Three states have requested intervenor status in the northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf delisting lawsuit brought by 12 so-called environmental groups against the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which officially removed the wolf from the federal list of endangered species in March.
The USFWS requested a two-week extension of time to file a brief opposing the wolf-lovers motion for preliminary injunction to prepare their briefs, compile expert witnesses and agency program declarations, and obtain internal departmental review of their brief.
Federal Judge Donald W. Molloy denied that motion, so the USFWS has only 11 days to respond to the wolf-lovers request for emergency injunctive relief and the judicial repeal of the wolf delisting. He has yet to rule on whether he will allow the Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, Idaho Fish and Game, and Wyoming Fish and Game to intervene.
In his ruling Judge Molloy noted that the USFWS and the intervenors have had over 60 days to prepare for the lawsuit. In truth, the Federal and state agencies have known for years that this was coming. Despite the lengthy debates and discussions in the respective state legislatures, and the involvement of the respective state governors, it appears that none of the states are prepared for the lawsuit they knew was inevitable.
From a commentator:
When you trust bureaucrats to do your bidding for you, this is what you get; the same rank amateurs that reintroduced wolves and the same gross incompetence that “managed” the wolf program for the past 13 years.
How about this for a concept; the bureaucrats have planned all along to take a dive in this court fight so they can keep the wolf on the Endangered Species list and keep the money coming into their bureaucracies.
That may be too harsh a conclusion. In the next few days we may find out the degree to which the states are legally prepared.
In the similar but unrelated suits brought by 13 eco-antagonists against the USFWS and the Mexican gray wolf program in New Mexico and Arizona, it appears that neither state is in any way prepared or even concerned and they have no plans to intervene. With only the USFWS to defend them, local citizens beset by feral wolf-dogs in their communities may find that the Federal Government does not really give a damn about human concerns, rights, well-being, or public safety.
Ranchers, farmers, rural residents, and hunters across the West are woefully unorganized and unprepared for the machinations of the eco-nazis. That is our weakness and may be our downfall.
The solutions, organization and preparation, are what Wildlife and People and SOS Forests are trying to promote, without significant or sufficient success. Most of you who are reading this are getting royally screwed, but it is your own fault for failing to join with and invest in this movement. You snooze, you lose. We all lose.
May 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Homo sapiens, Wolves
On March 28, 2008, the US Fish and Wildlife Service de-listed the northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf. The gray wolf has been on the endangered species list for 35 years. The USFWS determined, after an exhaustive process that took many years, that the gray wolf population had recovered and was no longer in danger of extinction. From the USFWS press release [here].
Today, Friday, March 28, 2008, the northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf is officially removed from the federal list of endangered species. The States of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming will assume full management authority for the continued conservation of the gray wolf. This wolf population has exceeded its recovery goals for the past several years and is now thriving. Presently, there are more than 1,500 wolves and at least 100 breeding pairs in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. The Service and States will cooperatively monitor the wolf population for the next five years.
As part of the Service’s delisting action, it designated the northern Rocky Mountain wolf Distinct Population Segment (DPS) as that area that includes all of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, the eastern third of Washington and Oregon, and a small corner of north-central Utah.
On April 28 (30 legal days later) twelve so-called environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the USFWS to force them to with draw the delisting and relist the northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf as Threatened and Endangered.
The twelve are: 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, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Western Watersheds Project, and Wildlands Project.
May 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Homo sapiens, Wolves
Bud Sonnetag writes:
This is to inform you of a new website now on line by Cliff Gardner, a life long Nevadan who has spent many years of his life documenting game management throughout Nevada and the western states and it’s affects on hunters, cattlemen, grazing rights and private property owners. You’ll be amazed at what Mr. Gardner has compiled for our use to benefit each of us in our fields of expertise. I invite everyone to look it over and appreciate it’s professionalism and use it in your future research and understanding of our American history.
The Gardner Files are [here]. W.I.S.E. linked to them two months ago in our Colloquia Rural Culture and Wildlife Sciences. We have posted two sampling from Cliff’s copious archives: Cattle and Wildlife on the Arizona Strip [here] and The Destruction of the Sheldon [here]. We plan to add more gems from The Gardner Files to the W.I.S.E. Library in the future.
Bit by bit Cliff is placing his archives online, with the help of his wife and daughter. They include wildlife science and ranching reports, government documents, and oral histories collected from Nevada ranchers and pioneers from as far back as 1850.
The Gardner Files are a treasure trove and a gold mine of information. Happy prospecting!
May 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Homo sapiens, Deer, Elk, Bison
A month ago the New Mexico Association of Counties passed a unanimous resolution opposing the reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves into the state. Although the resolution and vote were reported by Wolf Crossing [here], the story did not appear the MSM (main stream media) until yesterday [here]. From the Daily Times (Farmington NM):
AZTEC — Members of New Mexico Association of Counties recently banded together to oppose the reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves into New Mexico.
“These wolves were kicked out of Arizona,” said Tony Atkinson, chairman of San Juan County Commission. “They’re not wild.” …
“The New Mexico Association of Counties shall oppose any rule or proposed rule related to the reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf that does not provide the opportunity for continual involvement of New Mexico’s county elected officials in the decision-making process,” the resolution stated. …
County officials have repeatedly expressed their concerns about people’s safety, their own exclusion from the planning of management of the federal programs under whose purview wolf regulation lies, inability to address problem wolf behavior and related livestock issues — including “insufficient compensation” to ranchers.
“The nonessential experimental population reintroduction has not proven successful based upon the proposals to amend the current management stipulations that require wolves to establish home ranges within the designated recovery area and require initial wolf releases from captivity only into the primary recovery zone,” the resolution stated.
New Mexico Association of Counties represents all of the state’s 33 counties.
The entire resolution is available at Wolf Crossing [here].
Read more
May 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Homo sapiens, Wolves
The conservation group that photographed the Orogrande Slaughter [here] has done the same in the North Fork of the Clearwater River in North Central Idaho.
The Idaho Fish and game had closed the road in February and March to keep snowmobilers from harassing and causing undue stress and trauma to the wintering elk caught in very deep snow. IFG did not, however, prevent wolves from slaughtering elk and whatever else they could find.
In April, on the first day that the Idaho Fish and Game gave the green light to the Clearwater National Forest to re-open the road, the conservation team was on the ground taking pictures and documenting the wolf predation. Special thanks go to Lewis and Sharon Turcott and others for their incredible efforts providing these pictures to the public.
Warning: the photographs are graphic. The North Fork Clearwater Wolf Kill is [here]
April 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Deer, Elk, Bison, Wolves
Here are 2 of the first 5 wolves taken near Big Piney and Pinedale, Wyoming. A law enforcement officer released these pictures. The wolves were taken legally.
April 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Wolves
News from the Front #93 [here]
by James Buchal, April 22, 2008
Now more than ever, as we sink in a cesspool of public and private debt brought on by a corrupted federal government, and we all tighten our belts, we can ill afford wasteful public spending. BPA’s recent announcements of “Memoranda of Agreement” (MOAs) with Pacific Northwest States and Tribes promise just that, with substantial hikes in electricity rates to fund another billion in salmon spending, and no real public benefits at all. And the MOAs only set a floor for wasteful fish and wildlife spending, not a ceiling.
The general design of the MOAs is a wholesale subversion of the decisionmaking processes crafted by elected officials in favor of agency decisionmaking by contract with special interests. The Northwest Power and Conservation Council has been charged by Congress to develop the Region’s fish and wildlife plan, and BPA is by law supposed to follow that plan, funding programs the Council and its independent scientists identify as appropriate. The Tribal MOA gives lip service to the Council’s program, but warns that it contains “specific and binding funding commitments” irrespective of Council decisions. Thus big new programs will be established to promote salmon parasites (lamprey), irrespective of the lack of public or Council support for such programs.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is supposed to review actions concerning endangered and threatened fish, but through the MOAs, many of the choices NMFS would dictate are now to be specified by agreement with the special interest groups. The dam operators will now be bound by contract to take the fish out of transport barges, irrespective of scientific evidence proving higher survival. They will be bound to spill water at dams, irrespective of scientific evidence proving massive outbreaks of gas bubble disease. The Tribal MOA even attempts to bind NMFS to approve the wholesale gillnetting of endangered salmon, declaring that “tribal treaty fishing rights were present effects of past federal actions that must be included in the environmental baseline” and that the MOA is based on the “assumption that NOAA Fisheries will give ESA coverage” to future harvests. Ordinarily, scientifically-based natural resource management decisions might be expected to evolve based on better science, but the MOAs even attempt to prevent such scientific evolution.
April 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Salmon and other fish
by Jim Beers, Jim Beers Common Sense [here]
The current argument in Nevada about whether the Governor should appoint an advocate of “managing” wildlife or an advocate of “saving” wildlife to a State Wildlife Commission is a scenario being replayed all over the nation. The gross stereotypes and character assassinations are part and parcel of the scenario, and the hidden agendas and distortions of facts present in one article [here] would take pages to decipher.
The following brief explanation is based on 30 plus years with the US Fish & Wildlife Service; nearly ten years of writing and speaking about such matters, and two appearances before the US House of Representatives’ Natural Resources Committee concerning the theft of $45 to $60 Million by the US Fish & Wildlife Service from the hunting and fishing excise taxes that, by law, could only be used for state fish and wildlife programs.
There are national and international campaigns to eliminate hunting, fishing, and trapping. All so-called animal “rights” organizations and most environmental organizations “partner” with select bureaucrats and politicians to attain this goal. Intimately interwoven with this movement are anti-gun, anti-animal ownership, and anti-private property organizations that are intermingled with US and UN government land and animal ownership schemes intended to force their views on the rest of us by using the coercive power of government.
State Wildlife Commissions (New Jersey and Maryland are current examples) are objectives to be controlled by the anti-“management” (i.e. anti-hunt/fish/trap) cabals. There are either the outright anti- animal ownership/use zealots as appointees or there is the supposedly benign Veterinarian or “hunter” who simply advocates “all animals” as objects of government benevolence. These are always opposed by hunters and fishermen and trappers that are characterized as unsophisticated “bumpkins” (clinging to guns and religion?). Politicians are either “progressive” (if supportive of the “new” visions) or are “conservative” with voting records distinguished as “Crimes Against Nature”.
Read more
April 21, 2008 | 6 Comments | Topic: Homo sapiens
Is this what we want for our “ecosystems”?
Posted at Wolf Crossing [here]
Last weekend a woman witnessed a pack of wolves attack and kill two of her dogs just outside of her window, near Ashton, ID. She tried to scare them off and they ignored her (she’s probably lucky they did since she wasn’t using the correct deterrent).
Our ancestors did their best to get rid of the problem and then we re-created the problem that we are going to have to address, AGAIN.
This incident occurred east of Ashton. The wolves traveled down the reclamation road last night and killed 9 dogs. This one survived the night. The photo was posted by Dr. Griffel. DON’T LOOK IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH. Idaho Dog Attack — CAUTION GRAPHIC.
April 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Wolves
by Roni Bell Sylvester, Good Neighbor Law [here]
The wolf program has nothing to do with any promised esthetics of a “seeing experience” for the mire handful of individuals who would deliberately SUV, hike, walk, crawl, ATV, wheelchair, RV or Harley into a wolf den.
Each “look see” probably costs us taxpayers $10,000. Can we afford this show?
When Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announced a wolf initiative in 1994, it is said by many including a U.S. District Judge, that Babbitt misinterpreted the law, exceeded the authority of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and ignored the concerns of the Indigenous whose homes were on the very land he wanted to plant wolves.
Why did he do this? Study the history of ESA, and you’ll clearly see how it has been mis-skewed by an elite few to gain control over the usage of our land and water.
After all, he who gets control over land and water gets the gold! It’s all about money. All takeovers of land, water, company or private property, follow the same formula. Depending on the structure of the organization, this formula works by: finding something “to save;” waiving public debate; ignoring shareholders or members; pretending they found this thing “to save” on your land; disturbing you to such extent that you (now spent financially, physically and mentally) throw up your hands and cry out, “I can’t handle this anymore. I give up!”
Yesterday, the take-over artists enlisted the federal government’s help. Today, they receive welfare from, and dictate marching orders to, our federal government.
In the case of Endangered Species, the once well-used spotted owl has been replaced by the wolf, polar bear, the overpopulated and very common meadow mouse, and a myriad of critters.
Since 1994, untold numbers of ewes, lambs, calves and other livestock and pets, have been lost due to wolf killings. I doubt whether Bruce Babbitt or any wolf follower drone has suffered a wolf kill. With that as a given, their lack of comprehension regarding the financial and mental toll these kills have on those who have incurred such losses should absolutely disqualify them from any decision making process.
Meanwhile Babbitt now enjoys money and status as head of the World Wildlife Foundation. Together with Al Gore, his new something “to save” is the entire earth from sea to shining sea and everything above and below. After all, he who gets control over land and water gets the gold!
It’s not about a “seeing experience” for the many. It is instead, all about money… for a few.
Can you imagine the killing these wolves are making?
April 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Wolves
