Free Republic

TAMPA, Fla. -- It's a warm, sun-drenched weekday morning outside D.W. Webb Middle School, in the Town 'n' Country neighborhood of Tampa. Under a cloudless sky, Joe Molloy, a boulder of a man, bespectacled and clad in a gray Webb Middle School T-shirt, khaki shorts and black New Balance sneakers, is preparing for his first phys ed class of the day. He's going to have his sixth-graders play kickball, so he's placing orange cones around the grass field to serve as the bases. "They don't know how to set up the cones," Molloy laments to his fellow teacher, Timothy Ruff....

Recordings and summaries of emergency calls show Washington wildlife officials at first objected to an air rescue of a woman treed by wolves, or help from the Okanogan County sheriff. Washington wildlife managers initially opposed sending a helicopter or a search-and-rescue team to save a woman treed by wolves in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, according to recordings and summaries of emergency calls. ... Notes from a call between DNR dispatcher Jill Jones and a wildlife officer summarized WDFW’s position, and her position, shortly before the helicopter launched. “No helicopter. Federally listed species. 3 WDFW personnel saying so,” according to DNR’s...

MISSOULA – U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ... Putnam said he’s attended several Oath Keepers rallies in the past, including three in Portland, Oregon and several at a memorial on the highway outside Burns, Oregon where LaVoy Finicum was killed by law enforcement in a standoff following the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife refuge. ... Jason Van Tatenhove, a Eureka-area man who serves as the national media director for the Oath Keepers, said he had doubts about the performance of Robertson’s federal public defense attorney, Michael Donahoe, saying he had refused, for example, to push to get an...

You might remember that Andy Johnson, the rancher from Wyoming, just won his case this week against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That battle concerned their environmentally friendly stock pond on their private property. The EPA demanded that he remove the pond and threatened him with fines of $37,500 per day if he did not comply. The case was settled this week and the Johnson Family are happy. However… He is not the only citizen that the EPA has targeted. More cases are coming to light on the extreme overreach of this organization. Disabled Navy veteran Joseph Robertson, 77, of...

A U.S. judge on Friday approved a deal between conservationists and Montana officials to restrict road-building and logging in roughly 22,000 acres of state forest lands that make up core habitat for federally protected grizzlies. The agreement resolves a lawsuit brought by conservationists after the state had sought to open 37,000 acres , mostly in the Stillwater State Forest, to timber harvesting despite what environmentalists said would be the destruction of prime grizzly bear territory. ... U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy in a decision last year found the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act by...

Wildlife advocates want a federal judge to order faster action on a recovery plan for imperiled Canada lynx. ... Officials also say that lynx face a relatively low degree of threat compared to other protected species. The Fish and Wildlife Service was forced to come up with a timeline on the recovery document when Molloy last month expressed frustration with the government's progress. The judge said the "stutter-step" approach by federal officials necessitated court intervention. The lawsuit pending before Molloy was brought by Friends of the Wild Swan, Rocky Mountain Wild, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and the San Juan Citizens Alliance....

A part of the legal fight over hunting wolves in the Northern Rockies officially disappeared from the record when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared the case moot on Wednesday. In 2010, federal District Court Judge Donald Molloy ruled that gray wolves were improperly stripped of Endangered Species Act protection in Montana and Idaho. Later that year, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., got an amendment through Congress declaring wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains a recovered species under the ESA and blocking any further legal review. Molloy, in a separate decision, agreed Congress had the power to shield the...

The U.S. Forest Service has re-examined the effects of a logging project on lynx habitat in an attempt to lift a judge's block of the Lolo National Forest project. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled in June that the Forest Service did not properly analyze the cumulative effects of the 2,038-acre Colt-Summit project on lynx habitat.

Two wilderness groups have sued the U.S. Forest Service over its decision to allow an irrigation company to use a helicopter to fly in materials needed to repair a dam in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Wilderness Watch and Friends of the Clearwater filed suit in U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy’s court in Missoula last week. The groups say the agency’s decision to allow the irrigation company up to two helicopter flights to the Fred Burr Dam site violates the Wilderness Act and other environmental laws. The irrigation company wants to replace a deteriorating catwalk and log boom on the nearly century-old...

During the past couple of days, the United States of America was treated to a “diversion” from the harsh reality of the very difficult economic situation that concerns most Americans. That ”diversion” came from the recent issue of birth control, Sandra Fluke, and Rush Limbaugh. What happened was last week, conservative talk radio show host, Rush Limbaugh, during his midday radio show talked up on the issue of both birth control and this woman by the name of Sandra Fluke.

MISSOULA- The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation filed a note it plans to appeal any decision that adversely affects a state's right to manage fully recovered wolf populations. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy is expected to decide whether Congress acted within Constitutional bounds when it delisted wolves in parts of the West. "We are protecting our right to appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals any decision that results in another setback for conservation and science-based wildlife management," said RMEF President and CEO David Allen. An unfavorable ruling may stop wolf hunts planned for this fall in both Montana...

the wolf soap opera and U.S. District of Montana Judge Donald W. Molloy’s pending ruling – which is STILL pending – circumstances in the high-stakes Endangered Species Act (ESA) political mix have gotten even nuttier. ... USFWS gave away the store in return: In parts 2 and 3, USFWS agreed to withdraw and resubmit for “public review” within 60 days the so-called “M-opinion” that interprets ESA’s statutory (and fuzzy) “significant portion of range” language. This interpretation is critically used to determine whether a species is to be listed as threatened, endangered – or not at all. Now, aren’t you just...

A couple of dozen men from the anti-wolf brigade were gathered by noon on East Broadway outside the Russell Smith Federal Courthouse, where U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy is hearing details of a recent settlement hammered out between the Obama administration and 10 conservation groups. The hearing began at 1:30 p.m. "We'll be here all afternoon until it's over," said Toby Bridges of Missoula, who organized the rally through Lobo Watch and expected dozens more to join in as the day went on. Some were in Helena in the morning for a hearing on Senate Bill 414, the Montana Wolf...

U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy is telling attorneys for environmental groups and wildlife management agencies to gather their data and help resolve whether gray wolves should still be an "experimental species" in the Northern Rockies. When wolves were re-introduced in Central Idaho and Yellowstone Park in the mid-90s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had them designated as an "experimental, non-essential" species. That allowed scientists to work on re-building wolf populations and gauging their survival, but also answered ranchers' concerns by allowing wolves that preyed on livestock to be killed. The question over whether the wolves are still "experimental"...

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, author of some of the most controversial rulings in recent Montana history, announced Wednesday that he will be taking senior status in August 2011. "Senior status" means retirement from active service. Senior judges continue to hear cases, usually with a reduced case load. He blocked removal of gray wolves from the endangered-species list and dismissed a lawsuit filed by Montana and other states that wanted out from under federal gun laws. He declared a U.S. Forest Service plan for dropping retardant on fires illegal and said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service arbitrarily excluded parts...

Inter Lake editorial U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy has raised the bar to insufferable heights when it comes to recovering a species under the Endangered Species Act, so much so that, if his ruling were upheld, American jurists should be prepared to slave over ESA litigation for eternity. Molloy's recent ruling that restored ESA protections for Yellowstone grizzly bears must have U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials wondering just what it will take to succeed with recovery. Molloy ruled their conservation strategies and plans for grizzly bears, developed through years of expensive efforts, were inadequate. Guidelines and standards for monitoring...