CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Wyoming may be making progress toward convincing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that wolves should be classified as unprotected predators in most of the state, Gov. Matt Mead said Tuesday.

Mead met last week with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in Cheyenne to discuss wolf management. Since then, state and federal officials have continued to discuss how to end years of wrangling between the state and federal governments over how to end federal protections for wolves under the Endangered Species Act.

In an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, Mead said his office continues to negotiate with the federal government on the wolf issue, including the number of wolves Wyoming should be required to maintain.

"Many well-intentioned people for many years have worked on this problem, and we've not made any progress. And I'm trying to make progress," Mead said. "But on the other hand, I don't want to hold out false hope. I mean, as I've said, maybe there's only a 3-percent chance we'll get anything done. But even if that's the only chance, I want to continue to try, at least for now."

Wyoming's wolf management plan, spelled out in state law, calls for wolves to be managed as trophy game animals in the northwestern corner of the state. It would classify them as predators that could be shot on sight everywhere else.

Mead said he believes his office has made some progress recently on getting the Fish and Wildlife Service to accept having wolves classified as predators in most of the state. He said that a final agreement on the point could depend on several other factors.

Since their reintroduction in Yellowstone and other areas in the mid-1990s, the wolf population in the Northern Rockies has rebounded up to more than 1,600 animals, federal officials say. While the federal government originally said it planned to have only 150 wolves in Wyoming, the number now stands at roughly 340.

Salazar said last week in Cheyenne that he couldn't say whether the federal government ultimately could accept any Wyoming plan that continues to rank wolves both as protected trophy game animals and unprotected predators depending on their location.

Chris Tollefson, spokesman for the Interior Department in Washington, said Tuesday that while the talks with Wyoming are ongoing, the department didn't have anything to report about progress.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a few years ago said it would accept Wyoming's management plan, but the federal agency reversed itself after a federal judge criticized the plan. Meanwhile, failure to end federal protection for wolves in Wyoming has hampered efforts to delist wolves in Idaho and Montana in recent years.

The Obama administration this month announced a legal settlement with environmental groups that could end federal management of wolves in Idaho and Montana. The judge presiding over the case hasn't announced yet whether he will accept the settlement and a handful of plaintiff environmental groups have refused to settle.

Mead said that if he ultimately can reach an agreement with Salazar over wolf management in Wyoming, he would want Congress to sign off on it to put an end to litigation over wolf protection.

"The history on this has shown that people are very litigious and have strong feelings about it both ways," Mead said. "What we want to do is move us forward and get us out from under these law suits. Get us to a plan where Wyoming could manage the wolves."

Mead said the state would have a strong interest in maintaining whatever minimum wolf population the deal would call for it to maintain so the animals don't revert to federal control.

Mead said he doesn't believe environmental groups should perceive that a proposal to have Congress specify that no more lawsuits would be allowed over wolf management would be an attack on the Endangered Species Act.

"I can't speak for how the environmental groups will view it, but when the secretary himself says that there's no question that the wolves are fully recovered and ought to be delisted, I think that is exactly right," Mead said.