Molloy Strikes Again
District Court Judge Donald Molloy has ordered parties to the gray wolf delisting/relisting lawsuit [here] to show cause why the case should not be dismissed due to the absence of a population meeting the statutory requirements for 10(j) status.
Judge’s ruling could threaten state’s ability to kill wolves
Lewiston Tribune, January 28, 2011 [here]
A federal judge in Montana is asking parties to a lawsuit over gray wolves if the animals should lose their experimental, nonessential designation and revert to a fully endangered or threatened designation.
Such a move could torpedo Idaho’s request to kill wolves in the Lolo Zone.
The order, issued this afternoon by District Court Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula, Mont., stems from a lawsuit filed in 2008 by environmental groups over new rules issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service making it easier for states to kill wolves for the purpose of protecting deer, elk and moose herds. States like Idaho can petition the federal wildlife agency for permission to kill wolves if they are found to be harming wild ungulate herds. The petitions are allowed under the designation of wolves in Idaho and parts of Montana as an experimental nonessential population.
Wolves were reintroduced to the Northern Rockies in 1995 and 1996 under that designation, known as 10(j). To qualify as an experimental population, the wolves must be “wholly separate geographically from nonexperimental populations of the same species.”
Molloy said that was the case at the time of reintroduction. However, he wrote the federal government documented in another lawsuit that wolves in the Northern Rockies are now breeding with wolves from Canada and a portion of Montana where they are not designated as an experimental population.
Molloy issued an eight-page order to show cause asking parties to the case to file briefs showing why the case “should not be dismissed as moot due to the absence of a population meeting the statutory requirements for 10(j) status.” … [more]
I disagree with the interpretation of the Lewiston Tribune. Elimination of the 10(j) status will not necessarily do away with wolf hunts. It could have just the opposite effect. Let me explain.
Recall that in 2008 Molloy ordered wolves relisted because, in his view, there was insufficient evidence that RM wolves were genetically connected [here]. He was wrong in his science. Wolves can travel thousands of miles and breed like rabbits when they get there. There was and is ample evidence of genetic connectivity.
Last year Molloy admitted his error, sort of [here, here]. The machinations are too many to list, but wolves have been delisted and relisted like yo-yos since 2002. Suffice it to say that last August Molloy relisted wolves for the third or fourth time on the grounds that “the Endangered Species Act does not allow the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to list only part of a ’species’ as endangered, or to protect a listed distinct population segment only in part…”.
The implication was that Molloy finally recognized that all Rocky Mountain wolves were indeed genetically connected and one population. The USFWS could not, Molloy ruled, delist woves in Idaho and Montana but not in Wyoming. They couldn’t carve off a “distinct population segment” based on state lines.
His ruling hinged on the way the USFWS subdivided the wolf population into DPS’s — illogical, unscientific, and political chicanery that the USFWS has indulged in with many species.
Molloy relisted the wolves because the USFWS was still claiming that some portion of their population was endangered. The USFWS didn’t like Wyoming’s wolf management plan, but they approved Idaho’s and Montana’s. The USFWS delisted wolves in the latter two states, declaring those wolves to be 10(j) experimental, nonessential populations, but retained full endangered status for Wyoming wolves.
No can do, said Molloy.
If Rocky Mountain wolves are genetically connected, then there are no distinct populations that are “wholly separate geographically”. Wolves in Wyoming, Oregon, Montana, and elsewhere are all one population. Either that population is endangered in its entirety, or it isn’t, in its entirety.
Last week Molloy ordered the parties to brief him on all that. When he gets their briefs, he will rule yet again.
Molloy could rule that Rocky Mountain wolves are endangered throughout their range, or that they are not endangered throughout their range. We don’t know how he will rule.
But the scientific evidence is strong that wolves are not endangered, and are in fact breeding like rabbits and expanding their population as much as 25% per year. They have spread out from the original infection center in Yellowstone NP (where Canadian gray wolves were illegally dumped by the USFWS in 1995) across five states.
The offspring of those wolves have decimated elk, deer, and moose populations, killed livestock and pets, and threatened people hundreds and even thousands of miles away from Yellowstone.
If Molloy applies the best available science, then he must rule that Rocky Mountain wolves are not endangered. Whether he will or not remains to be seen.
It is easy to point the finger at Molloy. He has relisted wolves again and again. The direct result has been the tragic destruction of game herds, livestock depredation, etc. But the finger should also be pointed at the USFWS, which engendered this crisis through illegal actions during the Clinton Administration. The USFWS is a political hornets nest, and their science has been (and still is) atrociously bad. And if we are placing blame, it all rests on Congress for creating a horrible law (the ESA) and failing to repeal or revise it for nearly 40 years.
