Group seeks injunction to close VNP bays
By Laurel Beager, News Editor
laurel1@dailyjournal-ifalls.com
Wednesday, September 18, 2002
Eleven bays within Voyageurs National Park could be again closed to
snowmobile use.
The Voyageurs Regional National Park Association filed for an injunction
Friday in U.S. District Court to close the bays to human use until a judge
can hear a lawsuit filed in March 2001 on the issue.
Voyageurs National Park Superintendent Barbara West said this morning that
she could not comment on the injunction because she had not yet seen the
court documents.
The suit was filed after the National Park Service failed to close the
bays to humans Nov. 28, 2001.
The bays, located on Rainy, Kabetogama, Namakan and Sand Point lakes were
reopened to snowmobiling and other human activity after being closed for
nearly 10 years.
The bays, which include 4,667 acres of lake surface, were closed for the
protection of wildlife, primarily gray wolves, in 1992.
Voyageurs staff decided not to close the bays based on an analysis of a
three-year study completed last year by Rolf Peterson of Michigan
Technological University and graduate student Jennifer Fox. The study,
according to park staff, found no significant correlation between wolf
activity and the 11 bays closed to human use.
Jennifer Hunt, executive director of the VRNPA, said Tuesday the group is
seeking the injunction as a temporary measure until the suit can be
handled.
“We want to have the Park Service go back to using the protections that
were in place until last winter,” she said. “Nothing more. Nothing less.”
The suit was filed, she said, because the VRNPA does not believe the wolf
study provided enough evidence that human use of the bays would not affect
wolves.
“We contend that using the wolf study that came out last year does not
include facts that show these wildlife protection areas should be opened
to snowmobile access,” Hunt said Tuesday.
Instead, she said, the study should encourage the Park Service to continue
to consider the effects of human activity on wolves in the bays.
Questions raised by the study, according to Hunt, include why the stress
levels on the wolves in the study are higher than those studied in
Yellowstone National Park or Isle Royle National Park. In addition, she
said the Park Service must consider why nine out of the 11 wolves in
Voyageurs equipped with radio collars for the study were either killed or
disappeared with no explanation.
“If anything, the study recommends that further work be done and a better
understanding of the park and its wildlife (be gained),” she said. “The
last thing this study does is come out with conclusive evidence that
wolves are thriving and don’t need special protections.”
The suit also contends that no public notification or opportunity for
public input was allowed prior to the decision not to close the bays by
the Park Service, Hunt noted.
Hunt said VRNPA was also concerned that the study the park based its
decision on was not released to the public until three months later.
“That’s not the right way to run a public funded federal land agency,” she
said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concurred with the Park Service’s
decision not to close the bays last year. The service was involved because
the bays were closed primarily to protect wolves, which are protected
under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Meanwhile, Hunt said the Minnesota United Snowmobilers Association has
asked to intervene on behalf of the park service.
Last year, Mike Heibel, president of the International Voyageur Snowmobile
Club, praised the decision not to close the bays.
“We knew all along what they would find out. And apparently the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Services has discovered, too, that there are no adverse
effects with snowmobiling and wolves,” he said then.
Heibel could not be reached for comment this morning.