Wolf foe will renew push for initiative

LEWISTON – The leader of the Anti Wolf Coalition in Idaho said he will try again to put a wolf removal initiative on the ballot now that a federal judge has restored endangered species protection for gray wolves in the Northern Rockies.

“We are very pleased this liberal judge did what he did,” Ron Gillett told the Lewiston Tribune. “Now it will be all-out war.”

He said restoring federal protection to the wolves will reinvigorate his attempts to put a ballot initiative before Idaho voters. Two previous attempts failed, the last one falling about 10,000 signatures short of the 45,000 needed by the May 1 deadline.

Gillette blamed the failure on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision last March to remove wolves from the endangered species list following a decade-long restoration effort. The removal led Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to plan public wolf hunts this fall.

But those plans were derailed Friday when U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula granted a preliminary injunction restoring protections for the wolves.

Molloy will eventually decide whether the injunction should be permanent. That would force the government back to the beginning in its effort to pass management of the animals to the states.