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Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com

Environmentalists sue to stop Sawtooth grazing

Environmentalists sue to stop Sawtooth grazing

By CHUCK OXLEY
Associated Press Writer

BOISE, Idaho (AP) – A coalition of Idaho conservation and environmental
groups is asking a U.S. District Court to close eight grazing allotments
in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area to protect gray wolves.

Jon Marvel, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, said the
requested closure would encompass more than 100,000 acres and potentially
displace between 2,000 and 4,000 sheep and up to 200 cattle. The motion
seeks to close the allotments at least through the current grazing season.

The environmental groups say all eight allotments in the motion are
problem areas where wolves have been in conflict with cattle in previous
grazing seasons.

The action of the Western Watersheds Project and the Idaho Conservation
League follows a ruling by U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill, prohibiting
federal wildlife managers from automatically moving or killing wolves that
tangle with livestock.

A 1972 law created the scenic recreation area and gives wolves precedence
over grazing. Earlier this month, Winmill said those rules must be
balanced with rules established in the 1990s, which directed the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service to move and eventually kill wolves that prey on
stock.

Stan Boyd, executive director of the Idaho Woolgrowers Association, said
the motion shows that environmental groups simply want to remove livestock
from public lands.

“These folks are using wolf recovery as a tool to pursue other agendas,”
Boyd said.

The Idaho Conservation League and the Western Watersheds Project sued the
Forest Service in 2001, when two wolves in the Whitehawk Pack were killed
for attacking stock that June.

Since then, federal wolf managers have killed the entire pack, generating
worldwide opposition.

In the past three years, 27 wolves have been killed or moved out of the
White Cloud Peaks and the East Fork of the Salmon River in or adjacent to
the recreation area.

“The U.S. Forest Service’s refusal to alter its management strategies for
livestock in the SNRA in the wake of the court’s ruling leaves us no
alternative,” Marvel said in a prepared statement. “Our action is the only
way to stop the killing of wolves in the SNRA.”

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