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Conservation Groups Challenge Northern Rockies Wolf Delisting

Oregon Wild joins with coalition to ensure sensible management of wolves

Conservation groups, represented by Earthjustice, go to court to challenge premature delisting of gray wolves.

Conservation groups today filed their challenge to the removal of Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the Idaho and Montana.  On April 2, 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dropped the wolves from the Endangered Species list, finalizing an effort launched by the Bush administration to deprive the wolves of legal and habitat protections, thus allowing state management and hunting.  The challenged delisting decision is the second time in a year the federal government has removed federal protections for wolves in the Northern Rockies.  Conservation groups, represented by Earthjustice, successfully sued to get the protections reinstated in July 2008. 

Delisting wolves means they will be subject to state-sponsored wolf control efforts and hunting this year unless stopped by legal action.  Idaho and Montana plan to allow hundreds of wolves to be shot.

“With just a handful of wolves roaming the far northeast corner of Oregon, now is not the time to be short-circuiting their protections,” said Rob Klavins with the conservation group Oregon Wild. “Today, we seek to once again push the government towards managing wolves with strong regional safeguards to ensure Oregon wolves don’t lose the small foothold they’ve established in our state.”

The decision to lift wolf protections comes as Yellowstone Park wolves declined by 27 percent in the last year – one of the largest declines reported since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995.  The northern Rockies wolf population also has not achieved a level of connectivity between the greater Yellowstone, central Idaho, and northwest Montana areas that is essential to wolves’ long-term survival.  In delisting wolves, the Fish and Wildlife Service authorized Idaho and Montana to reduce their current wolf populations from a current population of roughly 1,500 wolves to only 200-300 wolves in the two states. 

Wolves will remain under federal control in Wyoming because a federal court previously ruled that Wyoming’s hostile wolf management scheme leaves wolves in “serious jeopardy.”  The Fish and Wildlife Service in the recent past held that a state-by-state approach to delisting wolves was not permitted under the Endangered Species Act, including in its earlier decision to not delist wolves without Wyoming’s inclusion.  In the challenged delisting decision, the federal government flip flopped from its earlier position.

In addition to Wyoming, Idaho and Montana have refused to make enforceable commitments to maintain viable wolf populations within their borders.  On the very day the first wolf delisting took effect in March, 2008, Idaho Governor Butch Otter signed a law allowing Idaho citizens to kill wolves without a permit whenever wolves are annoying, disturbing, or “worrying” livestock or domestic animals.  The Idaho Fish and Game Commission established rules that would have allowed 428 wolves to be killed in 2008 alone had the court not returned wolves to the endangered species list.  Montana also authorized a fall wolf hunt.

Earthjustice represents Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, 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, Wildlands Project, and Hells Canyon Preservation Council.

Quotes from conservation groups:

“We look forward to celebrating the transfer of wolves to state management but not until a federal delisting rule is developed that ensures the future of wolves in the region.  This plan ignores current science on what wolves need to maintain a healthy population over the long term.  It also ignores the hundreds of thousands of citizens who have asked for a better plan,“ said Suzanne Stone, Northern Rockies Representative for Defenders of Wildlife.

“Last time the Service removed legal protections, there was an all out war on wolves in the weeks that followed,” said Louisa Willcox, Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s office in Livingston, Mont.  “We are so incredibly close to fulfilling the conditions necessary to declare the wolves’ comeback as complete, but this move threatens to undo what should be an incredible conservation success story.”

"Unfortunately, leaving wolves in state hands right now threatens their survival.  Wolves are one of America's natural treasures, and they should be managed that way," Melanie Stein, a Sierra Club representative, said. "It makes no sense to delist wolves on a state-by-state basis.  Wolves don't know political boundaries.  We look forward to restoring wolves to the care of the federal government until the states have come up with plans that will sustain wolves into the future.  We hope to work with the Obama administration to ensure that wolves fully recover."

"We are disappointed that this early in the new administration, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar choose to ignore sound science and instead choose to pursue a piecemeal delisting plan for the Northern Rockies gray wolf population.  It makes no sense to segment an already fragmented population with two different management plans.  Taking away Endangered Species protection from wolves in Montana and Idaho while keeping Wyoming's wolves under Federal protection completely ignores the best population and ecosystem science.  In addition, we firmly believe that the three states' management plans will lead to the unwarranted death of hundreds of wolves.  As much as we wish to have the states manage their wolves, they simply haven't developed adequate management plans, and the Federal government is acting irresponsibly by proposing delisting under these circumstances,” said Franz Camenzind of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance.

"We are disappointed the new administration has missed this opportunity to rethink the failed wolf persecution policies of the last eight years," said Jonathan Lovvorn, vice president and chief counsel for animal protection litigation with The Humane Society of the United States.  "The federal government’s efforts to strip wolves of all federal protection have been repeatedly struck down by the courts, and this latest rule is no more likely to succeed than the previous failed attempts."

“It is unfortunate that the Obama administration has adopted Bush-era legal views that count wolves as ‘recovered’ even when they still only occupy less than five percent of their original range in our country,” said Michael Robinson, conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity.  “Wolves are still endangered and we believe the court will see through this chicanery.”

“Wolf populations in the Northern Rockies are nearing legitimate recovery levels.  Like most things, you can do it right or you can do it over.  Here, FWS did it over, but did it wrong,” said Doug Honnold of Earthjustice, who represents the conservation group plaintiffs in the lawsuit.  “When the states demonstrate they are willing to manage wolves for long-term survival and recovery rather than short-term devastation, we can all celebrate true recovery of the wolf.”

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