In-limbo carnivores have months long stretch before hunting resumes.
By Mike Koshmrl
Canine hunters will have to stick to unprotected coyotes and foxes for at least a couple of months before setting their rifle sights on their larger lupine relatives wandering Wyoming.
Though a court last week overturned a 2014 legal decision that thrust Wyoming wolves back under the protective shield of the Endangered Species Act, a “stay” in place will keep the large carnivore out of state control for an undetermined length of time.
“Really, the earliest that Wyoming could have wolf management authority is no less than about two months,” Wyoming Game and Fish Department Chief Game Warden Brian Nesvik said. “Now depending on what the judges decide, it could be … quite a bit longer.”
The environmental advocacy groups that filed the initial lawsuit five years ago, represented by Earthjustice, have the option of asking for review of the court’s decision or a rehearing in legal venues. The avenue they will take is still being determined, Earthjustice Managing Attorney Tim Preso said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals’ opinion, issued Friday, found no fault with what Preso and colleagues argued were nonlegally binding requirements to maintain more than minimum numbers of wolves — 100 animals and 10 breeding pairs. Wyoming sought and modestly exceeded its internal population goal of approximately 160 wolves in the two years leading up to the 2014 decision, but argued that the buffer was voluntary.
Judge Judith Rogers, who wrote the opinion, did not agree with the state on that count. But Rogers and fellow appellate judges Nina Pillard and Janice Brown did believe commitments written into the delisting rule and state plans showed that federal wildlife managers had a “clear intent” to bind Wyoming to managing for more wolves than legally required, and therefore the agreements have “the force of law.”
The interior secretary and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the panel of judges wrote, have “years of experience” evaluating the likely efficacy of delisting agreements and management plans. The Endangered Species Act, they wrote, does not define “regulatory mechanisms,” doesn’t mandate those mechanisms exist to protect species “from any conceivable impact” and does not require a regulation for “every far-fetched what-if scenario that opponents of delisting can imagine.”
“The record demonstrates that the Service reasonably and adequately responded to concerns about the reliability of Wyoming’s management plan,” the opinion reads.
Preso said the ruling was a break from existing Endangered Species Act precedents about the need for legally enforceable language in delisting agreements.
“I’m certainly disappointed that they concluded that voluntary measures could constitute regulatory measures,” Preso said in an interview. “A voluntary measure doesn’t bind anyone to do anything, it offers no guarantees and it can be changed at any time without any particular process.
“That’s why we argued it wasn’t a sufficient safety net for an imperiled wildlife species,” he said.
State officials, of course, were pleased with the decision.
“We certainly felt like our management plan was sound and in accordance with the Endangered Species Act,” Nesvik said. “We felt like the judges made a good decision.”
Gov. Matt Mead called the ruling “the right decision for wolves and Wyoming,” and said he was “pleased.”
The Equality State’s congressional delegation and hunting groups commended the court’s ruling.
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation President David Allen called the decision “a great day for the fundamental issue of state-based management of wildlife,” and Safari Club International, an intervenor in the lawsuit, emailed a blog post celebrating the ruling.
Wyoming’s lone U.S. representative, Liz Cheney, said the court “righted a wrong for Wyoming today,” and the state’s senior U.S. senator, Mike Enzi, called the ruling “a win for Wyoming and all those who have worked so hard to return management of the gray wolf to the state.”
Whenever jurisdiction of wolves transfers from U.S. Fish and Wildlife to Wyoming, the predator zone, covering 85 percent of the state, will take effect immediately, Nesvik said.
That area — where wolves can be killed without licenses under almost any circumstances — in Jackson Hole stretches south from Highway 22 for much of the year. In other words, wolves wandering just south of Wilson, in places like Munger Mountain, will go from being a fully protected species to fair game with the stroke of a pen.
In the regulated “trophy game” area, which covers most of Jackson Hole, the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission will need to OK hunting quotas and other regulations prior to the season, which in 2012 and 2013 started Oct. 1 and ran until the end of the year. The season-setting process, Nesvik said, will not commence until after Wyoming has legal authority over its wolves. That doesn’t mean, he said, that the stay currently in effect will necessarily delay the hunt.
“The commission has the flexibility to be able to consider a hunting season right up until the season starts,” Nesvik said.
If and when wolf-hunting season begins, sportsmen in pursuit of Canis lupus figure to have more opportunity than they’ve had in the past.
Since hunting ceased two and a half years ago the wolf population has grown steadily, said Tyler Abbott, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Wyoming field supervisor.
“The number of wolves have grown by leaps and bounds the last few years, and we saw livestock depredations do the same,” Abbott said.
The wolf population dipped slightly in 2016, he said, after reaching a 2015 all-time high of 382 animals statewide, including Yellowstone National Park and the Wind River Indian Reservation. Wyoming’s population commitments of 100 lobos and 10 breeding pairs excludes wolves in those two jurisdictions, where there are separate basement population levels of 50 animals and five breeding pairs.
Conflicts with livestock were historically high last year, with approximately 135 cattle and 110 sheep confirmed wolf-killed. More than 110 lobos were gunned down and trapped by managers in retaliation, easily a record for Wyoming, Abbott said.
“If you look at the depredations from 2013 through ’16, it’s really increased every single year,” Abbott said. “The numbers are going to be just under 250 for last year. It’s almost twice the 2015 number, and 2015 was a record year for depredations.”
Livestock-wolf conflicts have already started in 2017, the federal wolf manager said, and in places as distant from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem core as Lander and even the Ferris Mountains southwest of Casper.