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Wildlife group will ask court to stop Idaho's gray wolf hunt
Consistent with the position that wolves are an endangered species and endangered species should not be hunted, groups call for a stop to a planned wolf hunt in Idaho.
Russ Morgan of the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife examines a male wolf that was knocked out and fitted with a radio collar this spring in Eastern Oregon.
As Idaho proceeds with a plan to allow hunting of gray wolves beginning next month, the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife said it will ask for a court injunction to stop the hunt.
Idaho Fish and Game announced that it will allow 220 wolves to be killed during a hunt that begins Sept. 1. The department intends to reduce the state's wolf population to 520, slightly more than half of the estimated 1,000 wolves in Idaho.
The hunt follows a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which reintroduced gray wolves in Idaho several years ago, to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list. Conservation groups are strongly opposed, and have filed legal challenges to the delisting.
"It is almost beyond comprehension that we find ourselves in this situation, after coming so close to successfully restoring a population of wolves to their natural habitat in the Northern Rockies," Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen said in a news release.
Earlier this year, Idaho Fish and Game offered to trap wolves and transport them to other states, but got no takers on the plan. A bill passed by the 2009 Idaho Legislature required the agency to seek an alternative to killing the wolves. The bill's chief sponsor, state Sen. Gary Schroeder, said the legislation was intended to "insulate" the state against environmentalists' lawsuits.
Elsewhere, Montana plans to allow 75 wolves to be killed during a hunt that begins in October. However, Oregon law still prohibits hunting wolves. The state has at least one pair of gray wolves in Baker County, where they have killed sheep, and may have a pack developing in Wallowa County in the northeast corner of the state bordering Idaho, said Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy. A female wolf recently refitted with a radio collar was found to be nursing, and three pups have been seen in the area and are thought to be her's, Dennehy said.
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