IS ANYBODY SURPRISED?

Molloy’s Wolf Ruling: Just Another Chapter in the Neverending Story

By Bill Schneider, 8-11-10

	Photo by John and Karen Hollingsworth, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

If anybody is surprised U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy put the gray wolf back on the endangered species list and stopped wolf hunting in Idaho and Montana, he or she hasn’t been following the debate. I’m sure not surprised, but his decision, released Aug. 5, puts the spotlight back on a lot interesting issues.

Here are my thoughts on the next chapter of the biggest outdoor story of the century.

Wolves Don’t Recognize State Lines. I have a hard time blaming the judge or those evil eastern wolf-lovers for the endless mess we’re mired in. Instead, I tend to blame the wildlife agencies, state and federal, for even thinking the Endangered Species Act (ESA) allowed delisting based on state lines--artificial, nonscientific, political boundaries meaning nothing to wolves.

It’s true that the ESA doesn’t say anything about “state line delisting”: It doesn’t say agencies can’t delist based on state lines, but I have to believe most judges would take the safe route when the law is so vague on such a key point.

Delisting should be based on science, not state lines. Even the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) said so in the past, but later retracted it when the political winds changed.

So, please don’t be angry or dismayed at Judge Molloy’s ruling. The die was cast two or three years ago when agencies made a political decision to leave Wyoming behind and abandon their original plan calling for recovery in three official recovery zones (Greater Yellowstone, Central Idaho and Northern Montana) and go for piecemeal delisting based on political boundaries.

To be fair, I suppose the agencies had little choice. It was more like an act of desperation. Politicians were breathing down their necks to move ahead with delisting, and the numbers supported it. Using even conservative figures, the wolf population recovered years ago.

But Wyoming was clearly not going to be a team player and yield to pressure to write an acceptable management plan. This more or less forced agencies down this ill-fated path, so let’s not pretend we’re shocked by the outcome.

Nor should we be surprised when Wyoming stays the course. The politicos down in the Cowboy State won’t bow to pressure from other states or the feds. Instead, Wyoming will remain focused on its lawsuit against the FWS, choosing to believe the state will eventually prevail and get approval for its current plan where wolves can be shot on sight everywhere except in and near the national parks, but that seems like more dreaming.

So get used to it. For at least a year, if not years, the wolf will remain on the endangered species list...unless, of course, Idaho and Montana convince the plaintiffs (12 conservation groups) to drop their lawsuit. More on that later.

Wyoming, the Best Friend a Wolf Lover Ever Had. Thanks to those immovable cowboys down in Wyoming, wolf lovers might realize their pipe dream--the gray wolf restored to much of its historic range, not just in the three recovery zones as originally planned.

We already have wolf populations in Oregon and Washington, and perhaps Utah, with the big prize--Colorado and Rocky Mountain National Park, with its massive elk population--coming soon.

On tap--eastern Montana’s Missouri Breaks, South Dakota’s Black Hills and North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and a lot of newly established wolf habitat in between.

All thanks to Wyoming.

Don’t Worry, Lots of Wolves Will Continue to Die. People tend to think that with the wolf back under ESA protection, the population could grow exponentially and wipe out big game and domestic livestock operations. Not.

Federal and state agencies will continue to kill a lot of wolves, just as they did before the first-ever hunting seasons in 2009. Since reintroduction, in fact, 1,258 wolves have been “removed from the population” by agency “control actions.” That figure doesn’t include legal hunting. You can see the zone-by-zone, year-by-year numbers here.

In 2009, for example, Idaho and Montana hunters bagged 260 wolves, but “control actions” claimed 270 more. This approximate, if not increased, level of mortality will continue in 2010 and beyond until the issue is resolved.

Both hunting and control actions result in dead wolves, but there’s one big difference. Hunters pay agencies to kill wolves; all of us pay agencies (with federal tax dollars) to kill wolves.

Greens, Don’t Push Too Hard. Right now, wolf-loving conservationists obviously have the momentum, but they should tread softly. Their continued success has a big downside.

Sooner or later, the frustration with the endless litigation could cause Congress to gut the most powerful environmental law of the land, the Endangered Species Act.

Witness this statement in the press release sent out last week by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation:

“When federal statutes and judges actually endorse the annihilation of big game herds, livestock, rural and sporting lifestyles--and possibly even compromise human safety--then clearly the Endangered Species Act as currently written has major flaws,” said David Allen, RMEF president and CEO. “We have already begun contacting the Congressional delegations of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to ask for an immediate review of this travesty--and reform of the legislation that enabled it.”

Plus, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) has already announced that he wants Congress to “intervene.” I’m not sure what he means, but do we want find out?

These shots over the bow should give pro-wolfers a wake-up call. All those who loathe the ESA have been salivating for decades for a chance to open it up and “improve” it. Let’s hope pro-wolf groups don’t hand them the opportunity on a golden platter. Stringing out the wolf controversy for much longer will do exactly that.

We Can Work This Out. In the past, I’ve offered up a plan (click here) that could end the wolf debate, and now, albeit years late, it appears as if something like it might happen. Finally, people have actually been talking about talking. “Settlement talks” were scheduled for Aug. 18, but were abruptly canceled after Molloy’s decision came out.

I tried to find out more about these talks, mainly trying to confirm if they’ve been re-scheduled and who would be at the table. After making a half-dozen calls, it’s obvious nobody wants to give out much detail.

Here’s what I did find out. The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) has taken the lead and invited key stakeholders to the table--and deserves kudos for doing it, in my opinion. Representatives from the FWS, FWP, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and at least one representative for the plaintiffs, probably an attorney for Earthjustice, were due to meet Aug. 18 in Helena. After Molloy’s ruling hit the Internet, Idaho wildlife officials were so angry they canceled the meeting, which seems quite strange. You’d think Idaho would be even more anxious to settle this after the defendants lost big in District Court. Right now, FWP is trying to reschedule the meeting.

Notably, representatives from Wyoming were not planning on attending the meeting, so even if all other stakeholders came to agreement, they’d still have to overcome Wyoming’s refusal to write an acceptable management plan.

With the exception of the Wyoming roadblock, achieving a “settlement” seems fairly easy. Anti-wolfers need to accept the fact that there will be more wolves than they’d like to see running around, dining on a few elk backstraps and top sirloins and making a few dogs disappear. Pro-wolfers have to accept the fact that hundreds of wolves will be killed every year and that the big dog’s range will be limited to roughly what we have today, not extended into California and Kansas. The point is, there’s plenty of room in the middle for agreement.

Like managers and union reps resolving a labor dispute, stakeholders, preferably including Wyoming, need to lock themselves in a room and not come out without an agreement. I bet they wouldn’t lose a single night’s sleep.

Interestingly, though, there’s also the possibility of an agreement without Wyoming in the game. If Idaho, Montana and the FWS could alter their management plans to make them acceptable to the plaintiffs, which would likely involve maintaining higher population levels than currently called for, the plaintiffs could withdraw the litigation and allow delisting to proceed in Idaho and Montana. Since Molloy’s decision is being appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, such an agreement would probably have to happen as part of that process and would put extreme pressure on Wyoming. Those cowboys would be looking at many years of federal management while Idaho and Montana took back state control. They’d hate that, believe me.

Everybody wants the wolf off the endangered species list, so everybody can claim it as a big victory. So, let’s do it, soon, and get the wolf issue out of the courts, at least in Idaho and Montana.

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