Environmentalists pick Oregon as battleground for wolf lawsuit
By JEFF BARNARD
The Associated Press
10/1/2003, 5:15 p.m. PT
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) – Seeing Oregon as the next battleground over the
spread of the gray wolf, environmental groups chose Portland for filing a
lawsuit Wednesday challenging the federal government’s decision to
downgrade Endangered Species Act protection for the predator.
Among the factors are that wolves introduced in Idaho have migrated into
Oregon, though there have been no confirmed sightings since 2001, and the
state is still working on its plan for managing wolves that will take the
place of federal regulations, environmentalists said.
“It was a strategic decision made by our counsel,” said Rob Edward of
Sinapu, a group in Boulder, Colo., working to restore wolves to the
southern Rocky Mountains. “The fact that the state does not have a
management plan in place that will ensure the long-term conservation of
the species of wolves is trouble.”
Nina Fascione, vice president of species conservation for Defenders of
Wildlife in Washington, D.C., said Oregon will be one of the first states
affected by changing wolves from an endangered to a threatened species,
which loosens restrictions on killing them to protect livestock.
“Oregon has the habitat, the prey, and frankly has the majority of public
support,” she said. “It’s a great state to serve as an exemplar in this
federal-state nexus in wolf management.”
Environmentalists are afraid that the current federal policy will mean
wolves won’t be restored throughout their historic range in the Pacific
Northwest, the southern Rockies and the Northeast, which could double
their numbers, Fascione said. About 3,500 of the 4,000 wolves in the lower
48 states are in the Great Lakes states.
“Wolves are coming into Oregon on their own,” said Anne Mahle, a
Minneapolis attorney handling the lawsuit. “The issue is once they get
there, they need the full protection of the Endangered Species Act.”
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Portland asks a judge to find
that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species
Act when it changed the gray wolf from an endangered to a threatened
species April 1.
Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that Fish and Wildlife’s decision
ignored the fact that several states with the wolf’s historic range still
don’t have any wolves. It is also says the decision was not based on the
best scientific and commercial information, and failed to recognize that
hunting and habitat destruction would resume once endangered species
protection was lifted.
“We want the court to send the wolf plan back to the Fish and Wildlife
Service and tell them to start over,” Edward said.
Fish and Wildlife spokesman Nicholas Throckmorton said the agency had not
seen the lawsuit, and had no immediate comment.
Citing the success of restoring wolf packs in Yellowstone National Park
and Idaho, Fish and Wildlife on April 1 downgraded most gray wolf
populations in the lower 48 states from endangered to threatened. The
agency said management of wolves would eventually be turned over to the
states.
While federal regulations allow ranchers to shoot a wolf attacking
livestock or pets on private land, Oregon law does not. Federal rules also
allow ranchers to obtain permits to shoot wolves that go after livestock
on public land, but Oregon law does not.
Former Oregon Cattlemen’s Association president Sharon Beck has said she
would stand firm against allowing wolves into Oregon as she serves on a
task force developing a state management plan.
“The losses to individual ranchers who have to live with these wolves can
be devastating to a small cow operator,” said Bill Drewien, a Medford
rancher who is chairman of the endangered species committee for the Oregon
Cattlemen’s Association. “They haven’t really worked out the problems in
add ressing cattle-wolf conflicts.”
The chairman of the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission, John Esler, has
said the Oregon wolf management plan would include provisions for ranchers
to protect their livestock.
The panel is still about a year away from offering a proposed management
plan, commission spokeswoman Anne Pressentin Young said.
The lawsuit was filed a day after environmentalists warned the federal
government that they are going to sue over the decision to end the wolf
restoration program in the Northeast.