Earthjustice ** Defenders of Wildlife ** Natural Resources Defense Council **
Sierra Club ** Center for Biological Diversity ** The Humane Society of the
United States ** Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance ** Friends of the
Clearwater FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 28, 2008 CONTACT: Suzanne Asha
Stone, Defenders of Wildlife, (208) 861-4655 Louisa Willcox, Natural
Resources Defense Council, (406) 222-9561 Jenny Harbine, Earthjustice, (406)
586-9699 Melanie Stein, Sierra Club, (307) 733-4557 Michael Robinson, Center
for Biological Diversity, (575) 313-7017 Franz Camenzind, Jackson Hole
Conservation Alliance (307) 733-9417 CONSERVATION GROUPS CHALLENGE FEDERAL
WOLF-KILLING RULE Missoula, Montana: Conservation groups are fighting a Bush
administration plan that would allow the states of Idaho, Wyoming, and
Montana to kill half of the Rocky Mountain wolf population, including by
shooting wolves from the air, while they are still protected under the
Endangered Species Act. In an effort to bar states from aerial gunning and
other state-sponsored killing of wolves, seven conservation groups filed a
suit in federal district court today to stop the implementation of the rule.
The new rule lowers the bar for wolf killing when a state determines that
wolves may be having some impact on populations of elk, deer, or other wild
ungulates. The Bush Administration says the rule change is necessary because
the previous standard required states to show that wolves are the primary
cause of a decline in wild ungulate numbers. That threshold has proven
impossible to meet because nearly all elk herds in Idaho, Wyoming, and
Montana are above population objectives, and wolves have never been
determined to have primarily caused a population decline. Today’s action
will allow the states to kill all but 600 of the approximately 1,500 wolves
in the region. The rule applies to wolves in central Idaho and the Greater
Yellowstone area – descendents of the roughly 60 wolves that were
reintroduced to those regions in 1995 and 1996. “This is a giant step
backward. There is absolutely no reason to begin a wholesale slaughter of the
region’s wolves,” said Suzanne Stone, northern Rockies wolf conservation
specialist for Defenders of Wildlife. “Yet that is exactly what the federal
government is willing to allow the states to do: wipe out hundreds of the
wolves our nation has worked so hard to recover.” “In this rule, the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service is either downplaying the threats to wolves, or it
has forgotten all the trigger-happy statements made by Wyoming and Idaho
officials who want to kill as many wolves as possible, as soon as
possible,” says Louisa Willcox of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The rule remains in effect only until the administration removes wolves from
the list of endangered species, an action that is expected to come next
month. Nonetheless, the U.S. Fishand Wildlife Service adopted the rule in
response to the state of Wyoming, which insisted that states have the right
to kill wolves affecting elk herds in any way even if a federal court
overturns wolf delisting in the Northern Rockies. “Deer and elk populations
are thriving in this region. There's absolutely no reason to begin
slaughtering wolves, other than to please a handful of special interests,”
said Sierra Club representative Melanie Stein. “This is another example of
politics trumping science in the Bush administration. Federal and state
agencies are tripping over each other, and our wildlife are suffering as a
result.” Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity noted that
the rule might allow wolves to be killed for their beneficial effect of
dispersing elk from sensitive streamsides even when the elk population as a
whole continues to rise. Robinson continued that “the rule harkens back to
a period in which wolves’ natural role of maintaining the balance of nature
is seen as a problem.” “This rule is nothing less than a declaration of
war on wolves in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana,” said John Grandy, Ph.D.,
senior vice president of The Humane Society of the United States. “After
decades of progress, the Service is abandoning all that we have achieved for
wolf conservation and returning to the short-sighted persecution and
extermination policies of the past.” Earthjustice represents Defenders of
Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Center for
Biological Diversity, The Humane Society of the United States, Jackson Hole
Conservation Alliance, and Friends of the Clearwater in the lawsuit.
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