Federal judge puts wolves back under protection
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
MISSOULA — Wolf hunts are out of the equation for Montana after U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled Aug. 5 that removing only Montana’s and Idaho’s gray wolves, and not Wyoming’s, from the Endangered Species List was illegal.
Gray wolves in Montana and Idaho were delisted in April 2009, leaving Wyoming to improve its wolf management plan before it could be again considered for delisting. Several conservationist groups immediately sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and last week, Molloy ruled in their favor. His new rule reverses the delisting decision on the grounds that a biological population can’t be split into separate parts.
“The Endangered Species Act does not allow the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list only part of a ‘species’ as endangered, or to protect a listed distinct population segment only in part as the Final Rule here does; and the legislative history of the Endangered Species Act does not support the Service’s new interpretation of the phrase ‘significant portion of its range,’” Molloy wrote in his 50-page ruling.
According to an April 2009 FWS news release about the delisting, gray wolf populations in Montana and Idaho had already surpassed minimum recovery goals for wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains for eight consecutive years, meaning the Service no longer considered them at risk for extinction. The Northern Rocky Mountain Recovery Area — parts of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming — had a gray wolf population of at least 1,706, with 242 packs and 115 breeding pairs at the end of last year. Montana was estimated to have about 525 wolves in 100 packs and 34 breeding pairs.
Molloy’s ruling won’t change wolf management on the Flathead Reservation, where the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes run their own wolf management program.
