is a becoming a major cultural and legal issue. In Missoula, Montana, a judge hears a vital case on the subject, as protesters throng in front of the court house. In an emerging culture war, in part about the cleavage between urban and rural America, wolves have become a hot-button topic.

Inside the courtroom, what’s at stake is who should manage wolf populations. US Fish and Wildlife delisted wolves from their endangered species list, handing control of wolves over to the states in Idaho and Montana. For this to happen, the states had to produce plans showing how they would manage wolf numbers, hence the introduction of hunting seasons there. But officials deemed Wyoming’s plan unsatisfactory. Thus, wolves there remained federally protected, and the state was unable to introduce a hunting season.

A legal team led by lawyer Doug Honnold argues that this split is unprecedented—either the wolves in the Northern Rockies are being adequately protected or they are not. Wyoming’s inability to satisfactorily manage the wolf population should, Honnold says, land the species back on the endangered list. Honnold also argues that the numbers defining recovery in the original reintroduction plan 20 years ago were arbitrarily set at 100 wolves per state, a political but not scientific compromise.