New West Feature
Wolf Settlement Splits Conservation Groups
All but four groups that sued for Endangered Species Act protections for wolves agreed to delist, likely as a way to ward off Congressional action. What's lost in the deal? What's gained?By Brodie Farquhar, 3-21-11
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Northern Rockies wolves would lose their Endangered Species Act protections in Montana and Idaho, according to a court settlement announced late last week in a Montana federal court.
The settlement, which would expand ESA protections to the wolves in Oregon, Washington, Utah and Wyoming – the states where wolves are considered to be the most vulnerable—could mean hunting will resume next fall in Montana and Idaho, where there are more wolves.
Separate negotiations are ongoing between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead in an effort to reach agreement on a management plan for wolves in that state. Currently, Wyoming has a kill-on-sight policy for any wolves found outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, plus a buffer of Forest Service land surrounding the parks.
“For too long, management of wolves in this country has been caught up in controversy and litigation instead of rooted in science where it belongs. This proposed settlement provides a path forward to recognize the successful recovery of the gray wolf in the northern Rocky Mountains and to return its management to states and tribes,” said Interior Department Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes.
Of the 14 conservation groups that joined a 2008 lawsuit to protect wolves, 10 agreed to a settlement with U.S. Fish and Wildlife. Yet four plaintiffs - the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Western Watersheds, Humane Society of the United States and the Friends of the Clearwater – did not. The four groups believe U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy has been ruling in their favor and contend there’s no reason to drop the suit for a settlement. EarthJustice attorney Doug Honnold, who represented the 14, withdrew from the case because he was faced with insurmountable attorney-client privilege conflicts.
Indeed, Western Watersheds warns that hunting harvests of wolves in Montana and Idaho, not to mention wolf kills by Wildlife Services, will not be sustainable. In a 2009 “BioScience” research paper, a team of biologists led by Valdosta University’s Bradley Bergstrom ran a wide range of simple population viability analyses with the computer program Vortex, from best-case to worst-case scenarios for wolf population numbers when hunting was allowed in Montana and Idaho.
“In 100 percent of 10,000 simulations for all conditions, the population declined, effectively, to extinction (i.e., 100 individuals, a size well below the 450 at which the (population segments) would need to be relisted) in less than 10 years,” wrote Bergstrom. (He is chair of the Conservation Committee of the American Society of Mammalogists.)
The 10 conservation groups that have agreed to the settlement are Cascadia Wildlands, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Hells Canyon Preservation Council, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council, Oregon Wild, Sierra Club and Wildlands Network.
The deal also calls upon USFWS to convene a scientific panel to reexamine the original wolf-recovery goal of 300 wolves. The current tally is based on 705 wolves in Idaho, 566 in Montana, 343 in Wyoming and some 40 in Oregon and Washington. No resident wolves are believed to currently be in Utah.
“Interior will look at wolf recovery in the region, based on the best available science. This is a very big deal,” said Bill Snape, senior counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity.
Conservation groups and independent biologists have insisted that 300 is too low and nonsustainable, calling instead for a population target beyond the current count of 1,651 – perhaps as many as 2,000 to 5,000.
For advocates of the deal, the settlement would allow wolf populations to grow in Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming and Utah, expanding into new habitat with a good prey base.
The settlement is also viewed as possibly preempting Congressional legislation that would have eliminated ESA protections in Idaho and Montana, thus avoiding the precedent of an ESA delisting based on politics, rather than science. The new settlement would become null and void should Congress go ahead and delist northern Rockies wolves, anyway.
“What’s important is that wolves be treated like any other species,” said Andrew Wetzler, director of Land & Wildlife for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He said it would have been a terrible precedent for Congress to arbitrarily delist wolves – a precedent that would bode ill for all threatened and endangered species.
Wetzler said there are numerous bad bills working through Congress and state legislatures that would be bad for endangered and threatened species. In a real sense, said Wetzler, the settlement gives Idaho and Montana politicians what they want – delisting and the opportunity to manage wolf populations themselves.
“There’s no doubt that without this settlement,” said Snape, “Congress would have acted.”
Jon Marvel, executive director of Western Watersheds, said the settlement sounds like “heaven on Earth” at first, but upon closer examination, has no teeth for enforcement and is filled with vague promises and assurances.
“The settlement does not require U.S. Fish and Wildlife to immediately start using the best science and allows Idaho and Montana to do whatever they want,” said Marvel. “This settlement is unenforceable and removes federal and state actions from court jurisdiction.”
Marvel added that the settlement was a slap in the face of Judge Molloy, asking him for a “what if” or indicative opinion on how he would have ruled had this settlement not been crafted.
Marvel said the pro-settlement groups are hoping in vain that Congress won’t take action to delist wolves. The anti-wolf blogs he monitors indicate that conservative politicians may push harder than ever for a lower-48 state delisting of wolves, in a bill written by U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont.
U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., has already signaled her displeasure with the settlement. “I’m afraid that without Congressional action, this agreement is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” she said in a media release. “The settlement as announced today does not guarantee delisting in Wyoming, and it does not guarantee environmental activists will suddenly come to their senses and halt the lawsuit frenzy.”
Much of the settlement depends on several unfounded or weak assumptions, said Marvel, including whether USFWS really will adopt the best science, or that an Obama administration really wants to protect endangered species over the political goal of turning management of species over to the states. And should there be a Republican in the White House in 2013, said Marvel, then the settlement is completely meaningless.
As bad as the settlement seems to Marvel, he said the worst aspect is that the united front of the environmental community has been shattered, and for what?
Yet both Marvel and Snape agreed that Wyoming Gov. Mead could achieve meaningful change with his wolf negotiations – almost a Nixon-goes-to-China opportunity that a Republican could exploit, but would not be open to a Democrat like Dave Freudenthal, the former governor.
“That’s not a bad metaphor,” Snape said.
“I think Mead is more open to new ideas,” Marvel said.
Still, Marvel noted, Wyoming politics is deeply embedded into the dual classification of wolves, with trophy hunting next door to the national parks, and predator (shoot-on-sight) status everywhere else.
Gov. Mead might not feel any need to negotiate further, said Robert Hoskins, a Wyoming conservation activist. By his reading, the settlement document, “gives validity to the ‘87 Recovery Plan, which was analyzed and rejected as Alternative 4 in the 1994 Gray Wolf FEIS (Final Environmental Impact Statement). The ‘87 recovery plan restricts the recovery area to the (Yellowstone National Park) area, central Idaho, and northwestern Montana. This aspect of the settlement essentially gives cover to the (Fish and Wildlife Service) to approve Wyoming’s dual status law with zero environmental/scientific assessment.”
“This agreement actually gives Wyoming what it wants,” Hoskins said.
With a Republican-held House, Marvel expects the worst, while Snape hopes for the best – that the House won’t delist wolves and deal a sweeping blow to all ESA protected species. Marvel said he’s not sure whether there’s an environmental champion in the Senate who will stop a Rehberg bill – not when there’s a lack of leadership from the White House.
And what will Judge Molloy do with the settlement? His role is critical – he’s asked to put a stay on an order he issued last summer, that reinstated wolf protections in Montana and Idaho.
Stay tuned.
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Comments
Complete garbage.
Never mind that this settlement is all about deflecting Congressional intervention, keeping the ESA bludgeon (the only source of political relevance for most of these groups anyway) fully intact.
Hayes helped save the ESA from extinction by pushing HCP's very hard, which took a lot of entities off the political table -- after you've blown zillions on an HCP, are you going to fight to have it mooted, especially when, as in the case of Plum Creek, it keeps your competitors at a disadvantage?
So, Hayes is trying to do the same thing, blunt the anger of the three wolf states, while dividing off the other states into which wolves have not expanded. All to ensure that Congress goes back to sleep.
That said, the settlement is a joke....five years with a complete do-over of the "science" by "independent scientists?" And it's hilarious that WWP et al want to just run off the cliff by riding Case 14 off the edge.
It is my feeling that a critical mass has been reached on an ESA meltdown. It may take a couple elections to reach that mass in Congress, but no settlement is going to change the way the people most affected feel about this. It's going to be a political fight from here on out, no matter the "science."
I think Brodie got hold of the settlement agreement by doing research. You know, looking it up.
You can find it on the Center for Biological Diversity website.
RH
I was planning on doing some scrounging around today, other items on the bucket list, ya know. Just wondering why the "mainstream" media stories didn't have the real deal posted or linked, especially if it was so conveniently and proudly posted to CBD's site.
I suppose the "reasonable" plaintiffs understand how much trouble their gravy train is in, especially if Molloy refuses the settlement and does what he will. But Molloy is no dope, he'll bite and make you happy. The question is whether Congress has the intellect to recognize the settlement for the sham it really is.
Nah.
I think news items that refer to "scientific papers" should either post the full paper as a condition of the publicity (which is why press releases about "science" are produced) or not be written at all. The lay public does not have access to journals unless they have access to college libraries or are filthy rich. To give them "news" without any way to backstory is profoundly unfair and, yep, unethical.
Environmental/scientific assessment equals, estimations estimations estimations.. You know guessing ! The act of assessing; appraisal; evaluation, oh shucks man, estimation..
We have, mis·as·sess·ment, o·ver·as·sess·ment, pro·as·sess·ment, re·as·sess·ment, self-as·sess·ment.
Hey man, RH is perfect, you know Infallible, he never commits mis·as·sess·ment, or o·ver·as·sess·ment, just ask him. Science and government corporate agencies with their environmentalist pals are always right right right, just ask RH..
"viability analyses with the computer program Vortex, from best-case to worst-case scenarios for wolf population numbers when hunting was allowed in Montana and Idaho. "
Uh-oh, more estimations estimations estimations. You know guessing !
" Indeed, Western Watersheds warns that hunting harvests of wolves in Montana and Idaho, not to mention wolf kills by Wildlife Services, will not be sustainable. In a 2009 “BioScience” research paper, a team of biologists led by Valdosta University’s Bradley Bergstrom ran a wide range of simple population viability analyses with the computer program Vortex, from best-case to worst-case scenarios for wolf population numbers when hunting was allowed in Montana and Idaho. "
The agencies Marvel is condemning managed sustainable elk, deer, moose, rocky mountain big horn sheep, mountain goats, antelope, cougars, bears, and protected wolverines, and even wolves that existed in those states prior to INTRODUCTION of this pet PROJECT. Among other species, big game, small game, and wild life in general.
Marvel is guessing, and worse PREDICTING the future. No man can PREDICT the FUTURE.
“In 100 percent of 10,000 simulations for all conditions, the population declined, effectively, to extinction (i.e., 100 individuals, a size well below the 450 at which the (population segments) would need to be relisted) in less than 10 years,” wrote Bergstrom. (He is chair of the Conservation Committee of the American Society of Mammalogists.) "
Uh-oh, more estimations estimations estimations. You know guessing !
Don't hunt the wolves, allow the wolves to continue depleting the prey base, while also allowing us to compete with them for the same prey, and eventually, in ten years or less, you will have the same results, far less wolves and elk in Idaho, starvation or a bullet ? Whats the difference ? NONE whatsoever.
That's my estimation.
Oh, and remove cattle and sheep from 1.8 million acres of public lands in Idaho, next to private lands, because 35 million nationally managed acres just isn't enough space for wolves and elk.. That way maybe wolves once they've extirpated elk from those lands while extirpating themselves from the same lands might go twelve years, highly doubtful, but hell, estimations is estimations..
WWP still treading on rural Idahoans values, imagine the arrogance of that..
Ummmmm, please ignore what we wanted last year! Please don't take away our EAJA! Please ignore that we have been lying since 1989 when we started bring this cash cow to life! Please DON'T FIX THE ESA!!!!
I received an interesting email from Roger Sickinthehead making sure I knew that DoW had every intention of continuing their corrupt program in every other state, but that they have played out Idaho and Montana.
You can bet you last worthless FRN, that if congress takes these wolves off the list, these so called animal lovers will forget about wolves and move on to their next faux endangered species.
The last year has been very interesting......
1. Welfare lawyers and a judge stepped out into the open and proved that science is both ignored and unimportant to them.
2. And now we have the proof that as we have been claiming, that the USFWS and these groups have been are still are in bed with each other.
I wonder if their judge will eat the crow necessary to go along to get along?
But, make no mistake, everyone see's through this for what it is, and the push for congressional action will continue.
End the corruption and abuse. Write your federal representatives and demand they delist wolves and modify the Equal Access to Justice Act to exempt multi-million dollar faux nonprofits from leeching taxpayer dollars through mass lawsuits strictly intended to feed their greed.
You can bet, you take the money out of this, and these fake caring animal groups will move on and never look back. And then the people who truly care about wildlife can return to science based wildlife management.
A mere 35 of these mutts have exploded into 3000 in 15 years. They are not the fragile species these nuts want you to think they are.
More freaking double talk with no validity, nothing more. Just more proof that they have no intentions of changing their ways or their lies.
The most basic common sense and 15 years of seeing what has happened has shown without a doubt, that short of extensive poisoning, these wolves will never be extinct in the RMW again. But, then again, there is no money in that reality.
Later
what kind of a statement is that? 100%, extinction, relisted, idiocy.
who would write and who would print that? oh yeah,,,, right.
Interestingly Wyoming wolf numbers are growing despite the continuing drop of Yellowstone numbers where they get perfect protection by laws, a plethora of biologists to tend their ever need. Those nasty Wyomingites must somehow be responsible for the fact the elk numbers are falling off the scale to record lows and the wolves kill each other or leave. Is Wyoming itself going to be responsible when there are few to no wolves left in Yellowstone? Do we have to get some more for the tourists?
Because the defendant and plaintiff are no longer pretending to be on opposite sides anymore. They have stepped out from the cracks and the cockroaches are now out in the light. They see their little ploy of 'hey,why don't you sue me and I will put on a weak azz case so you can win and bilk millions of tax dollars' fading into the abyss.
It is amazing that as time goes on, these peoples actions verify EVERYTHING we have been saying all along. What they miscalculated on was the last election and the consequences of their overreaching.
I will find it interesting if judge 'in the bag' will actually just turn tail and prove he is in fact the undeniable puppet we've also said he was.
Talk about your trifecta of corruption if he does, and even more reason to push forward for a real solution by amending the ESA.
Just let Denny Rs bill pass. Then its all over. All we need.
They started with how many wolves in yellowstone? 30? How did they get started if there were so few? That fella with the computer model is gonna look like an idiot in about 5 years.....
Anything Jon Marvel says about anything is bunk. He seems to just hate people in general.
Where are all those animals now ? Damn near extincted from gunshot wounds , with assists from traps and poisons. All killed in the name of Manifest Destiny , westward expansion , Robber Barons, cattle kings, market hunters, the US Army , and the genocide towards Native Americans . This is what we call " civilization" and the rule of law . Yeah, right.
Elk now number 750,000 , but that's only seven percent of their former numbers.
About 8,000 miles west of here and a little north is the world's OTHER population of Elk, the same elk that our North American elk migrated from, the vast herds of East Asia-Siberia. Those elk---indistinguishable from our own--- live among a vast array of abundant predators...giant bears, many wolves, Amur and Siberian tigers and leopards. Andof course native peoples and immigrants and Czarist Russia's own eastward expansion.
Yet those Asian elk are not dying out, nor are their wolves. Not so lucky are the much sought after pelts of tigers and leopards. Still, at the end of the day , the vast Predator-Prey visage of Asia shows that elk and wolves can and do live together. In fact, they have to.
Here in North America , white men have been the bane of this Continent's wild creatures since the day they sat foot here and claimed all in name of the King, but mostly themselves. Here int the headwaters of the Great Rivers in Yellowstone country , we have an experiment going. Man vs. Elk vs. Wolves vs. Grizzlies.
Men are just smart enough to use their weaponry and larger brains to do harm and pillage, but we are not wise enough to have realized that we are a destructive force of Nature and the bane of wildlife.
The Man-Wolf-Elk Experiment so far has been instructive. We've proven how bloody stupid men still are. Hunters. Ranchers. Politicians. Lawyers.
What have we learned ?
Not so much , actually...
Or should I say another lawyer from another animal rights group? One in the same, and yet another fake name.
Part of the solution or part of the problem?
I will compromise......will you?
This is my compromise, I will live with 150 wolves in my state, managed by my state F&G;agency. This is a 50% increase over the original number as stated by the 94 EIS and 50 CFR Part 17 as the number needed for these wolves to be recovered.
No more law suits, no more eaja funds, no more ESA abuses. Problem solved, you get your wolves at a number over the goal, and we get our valid management back.
Everyone wins, except those who are in it solely for the money.
Definitions worth noting: A Preservationist is someone who spends 52 weeks of the year trying to save a specie.
A Conservationist is someone who spends 50 weeks of the year saving a specie so he can book a 10-day hunt and spend it killing that specie.
You are never going to get your utopia without killing about 600 million people....
Oh, I forget, thats what you people want.
Any North American Big Game Conservation Model worth its RMEF annual dues or generous contributions to SFW's lobbyist support fund would not only allow wolves to be with our elk herds, it would in fact encourage them.
In a genuinely conserved and balanced habitat , elk and wolves ( or any predator-prey combination) are two sides of the same coin. That's sorta what I was referring to a few posts above; that Siberian Elk-Wolf thing. Predators and Prey must co-exist.
Now, having refreshed you'all of that inviolable law of Nature that supersedes any of your silly notions about absolute elk herd counts, hunting regulations or livestock losses, I remind you to cool your jets and refrain from the aspersion casting, name calling, and mud slinging , or Brad will kill the comments once again.
Brodie wrote a great article, didn't he? Now, let's have a solid constructive discussion about it.
Consider it the North American Model of Big Idea Conservation
p.s. keep the presumptiveness to a minimum, too. I'm not a lawyer nor do I belong to any enviro groups or even support them much and monetarily not at all . And I'm ferdamnsure not the issue here... got all that ?
Your wolf violates you own definition in the fact it preserves nothing, it conserves nothing. It is not a controllable predator when left unmanaged in modern limited ecosystems. I am the only controllable predator, and as such I will also control the other predators. That is what is referred to as the Apex predator, a moniker falsely placed on the wolf by those who fail to see or accept reality.
Your delusions of the utopian walt disney world of all things in balance were it not for man, just fail to pass the litmus test.
I already conceded to having wolves here, and as I suspected, you have no intention of any reasonable solutions. Just your short sighted and deluded viewpoint.
As far as I know, (and I can use yellowstone, the lolo region, the bitterroot in Montana as examples) in any area that wolves have populated in any numbers for the past 10 years, there has been a sudden and drastic decline in the population of elk and moose. Are their exceptions? If there is, please enlighten me and post a few websites.
I have heard the deceptive side, the lack of suitable habitat, the fires, global warming, etc. etc. etc. Is it not odd that these reductions are only occuring where wolves reside?
I am sure no one who disagrees with the premise that a few wolves would probably cull the weak or diseased (unfornately, it appears alot of healty animals fall prey also....unless 12,000 yellowstone elk were sick) but to take an animal, such as the yellowstone moose to the brink of extinction (in yellowstone, mind you.....we have moose of the same species in other areas also, but we also have wolves in canada, alaska, russia, minnesota...) and blame it on factors such as the elusive fires of 2002(?) seems a bit odd. So lets say of those 114 moose counted in 2010 are now down to 50, (which is reasonable since 1200 were counted in 1995) is it worth having the wolf species abounding and destorying the moose in yellowstone?
Something to speculate on......
Most of what you say above is dead wrong or just out there. ( And without your .300 H & H or even an obsidian spearpoint, you are about 8th down the food chain , under some real apex predators .)
Most environmentalists I'm aware of also support actively managing wolves . Why wouldn't they ? The solutions are on the table. They've been there since at least 1987 , as Hoskins iterates in part, above . Not perfect solutions--- nobody gets all they want, but manageable. Except my Wyoming refuses to see them , let alone act on them . Oh well.
Glad you've conceded some ground to wolves, not that it matters. It's denning season. Many new wolf pups will be whelped in the coming weeks. That is not a bad thing. Elk calves will soon follow.
Can we all agree it's the 21st century and we ought to be able to show some wisdom by now ? Instead of plodding on with the tired old 19th century land use exigency and faux economics ? We need to fix some things...
Yer being wickedly presumptuous again to paint me with any tar brush at hand. Please stay on topic and I remind you once again I am not the issue. Do you have anything constructive to offer here?
Were native people keystone predators? A continuous-time analysis of wildlife observations made by Lewis and Clark in 1804-1806. Canadian Field-Naturalist
http://westinstenv.org/histwl/2008/06/03/were-native-people-keystone-predators-a-continuous-time-analysis-of-wildlife-observations-made-by-lewis-and-clark-in-1804-1806/
Bullsheet!!
We learned to not repeat mistakes, take a chubby hunter along we knew we could out run. Use ingenuity to defeat those more athletic predators than ourselves, no gun, no spear, no bow, no problem, set up pits and nets, and let them chase us right into his trap.
We made it here after all those centuries on top after starting this race buck ass naked.
Your wrong sissy boy.
You're more of a spineless coward than a controllable predator. Please, do the world a favor and jump off a bridge.
Logic dictates that non management is not the logical nor the responsible way to deal with the remaining ecosystems. Global warming and other excuses to attempt to explain away the declines that are the result of the new hands off belief are failing miserably. People complain about the bark beetle, yet fight against the logging that serves as a duel solution to both the beetle problem and the resource problem. But, I guess it is easier to stand back and make one claim after the other without ever presenting a rational solution that doesn't include more destructive and oppressive restrictions put forth by the indoctrinated econut.
This country and it's modern 'elitist' has created a nation in decline, about to be surpassed by a few that will make past actions in this nation look like childs play. When it happens, those who helped march it in will be the ones whom suffer worse.
If you haven't seen Mark Gamblin's replies over at ralphies to a few of the worst fools there, you should take the time to go read them. I would repeat them here, but he put it very well.
The truth is coming forth, the realities can no longer be explained away, the claims being made just don't water. But as was posted above, I especially love the claim that everything but wolves is at fault for the huge declines we are seeing, yet they only happen where wolves are at. Irony? coincidence? Nah....I think not, just to many wolves and no management.
You pick the bridge and I'll go right after you do.