Conservation groups sue over rules for killing wolves
By MIKE STARK
Of The Gazette Staff
Seven conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging new rules intended to make it easier to kill wolves in the Northern Rockies that are killing livestock and having a detrimental effect on elk herds.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Missoula this morning.
The groups said the rule, published in the Federal Register this morning, could allow wildlife officials to kill all but 600 of the estimated 1,500 wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.
Federal officials, in announcing the rule last week, said that estimate was unrealistic.
The new rules announced Thursday will give state wildlife agencies the authority to take out wolves if it’s shown they are one of several major factors in keeping down elk herds. The rules prohibit each state from having fewer than 200 wolves and 20 breeding pairs.
Before wolves are killed, though, there would have to be a public comment period, peer review and approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Most ungulate herds outside Yellowstone in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming are at record high levels and above state management goals, according to a federal assessment of the new rules released in September.
Federal officials said there are two elk units in Idaho that might qualify under the new rules and three or four in Wyoming.
The rules go into effect in 30 days but could be short-lived. A proposal to remove the wolves from the endangered species list is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks. Delisting would nullify the rules. Legal challenges to delisting, though, could keep them alive.
Conservation groups today said the new rules threaten much of the progress made since wolves reintroduced to the region in the mid-1990s.
“This is a giant step backward. There is absolutely no reason to begin a wholesale slaughter of the region’s wolves,” Suzanne Stone, Northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement.
In the lawsuit, Earthjustice is representing Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, The Humane Society of the United States, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance and Friends of the Clearwater.