Back to Court We Go to Protect Northern Rockies Wolves
Posted June 2, 2009 in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
NRDC and other conservation groups, represented by Earthjustice, filed a lawsuit today in the federal district court in Montana challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) decision to remove Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections from wolves in Montana and Idaho. Because Wyoming's management plan is so inadequate, FWS's "delisting rule," which went into effect on May 4, 2009, does not remove wolves in Wyoming from the endangered species list. The State of Wyoming filed a separate lawsuit in federal court in Wyoming challenging the rule.
The same groups won a similar lawsuit last year after the Bush administration also attempted to prematurely remove ESA protections from wolves in the Northern Rockies.
There are approximately 1,500 wolves in Montana and Idaho. Most of the recent scientific analysis finds that a larger wolf population with genetic connectivity among the subpopulations of central Idaho, northwest Montana, and greater Yellowstone is needed to ensure the wolves' long-term survival, which has not yet been achieved. The delisting rule authorizes Idaho and Montana to reduce their wolf populations to only 200-300 wolves in both states.
Excising Wyoming further evidences the inadequacy and illegality of FWS's rule. The wolves in the Northern Rockies constitute a single population - and they can't read maps. Piecemeal application of ESA protections makes no sense, and it's illegal.
In response to the lawsuit, Ed Bangs, FWS's wolf recovery coordinator, said, "In the old days, when somebody didn't like it, they punched you in the nose, or hung you. And these days they drag you into court. I don't know which is crueler."
I'm a lawyer, so I'm obviously biased, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that killing someone by hanging them is crueler than filing a lawsuit.
It's ironic, and more than a little disheartening, to see a U.S. government employee attacking citizens for lawfully engaging in the judicial system. But this is from the same guy that told Science magazine last year that "[genetic] [c]onnectivity can happen through a ride in the back of a truck."
The reintroduction of wolves in the Northern Rockies is one of the greatest success stories in conservation history. And we're close to full recovery, but we're not quite there, which is why NRDC and the other groups filed this lawsuit. We want to make sure a solid plan that ensures the long-term viability of Northern Rockies wolves is in place before the wolves are removed from the endangered species list.
To do otherwise would be downright cruel.
(For more information, see Louisa Willcox's op-ed in yesterday's Billings Gazette.)
(To support NRDC's wolf efforts, visit our BioGems site.)
