By MJ Clark
On Monday, environmental groups announced their intention to file suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for lifting protections on wolves in Wyoming. In a letter to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Director of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Dan Ashe, the groups gave notice of their intent to file — but did not provide a date or location for the filing.
Earthjustice, representing Defenders of Wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club, will challenge Wyoming’s wolf plan on several points:
- A “biologically inadequate” population threshold of 10 breeding pairs and 100 wolves outside Yellowstone National Park and the Wind River Indian Reservation;
- Inadequate genetic connectivity between Wyoming’s wolves and the northern Rocky Mountain wolf population; with a plan for human assisted genetic exchange being inconsistent with the definition of a recovered species under the Endangered Species Act.
- The unlimited mortality rate implied by wolves’ predator status outside those two areas (about 90 percent of the state wolves may be “shot on sight”)
Legal experts say that the group has a good chance at winning the argument, in part because the current wolf management plan is not much different from the plan the Fish and Wildlife Service rejected in 2003 and because the issue of genetic diversity in Wyoming’s wolf population has been criticized by Fish and Wildlife in the past.
Open season on wolves outside the protected zone begins on Oct. 1, when Endangered Species Act protection ends. The earliest the lawsuit could be settled is Nov. 9.