Matthew Brown, Associated Press Yahoo News 29 Apr 08;
Environmental and animal rights groups sued the federal government Monday, seeking to restore endangered species status for gray wolves in the Northern Rockies.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lifted federal protections for the estimated 1,500 wolves in March. It turned over management responsibilities to state officials in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana for the first time in more than three decades.
The lawsuit alleges those states lack adequate laws to ensure wolves are not again eradicated from the region. At least 37 were killed in the last month.
The groups are seeking an immediate court order to restore federal control over the species until the case is resolved.
"We're very concerned that absent an injunction, hundreds of wolves could be killed under existing state management plans," said attorney Jason Rylander with Defenders of Wildlife, one of twelve groups that filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Missoula.
Sharon Rose, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said her agency had not yet received the lawsuit and could not comment on the allegations.
Rose did say the agency's decision was based on science that will hold up in court.
"We believe we made the right decision — that the wolf had recovered and the regulatory mechanisms are there" to ensure its continued survival, Rose said.
When the wolves came off the endangered list, federal biologists argued the wolves' rapid reproductive rate would allow them to withstand increased hunting. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has said it will put them back on the endangered list if the population dips below 300 animals.
The lawsuit argues that a "spate of wolf killings" last month showed state management could quickly reverse the wolf's fortunes. The injunction said state officials would allow wolves to be eliminated across most of Wyoming and large parts of Montana and Idaho.
Rocky Mountain gray wolf killings prompt lawsuit
Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 28 Apr 08;
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Renewed killing of gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains prompted an environmental lawsuit on Monday, two months after the U.S. government declared these animals no longer needed protection.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Missoula, Montana, asks for reinstated protection for gray wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. government announced on February 21 it was ending protection for this group of gray wolves, and that decision became effective on March 28.
Since then, conservation groups said in the suit, dozens of gray wolves have been killed in the three states.
"Wolves have not yet recovered," said Louisa Willcox of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which was among those groups seeking renewed federal protection for the species.
"Biologically, you need several thousand wolves in connected populations between Yellowstone (national park in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho) and Canada to achieve what scientists and geneticists believe is true recovery," Willcox said by telephone. "This plan calls recovery good at 300 animals."
The government defended its stance. "We believe it was time to de-list the Rocky Mountain population of the gray wolf, and we stand by that," said Sharon Rose of the Denver office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Rose declined further comment, saying she had not seen the lawsuit.
Once plentiful in the 48 contiguous U.S. states, gray wolves were eradicated from the northern Rocky Mountain region and southwestern Canada by the 1930s. The species was listed as endangered in 1973; 66 wolves were re-introduced to the area in 1995.
The endangered species law is aimed at preventing extinction and protects species and their habitats.
By February of this year, there were 1,513 wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, including 107 breeding pairs, and wolf populations in these states grew by 24 percent annually since they were re-introduced, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said when the de-listing decision was announced.
Since the de-listing, the three states have taken over responsibility for managing wolf populations.
The lawsuit was filed by Earthjustice on behalf of NRDC, Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, The Humane Society of the United States, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Western Watersheds Project and Wildlands Project.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
US pressed to put wolves back on endangered species list
Yahoo News 28 Apr 08;
Several environmental groups said they filed a legal complaint Monday to force the federal government to put the wolf back on the list of endangered species, claiming some states were allowing indiscriminate killing of the animal.
The US government early last year removed the wolf from the list of endangered species in six US states, after successful recovery and reintroduction programs brought the animal back from the brink of extinction.
Since the protective measure was lifted, management of local wolf populations has reverted to state governments on condition they ensure the species' survival.
However, 12 environmental groups went to federal court in Missoula, Montana, asking that the protective measure be restored in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, where northern Rockies gray wolves "remain threatened by biased, inadequate state management plans."
Defenders of Wildlife said in a statement that Wyoming and Idaho authorities had given their residents a blank check for the "senseless and indiscriminate killing of wolves."
"For example, on the very day delisting took effect -- March 28, 2008 -- Idaho Governor Butch Otter signed into law a new Idaho law allowing Idaho citizens to kill wolves without a permit whenever wolves are annoying, disturbing or 'worrying' livestock or domestic animals," the environmental groups said in another statement.
They added that Wyoming, in turn, "has implemented its 'kill on sight' predator law in nearly 90 percent of the state.
"Not surprisingly, these hostile state laws have resulted in a wave of wolf killings."
Wolves in 1974 almost disappeared as a species in 48 US states -- excluding Alaska and Hawaii -- except for some isolated packs in Minnesota and Michigan.
In 1995, 66 wolves were released by the government in Idaho and in the nearby Yellowstone National Park with the hope they would propagate and multiply.
The program was successful. Currently, an estimated 1,200 wolves roam Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and, to tourists' delight, in Yellowstone's 8,900 square kilometers (3,440 square miles) of parkland.
However, influential farmers in the region opposed to the reintroduction of the predator argue strongly about the financial drain caused by wolf attacks on livestock.
