August 5, 2010 in Idaho, Region

Judge orders protections reinstated for gray wolf

• Print
• Email
• Share

Associated Press photo

A Federal judge ordered endangered species protections reinstated for gray wolf in Montana and Idaho on Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010.
(Full-size photo)

HELENA, Mont. — A federal judge on Thursday reinstated Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in Idaho and Montana, saying the government made a political decision in removing the protections from just two of the three states where Rocky Mountain wolves roam.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said in his ruling that the entire Rocky Mountain wolf population either must be listed as an endangered species or removed from the list, but the protections for the same population can’t be different for each state.

Thursday’s ruling casts uncertainty on the upcoming fall wolf hunt in both states.

Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service turned over wolf management to Montana and Idaho wildlife officials but left federal endangered species protections in place for wolves in Wyoming, where state law is considered hostile to the animals’ survival.

“Even if the Service’s solution is pragmatic, or even practical, it is at its heart a political solution that does not comply with the ESA,” Molloy wrote in his ruling.

In Idaho, the congressional delegation and state wildlife managers expressed frustration with the ruling.

“Judge Molloy ignored the exploding population of wolves in Idaho and the constitutional 10th Amendment right of a state to manage its own wildlife populations,” said a statement released by U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch and Congressmen Mike Simpson and Walt Minnick. “We remain convinced Idaho can manage wolves in a sustainable way…We look for a more reasonable decision from a higher court.”

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game immediately suspended sales of wolf tags for the fall hunt.

“We’re frustrated; we’re angry; we’re disappointed,” said Idaho Fish and Game Deputy Jim Unsworth. “We played by the rules, but (Molloy’s) decision allows procedural technicalities to overcome common sense.”

Defenders of Wildlife, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and other wildlife advocates sued the federal government after the Fish and Wildlife Service decision in April 2009. They argued that the government’s decision would have set a precedent allowing the government to arbitrarily choose which animals should be protected and where.

Gray wolves were listed as endangered in 1974, but following a reintroduction program in the mid-1990s, there are now more than 1,700 in the Northern Rockies.

Doug Honnold, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said he was gratified by the ruling, though he is sure there will be another chapter to the story.

“For today, we are celebrating that the approach we thought was flatly illegal has been rejected. The troubling consequences for the Endangered Species Act have been averted and the wolf hunts are blocked,” Honnold said.

The plaintiffs don’t want wolves on the endangered species list forever, but they do want a solid plan in place, said Suzanne Stone, Northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife. The government’s plan was poorly devised and would have allowed too many wolves to be killed, she said.

“We need a good wolf management and delisting that allows for a healthy interconnected wolf population,” Stone said.

Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment immediately after the ruling was released, saying they had yet to read the whole decision.

Carolyn Sime, wolf program coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said Montana has done everything it’s been asked to do in developing its state management program but now will have to apply federal law and regulations once more.

“This puts a spotlight on Wyoming and seeing what can be done with Wyoming,” Sime said.

The increase in the wolf population brought livestock losses for ranchers and competition for hunters for game, such as elk, agency officials said. Wolves south of Interstate 90 in Idaho will revert to their “experimental population” status, allowing some flexibility to kill wolves that attack livestock, according to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Wolves north of Interstate 90 are fully protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Idaho Department of Fish and Game will continue to monitor wolves’ impact on elk populations, seeking federal approval to kill wolves to protect dwindling herds, officials said.

The loss of a hunting season is a big blow, said Montana’s Sime.

“That’s clearly a management tool that we want to have in the toolbox. We think it’s legitimate and appropriate,” she said.

Both Idaho and Montana held wolf hunts last season. Montana’s kill ended with 73 wolves and Idaho’s with 188.

At the end of 2009, there were at least 843 wolves in Idaho, 524 in Montana and 320 in Wyoming, with more in parts of Oregon and Washington state.

© Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

16 comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  oneanddone on August 05 at 6:06 p.m.

  Just like California gay marriage, no ONE judge should be able to unilaterally negate decisions made in concert between federal and state officials or done via proposition. It’s idiotic. Judges like this, who use the bench to promote their own individual political agenda, should be summarily tossed if either the court of appeals or Supreme court overturn them. The judiciary has WAY too much power in our system of government. All are appointed and can do just whatever the he11 they want. And while I’m at it, all lifetime appointments to the bench (Appeals and Supreme court) should be changed to 10 years. Our society should not be controlled so closely by people who have no responsibility to the American people.

• 

  danr51trek on August 05 at 6:44 p.m.

  Wow oneanddone, civil rights should never be up for public vote. If you believe that, schools might still be segregated by color. Marraige is a business contract in the eyes of the government not a religious institution. Why shouldn’t any two consenting adults be allowed to enter into a business contract. Any religion can get married Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Mslin, Christian alike. Of the three branches of government the judicial has the most powerful check and balance, that which can strike down a law in a single blow if it goes against the law of the land in this case the constitution. Justice and liberty for all does not mean discriminate against those you do not agree with. I hope you can open your heart and move past the judgement your post portrays.

  In regards to the gray wolf the US Fish and Wildlife cannot arbitrarily put an animal on the endangered species list for one state and take it off for another. In this instance the affected states should be working with the others and US Fish and Wildlife to find an amicable solution. Perhaps taking them off the endangered list but arranging for capture and relocation in those states that control hunting and have large enough populations to help maintain a population in a state that has lesser controls in place for hunting. This way the wolf survives in the area where it is hunted under lesser controls.

• 

  danr51trek on August 05 at 6:46 p.m.

  oops that should say Muslim not Mslin

• 

  Spokane_Citizen on August 05 at 8:33 p.m.

  The beauty of the federal judicial system is that the judges can attempt to rule based on law, and not based on the political impulses of the moment. Thankfully, oneanddone’s archaic thought processes and era of ignorance are ending.

• 

  maria on August 05 at 8:52 p.m.

  Bout time.

• 

  maria on August 05 at 9:00 p.m.

  oneanddone: It sounds to me that you would have made a great Nazi. Yep, lets get ourselves all frothed up into a fervor and kill everything we don’t like. Sorry, but this is America. We have judges to guide us toward the direction of fairness, including the animal kingdom. Their jobs can’t be easy. I for one love the wolves. They bring a sense of smallness to our narcissistic human species. Like the Grizzly bear, we need these creatures around us to remind us that we are not the most powerful animals around.

• 

  mdriftmeyer on August 05 at 10:04 p.m.

  A judge with a brain who listens to biologists. What a novel concept.

• 

  misjustice on August 06 at 7:10 a.m.

  I applaud the judge’s decision in this case.

  Unfortunately, the decision will be appealed…

  I do not buy the “competition for game” argument that hunters promote. It is ONLY MAN that tries to kill the biggest, healthiest, strongest, animals of the herd; wolves take down the weakest, the sickest, the smallest, the slowest animals, as nature intended. Wolves are not in competition with hunters for that big trophy to hang on the wall of the cabin!

• 

  MrNatural on August 06 at 9:25 a.m.

  I personally do not have any druthers on this wolf experiment issue except to say that I’ve heard biologists argue both sides of the story, naturalist defend their excited idealism on managing natures balance and elk hunters and ranchers being livid with the huge reduction in elk calve survival rates and the high rate of scattered game and livestock kills.

  But I’ll just wait until the first backpackers get eviscerated by a pack and then let’s see how the law of the land settles on this issue.

  Hey there little red riding hood you sure are lookin good…

• 

  spokesfolk on August 06 at 9:31 a.m.

  Wolves kill far more than they eat. Man isn’t
  the only species that is wasteful in that way.

  Most hunters aren’t in it for just the trophy, game animals are an important source of protein for many. Elk meat is one of the best
  tasting meats too.

  Those who want to force reintroduction of predators on others
  should have to either take those animals near their home too
  or make whole the people who have losses to their lively hood
  from those predators.

  After all, who used to live in your backyard?

• 

  misjustice on August 06 at 12:11 p.m.

  Many humans also kill far more than they eat…spokes, and also kill just to kill, for the “sport” of it if you will.

  No one is forcing anything on you; there are already systems in place to compensate “farmers” that “suffer” losses due to predators and if your life is threatened by a wily wolf you may kill it…still not happy though, are ya?

  I co-exist with the osprey, eagles, partridges, ducks, pheasants, skunks, raccoons, the rare rambling moose, and the occasional coyote that wanders through my city scape; and I would never consider killing any of them…and when I lived out in the hinter lands I had the same respect for bears and other predators like bobcats. Just because humans are afraid of predators doesn’t mean that those animals should be hunted to extinction.

• 

  spokesfolk on August 06 at 2:28 p.m.

  “?No one is forcing anything on you; there are already systems in place to compensate “farmers” that “suffer” losses due to predators and if your life is threatened by a wily wolf you may kill it…still not happy though, are ya??”

  Bubblegum, If I am out with my dog and he is attacked, I am not
  allowed to defend it. Wolves hunt domestic dogs.

  And why should I wait until my little boy is
  attacked, to then be able to kill the animal. There is a reason
  for all those stories about wolves.

  There are still ranchers waiting, after many months, to get
  “reimbursed” for livestock losses. The organizations that
  say they will help make up for ranchers losses talk a good
  talk. When it comes down to it tho, they require such
  “documented proof” that few can meet their standards.

  I hear the rose bush eating mountain beaver is endangered.
  Should we move a couple to your garden to insure their
  survival?

• 

  kovah on August 06 at 2:56 p.m.

  spokesfolk: Wolves are shy of humans and will move away from you given the choce, if your dog was out of your control and ran at a wolf of course it would retaliate. The wolf would win. And perhaps if your little boy got lost in the woods at night perhaps he might be attacked by the wolves. Making you either an irresponsible pet owner or an irresponsible parent.

  Statistically you are more likely to be in a car crash than attacked by wolves, you are more likely to be killed by a domestic dog than a wolf but you probably wont stop driving or having a dog. Wolf attacks no matter how rare are highly publicised by the media negative images are ingrained into peoples minds about top predators.

  “Fortunately, human attacks by wolves are extremely rare. How rare? This question gets into the messy business of defining what constitutes ‘a wolf attack’ and the credibility of each event. A reasonable source for information is the world-wide study of wolf attacks on humans done by the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) in 2002. The finding of the report was that during the 100 years of the 20th century there were between twenty and thirty attacks in North America (including Alaska and Canada, which have relatively high populations of wolves). Of these, three were fatal, all because of rabies.”
  http://www.yellowstoneinsider.com/issues/wolves/wolf-attacks-on-people.php

  Check your facts before succumbing to ‘stories’ and media driven hearsay about top predators. If you are going to worry about a predator though I suggest you watch out for bears, they are more likely to pose a problem than wolves.

• 

  spokesfolk on August 06 at 4:02 p.m.

  Wolves might kill my dog or my child, but of course if that
  happened it would be my fault? If you don’t put wolves where
  I live they certainly won’t be killing anyone or anyone’s animals.

  Just last year and just in Montana 365 domestic animals have been recorded killed by wolves. This is only 1 in 8 animals
  suspected killed by wolves. Could be as many as 2920, or
  8 a day.

  “Meanwhile, 365 sheep, cattle, horses and dogs killed by wolves have been tallied in Montana for 2009, said George Edwards, coordinator of a Montana program to compensate ranchers who suffer losses.

  That’s up more than 50 percent from 2008.

  The animals’ owners have been paid $139,000 for their losses, leaving only about $25,000 remaining in the state’s compensation fund. Legislation sponsored by U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, could soon boost the fund with federal money.

  State and federal officials estimate that only one in eight wolf kills is confirmed. For many of the rest, proof needed to justify compensation is never found. Many sheep and cattle grazing on public lands in wolf country simply go missing.”

  http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/jan/31/wolf-toll-on-livestock-increases/

  I have been approached by a wolf due to have a dog with
  our hiking party. It came at us on Abercrombie Mtn. in the 1975.
  It wasn’t shy. I was glad to have 3 of us in the party. We never
  would have seen it I suspect without the dog.

  If wolves are allowed to be protected, like cougars are in some
  parts of the country, just like cougars, we can expect to have more pets, livestock
  and eventually people being attacked.
  Hubris.

  If you want wolf habitat so bad, do like hunters do, pony up the money to buy land. In this case fenced land.

• 

  kovah on August 07 at 1:55 a.m.

  spolksfolk: As far as I am concerned those wolves have more right to be there on that land than you do. When you go hiking in the mountains you are entering *their* territory, if one came wandering into your house then sure kill it because it had crossed the line and has become a threat to humans.

  I am against the hunt as a whole because many of the animals will never have been a threat to humans, so using that as an excuse for a hunt is ludicrous. The same thing with the live stock the article you cited said that

  “Wolf attacks account for only a small fraction of sheep and cattle losses in the Northern Rockies. Disease, weather and coyotes each take more.”

  So why isn’t more being done about disease and coyotes? Why not a Coyote hunt? Because hunters want to bag big game - Wolves, Cougars, Grizzlies, Adult Male Elk…etc.

  Why arent the livestock being fenced in? If the figures show it would be worth their while to do so to protect their income, but it seems that whenever some other species dares become a threat to anything to do with humans the knee jerk reaction is to kill it.

  Which is why most of the worlds top predators are on the Endangered Species List because humans are encroaching on their land resulting in more contact and more loss of life - domestic animal or human and so rather than move away and give the predator space they just kill it.

• 

  spokesfolk on August 07 at 9:25 a.m.

  “spolksfolk: As far as I am concerned those wolves have more right to be there on that land than you do. When you go hiking in the mountains you are entering *their* territory, if one came wandering into your house then sure kill it because it had crossed the line and has become a threat to humans.”

  If they are allowed the strict protections as now, they may
  be wandering in my yard. Not everyone grows up in the city.
  My livelyhood depends on people visiting the public lands,
  lands I pay taxes on and own, as do you.

  “I am against the hunt as a whole because many of the animals will never have been a threat to humans, so using that as an excuse for a hunt is ludicrous. ”

  An earlier poster mentioned 23 deaths prior to 2002. You have
  wishful thinking. If wolves are protected from hunting, they will
  be “naturally selected” to lose their fear of humans and then
  become more dangerous.

  “So why isn’t more being done about disease and coyotes? Why not a Coyote hunt?”

  This shows your ignorance. Coyote hunts are ongoing all the
  time. They are considered pests.
  The local sporting goods store has a competition each
  year with a $5000 prize to the one who can bring in the most
  coyotes in a day. Much like our Grandfathers did with the wolves.

  “Why aren’t the livestock being fenced in?”

  Where do you LIVE? You haven’t heard of barbwire or a chicken
  house? Domestic animals are, well, domestic. They live by your
  home and are generally kept by means of fencing etc. Wolves
  don’t honor fences.

  “Which is why most of the worlds top predators are on the Endangered Species List because humans are encroaching on their land resulting in more contact and more loss of life - domestic animal or human and so rather than move away and give the predator space they just kill it.”

  So if you have wolves move into where I grew up, then I
  have to move away and find another line of work?

  You have already encroached on the wolves habitat. Why don’t
  have keep at pack at your house?