Call Off The Wild: Legislators Ask Batt To Stop Wolves At The Border
The Idaho Legislature will make a last-minute effort to block reintroduction of wolves to the central Idaho wilderness.
State legislators, other state government officials and members of the state’s congressional delegation will send a letter to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt by this afternoon urging him to stop the wolf project.
Under a federal plan to return endangered wolves to the northern Rockies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to introduce wolves into central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park on Thursday.
Lawmakers went to the office of Gov. Phil Batt Tuesday morning in hopes of getting him to use the Idaho National Guard or State Police to block the Idaho reintroduction. A Batt spokesman said the governor planned no immediate action.
Later in the day, Lt. Gov. Butch Otter met with about a dozen lawmakers on Batt’s behalf and urged moderation. Legislators from rural areas said their constituents strongly oppose the wolf project and feel it is being forced on Idaho.
“There’s no sense in anybody going out on some sort of a suicide mission,” Otter said. “You’re looking at one of the original bombthrowers here, but it would be useless.”
Some legislators remembered that Gov. Cecil Andrus called out the State Police in 1988 to stop federal nuclear waste shipments to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. They wanted Batt to do the same, but Otter said his research shows the issues are different. The “responsible way” would be to apply pressure through the Legislature and other government channels.
A Batt administration attorney, Freeman Duncan, said it appears Idaho can do nothing through the courts to block the wolves. He said a Wyoming case is pending in federal appeals court and Idaho’s best chance would be to join the American Farm Bureau and Rocky Mountain Legal Defense Foundation appeal.
“There’s zero chance to get an injunction in state court,” Duncan said. “The best we can do is join with the Farm Bureau” in the Wyoming case.