By Matthew Brown
Billings, Montana - A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected a lawsuit from
conservation groups that want to block wolf hunting and trapping that
have killed more than 500 of the predators across the Northern Rockies
in recent months.
The
ruling from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals said Congress had the right to intervene when it stripped
protections from wolves last spring.
Lawmakers
stepped in after court rulings kept wolves on the endangered list for
years after they reached recovery goals. Wildlife advocates claimed in
their lawsuit that Congress violated the Constitution's separation of
powers by interfering with the courts.
But
in an opinion authored by Judge Mary Schroeder, the court said Congress
was within its rights.
Schroder wrote that lawmakers changed the
Endangered Species Act to deal with Northern Rockies wolves, and did not
directly interfere with the court's prerogative to decide when the law
is being followed.
The
amendment marked the first time Congress has forcibly removed a
species' endangered status. It was tacked onto a federal budget bill by
Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson and Montana Democratic Sen. Jon
Tester.
"This
case has made it clear that those who persist in trying to manage
wildlife through the courts, in spite of all scientific evidence that
this species has recovered, no longer have a defensible position,"
Simpson said Wednesday.
Michael
Robinson with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups
that sued to restore protections, said a Supreme Court appeal was
possible but no decision had been made.
"We're
very disappointed and very saddened," Robinson said. "Hundreds of
wolves have been hunted and trapped and snared, and they are essential
to their ecosystem."
He
called the congressional budget bill rider that lifted protections
"undemocratic" and said that it set a precedent for future political
meddling with imperiled wildlife.
Wolves
once thrived across North America but were exterminated across most of
the continental U.S. by the 1930s, through government sponsored
poisoning and bounty programs.
They
were put on the endangered list in 1974. Over the last two decades,
state and federal agencies have spent more than $100 million on wolf
restoration programs across the country.
The
Northern Rockies is now home to more than 1,700 wolves in Montana,
Idaho and Wyoming and expanding populations in portions of eastern
Oregon and Washington. That figure is up slightly from 2010, although
Wyoming and Idaho saw slight declines.
In the Northern Rockies wolf hunting is allowed in Montana and Idaho and could resume in Wyoming this fall.
Minnesota,
Michigan and Wisconsin also are considering wolf seasons after
protections for wolves were lifted in the upper Great Lakes in December.
Wisconsin's
legislature on Wednesday approved a measure to establish a hunting and
trapping season that would run from mid-October through the end of
February. It still has to be approved by the governor.
There
more than 4,400 of the animals in the Great Lakes and a struggling
population of several dozen wolves in the Desert Southwest. Alaska,
where the animals never went on the endangered list, has an estimated
10,000 wolves.
In
parts of Montana, ranchers and local officials frustrated with
continuing attacks on livestock have proposed bounties for hunters that
kill wolves. Montana wildlife officials said they will consider ways to
expand hunting after 166 wolves were killed this season, short of the
state's 220-wolf quota.
Idaho allows trapping. Its 10-month wolf season runs until June and has claimed 353 wolves so far.
Prior
lawsuits resulted first in the animals' reintroduction to the Northern
Rockies and then later kept them on the endangered list for a decade
after the species reached recovery goal of 300 wolves in three states.
The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is monitoring the hunts. But agency
officials have said they have no plans to intervene because the states
have pledged to manage wolves responsibly.
Federal
officials have pledged to step in to restore endangered species
protections if wolf numbers drop to less than 100 animals in either
Montana or Idaho.
Even
without hunting, wolves are shot regularly in the region in response to
livestock attacks. Since their reintroduction, more than 1,600 wolves
have been shot by government wildlife agents or ranchers.
