A wolf in Wyoming, unknown location. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Posted on 04/29/2008 6:38:22 AM PDT by yankeedame
By Peter Metcalf, 4-28-08
A wolf in Wyoming, unknown location. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
As expected, a coalition of 12 environmental and animal-rights groups filed suit today in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont. seeking to overturn the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to remove gray wolves in the Northern Rockies from protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The lawsuit seeks a immediate injunction to protect gray wolves from public hunting and aims to return the wolf to federal management under the Endangered Species Act. Gray wolves were officially delisted on March 28th.
“We’re trying to prevent the wolf slaughter from going forward,” said Doug Honnold, managing attorney of the Bozeman office of Earthjustice, the legal organization representing the coalition.
The groups argue state management plans fail to provide adequate protection for the species, especially against indiscriminate public hunting. Instead of protection, state management actually promotes the killing of wolves, Honnold said.
As evidence, the coalition points to Wyoming law that classifies wolves as predators that can be shot on sight year round in most of the state and an Idaho law that allows people to shoot wolves just for “worrying” livestock or domestic animals.
According the Associated Press, at least 37 wolves have been killed in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming since the states assumed full management responsibilities a month ago. The bulk of these deaths resulted from public hunting in Wyoming’s predator zone.
The groups argue this is just the beginning of states’ attempts to reduce current wolf populations by about 80 percent to the federal minimum of 300 wolves. More than 1,500 wolves currently roam the tri-state region.
State and federal officials maintain that the initial rate of killing will subside as wolves adapt to public hunting and that state management plans provide adequate protection and sound management that will maintain wolf populations between 900–1,250 animals, more than enough to ensure their long term survival.
The lawsuit also argues present wolf numbers are too low and the populations in greater Yellowstone, Idaho and Montana too isolated from one another to meet the biological criteria for a recovered species. Wolf advocates contend 2,000–3,000 wolves are necessary to ensure the species’ long term survival and genetic viability.
The filing came as expected on the first day the coalition could legally file suit. By law, legal challenges relating to the ESA require a 60-day notification of intent to sue. The coalition filed its intent on February 28th, the day federal officials announced their intention to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list. The federal government has ten days to file a response.
There needs to be a class-action lawsuit against these groups for causing undue sufering due to economic downturn in America.
The wolf population used to be around 500,000 before people decided they were evil and needed to be eradicated. You can be a conservative and still give a damn about wildlife.
37 wolves is a drop in the bucket. Since the environmental whackjobs have gotten the wolves listed as endangered, their numbers have grown exponentially.
Sheep and cattle outside the national forests and parks are easier pickings for them than the abundance of wildlife inside these areas which, incidentally, constitute the vast majority of the real estate in western Montana, western Wyoming, Idaho, northern Utah and northwest Colorado, the natural range of the wolves.
These bogus lawsuits have nothing to do with protecting an endangered species and everything to do with economically driving ranchers and farmers off the little bit of land in these areas which isn't owned by the national government.
Whether they are de-listed or not will not prevent a “jerk” from shooting one.
...when are environmentalists *not* been suing everyone?
If you want stead tort work, latch on to the environmental movement.
...when are environmentalists *not* been suing everyone?
If you want stead tort work, latch on to the environmental movement.
Each wolf kills 6 moose for every moose a human takes. People harvest 20,000 moose a year in Alaska, we have 20-30 thou wolves. In Sweden, they have 100 wolves, harvest 250,000 moose. Pretty basic stuff you know.
That is many times what was agreed to when they were reintroduced to Yellowstone.
If you guys really meant to let them grow to 500,000 why didn't you disclose that when you were arguing for the reintroduction?
I think Wyoming should trap 500 of them an turn them loose in your home town.
I see now that the author was talking about a population of 1,500 within a very small area, not the total gray wolf population in North America. I stand corrected.
One’s fondness for large predators varies proportionally with distance. If there was a catch-and-release program that turned these wolves loose in downtown Denver, you would see a different public attitude.
What's this "you guys" stuff? And I didn't mean that we should let the population get back to half a million. Anyway, as I replied in a previous post I didn't see that the 1,500 was in a tri-state area.
Liberals and zealots delve into self-parody with amazing regularity.
The list and the threshold for inclusion in the list is population. Once a count is reached ‘endangered’ no longer applies. It’s also a safe bet that the counting method probably underestimates the number of animals in the wild.
This isn’t good enough for lefties, however, who give themselves away with their self-righteous lawsuits. There are many parallels to the voting controversies (registration, voter ID) currently simmering. In those cases somehow the lefties want to get a less accurate count!
As expected
The wolf population wasn’t really a problem until they began to move out of the national park areas where the management and breeding programs started. Once outside the park areas they started encountering a lot of livestock. You can guess what has happened.
Ranchers are losing money and lots of it. The ranchers have a right to protect their property (not that an environmentalists has any understanding of ‘private property’).
Like any predatory population we must control them because if we don’t we allow them to control us.
I’ve been around ‘pet’ wolves and I can assure you they are dangerous animals.
Allow a liberal 300 and they will take 1500 or more. The agreed level was 300 and it has been exceeded by a factor a 5. The impact on moose, elk, deer and domestic livestock is observable. Many of the local hunters paid for elk tags last year and didn't see a single elk. These weren't inexperienced hunters. They were people who annually put an elk in the freezer to offset their family food costs. No joy for any of them this year. The big Canadian wolves that were introduced at 120+ lbs each. The original wolves that populated the area weighed 45 to 65 lbs. The big Canadian predators aren't native and are destroying all the native game in Idaho.
The agreement to reintroduce them into Yellowstone was for a maximum of 535 pairs.
They have spread way beyond Yellowstone and none are being shot in Yellowstone.
You said you love wolves and so you should petition to have the excess trapped at turned loose where you live instead of having them shot outside Yellowstone.
Sorry, I forgot that in Free Republic anything even remotely giving a damn about the environment is to be looked on with scorn and derision. So I think ensuring survival of wolves and bald eagles is a good thing. So shoot me.
Yep, we knew it was coming. Yet another long drawn out court action at the taxpayers expense. I think sometimes that the enviro whack jobs should be delisted.
Thanks for the ping, George.
Being overrun by wolves is not "survival". How about they be ensured of survival in your home town? You haven't said if you are in favor of that. (It doesn't have anything to do with Freerepublic.)
I am for "ensuring survival" also, but they would survive just fine in Canada where these came from. They are killing the actual native wolves that were already in Yellowstone.
Also as far as the Bald Eagles, they are taking them off the list as they started taking a closer look at them.
They found there were a lot more Bald Eagles than they thought. There are a whole bunch of ordinary eagles doing a comb over.
Thanks george for the ping.
You want to keep a big game reserve full of wolves, knock yourself out. But don't feed them other people's property.
These are Canadian wolves.
Note Myrddin’s comment on weight and size differences versus American wolves.
Should be introduce predators from Asia and Africa too?
Earth Day is Lenin’s birthday.
Coincidence or Communism?
Some do not know that groups like Ducks Unlimited contribute much to the environment. Not just money, either.
If you’d like to be on or off this Upper Midwest/outdoors/rural list please FR mail me. And ping me is you see articles of interest.
[...Sorry, I forgot that in Free Republic anything even remotely giving a damn about the environment is to be looked on with scorn and derision.]
I don’t look at you as anything but somebody who doesn’t know WTH you’re talking about, and when that gets demonstrated you run crying for the victim role.
“Scorn and derision” my butt.
I’ll set you up with a couple of my neighbors who are still trying to run ranch operations a hundred miles or so from Yellowstone to talk about your wonderful wolves if you actually want to deal with some reality instead of this BS from the MSM and the environazis you spout as an excuse for concern about anything but your own overtender feelings. They can also give you a practical lesson on REAL concern for the environment that you won’t get from anybody who doesn’t have to actually make his daily bread from it.
Don’t come to me, however. I just live in the house on an old homesteaded ranch and lease the land out to people who still want to deal with it. Between dealing with the State and Federal alphabet soup of bureaucrats, the slimy shysters the environazis send around every time they think they can make a buck or a headline and the witless tourists (like you, maybe) who trespass, trash and/or try to burn up everything they see, I got the he** out of ranching before I went nuts or got myself thrown in jail for shooting some a*****.
Or their d*** pet wolf.
The greens can’t admit that the environment may be healing itself. This would take away their reason to exist.
Why is it that the same people who proclaim survival of the fittest to be gospel, don’t want to let that happen?
“The original wolves that populated the area weighed 45 to 65 lbs. The big Canadian predators aren’t native”
This is something most people don’t know. They introduced a foreign predator because the public is ignorant (but they watch Animal Planet and the Discovery channel) about wolf species and subspecies. The wolf that was native to the area was the Great Plains wolf (Canis lupus nubilus). They introduced the Canadian Gray Wolf (Canis lupus occidentalis). Wolf subspecies can vary widely in size. Some populations can have a mean size of less than 50lbs and others can be over a 100lbs. Obviously what they prey upon is determined by this.
What the hell I was talking about was a concern that we were limiting the total wolf population in North America to 1,500. Then I was told over and over that the issue was over the wolf population in a very small area. I stated that I stand corrected, and misunderstood the subject. Suddenly I'm the symbol of every over-reaching Green Peace freak and the very image of Al Gore himself. Screw that. And if you think that's playing the victim, whatever. Go find a real green freak to vent your rage on. I'm done here.
“There needs to be a class-action lawsuit against these groups for causing undue sufering due to economic downturn in America”
AMEN! These enviro-elitists were successful this week in closing down significant portions of the NC Outer Banks beaches to vehicle and pedestrian traffic to “save” some tiny birds and sea turtles.
No more driving to the points at either end of Hatteras, including Cape Point, and the same for Ocracoke Island and the Point underneath the Bonner Bridge on Pea Island.
Night driving anywhere on the beach is banned, there may be some easing of this during the fall fishing season, but overall it’s going to kill the surf fishing industry out there.
Oh, forgot to mention, these bastards of environmental self-righteous litigation attorneys get paid by YOU and ME when they win. “Reasonable court costs for the plaintiff” are part of the suit.
These greasy, bile-sucking, scumbag leeches are in it for profit.
The same applies to the ACLU, except they exploit a federal law that requires that the federal government reimburse their legal costs in a "civil rights" action. They care nothing about civil rights. It just happens that "civil rights" is a required attribute of their litigation to ensure the taxpayer pays them.
“These enviro-elitists were successful this week in closing down significant portions of the NC Outer Banks beaches to vehicle and pedestrian traffic to “save” some tiny birds and sea turtles.”
Just maddening! And it’s the damn judges that allow this stuff through.
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