Good News….Idaho Halts Wolf Extermination In “The Frank”…

From Center For Biological Diversity

For Immediate Release, January 27, 2014

Contact: Tim Preso, Earthjustice, (406) 586-9699
Noah Greenwald, Center for Biological Diversity, (971) 717-6403
Ken Cole, Western Watersheds Project, (208) 890-3666
Suzanne Stone, Defenders of Wildlife, (208) 424-9385

State-sponsored Wolf Killing Ends in Idaho

Faced With Looming Court Challenge, Idaho Halts Unprecedented Program

POCATELLO, Idaho— Faced with a looming deadline to defend its actions before a federal appeals court, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) announced this afternoon that it is halting its wolf extermination program in the Middle Fork region of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness as of today.

The announcement represents a stay of execution for the remaining wolves that constitute the Golden Creek and Monumental Creek wolf packs, which inhabit the Middle Fork region. To date, nine wolves from the two packs have been killed by IDFG’s hired hunter-trapper, who entered the wilderness and began his wolf extermination program in mid-December. It is unknown how many wolves remain in the two packs.

“IDFG’s hunter-trapper killed nine wolves and we are happy to report that the rest no longer face the same threat,” said Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso. “We are sorry it took an emergency injunction request to the court of appeals to get Idaho to halt this illegal program, and we hope that the federal government in the future will take more seriously its public trust responsibility to protect the wilderness from state efforts to exterminate native wildlife.”

IDFG’s action comes in the midst of an emergency proceeding before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in which conservationists were seeking an injunction to halt the wolf extermination program. The conservationists, represented by Earthjustice, sued IDFG and the U.S. Forest Service earlier this month, arguing that the state wolf extermination program would degrade the largest forested wilderness in the lower-48 states. After a federal judge in Idaho rejected a request to stop the program on Jan. 17, the conservationists took their fight to the court of appeals, where they filed an emergency request for an injunction on Jan. 23.

IDFG is halting trapping in the Middle Fork starting today and the trapper will take a few days to remove traps and snares from the area. Additional trapping in the area will cease, at least through the end of the state fiscal year, which is June 30.

This is bittersweet news,” said Ken Cole with the Western Watersheds Project. “I am happy that IDFG has relented but it is unfortunate that so many wolves have been taken in this senseless plan to manhandle wildlife in an area that Congress recognized as a wilderness ‘where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.’ “

In mid-December 2013, IDFG hired a hunter-trapper to pack into central Idaho’s 2.4-million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness to eradicate two wolf packs, the Golden and Monumental packs, in the interest of inflating elk populations for outfitters and recreational hunters. The U.S. Forest Service, which administers the wilderness, approved the extermination program by authorizing use of a Forest Service cabin and airstrip to support wolf extermination activities.

“It’s a tragedy that nine wolves had to die before the state of Idaho finally pulled the plug on its needless effort to eradicate two whole wolf packs from one of America’s largest wilderness areas,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The wolves were only playing the role they play in nature and should never have been killed. It should not take court action to stop such cruel, unnecessary and wasteful killing, but I’m glad it has stopped.”

The region of the Frank Church Wilderness where IDFG’s hunter-trapper was killing wolves is a remote area around Big Creek and the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. Even though this region hosts one of the lightest densities of hunters in the state, IDFG prioritized elk production over protection of the area’s wilderness character. The Forest Service failed to object to IDFG’s plans and instead actively assisted them.

Earthjustice represented long-time Idaho conservationist and wilderness advocate Ralph Maughan along with four conservation groups — Defenders of Wildlife, Western Watersheds Project, Wilderness Watch, and the Center for Biological Diversity — in the lawsuit challenging the wolf extermination program.

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2014/wolf-01-27-2014.html

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Photo: Courtesy Nature (Cold Warriors)

Posted in: Wolf Wars, Idaho Wolves, Activism, Biodiversity

Tags:  Frank Church/River of No Return Wilderness, Ralph Maughin, WWP, CBD, Wilderness Watch, DOW, Golden wolf pack, Monumental wolf pack, a victory for the wolves

Wolf Hell! Judge Says Idaho Can Continue Wolf Slaying In Frank Church….

January 18, 2014

Idaho is wolf hell and the fires are burning hotter than ever for them now that a district judge has refused to stop the extermination of two wolf packs (Monumental and Golden) in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, after environmental groups filed a lawsuit to halt it. The wolf packs are bothering nobody, they live in a  2.4 million acre wilderness for god-sakes. BUT some elk hunters, who think Idaho is a giant game farm, want more elk to kill for themselves, hence the pressure on IDGF to eradicate even more wolves.  Who do these people think they are? Do they own Idaho’s wildlife? Apparently they do!!

And I highly doubt the Idaho hired gun or guns is just going after two wolf packs. Who in the heck really knows whats going on in that vast wilderness? They could be killing or have already killed wolves from other packs.

Judge Edward J. Lodge’s ruling allows the outrageous trapping and killing of wolves, by a state hired hunter/trapper, to continue. It’s bad enough Idaho allows a year round wolf hunt in some areas of the state or that Wildlife Services and poachers continue to kill them. Now wolves are being trapped and slaughtered in a protected wilderness.

“Hiring a bounty hunter to kill wolves in one of America’s crown-jewel wilderness areas, just to make sure there are more elk for hunters to kill, is one more example of the deeply sad, cruel and reactionary nature of Idaho’s ‘management’ of wolves,” said Noah Greenwald, the Center’s endangered species director. “This outrageous slaughter is a clear reminder of why all of our country’s wolves need the protection of the Endangered Species Act.”……Center For Biological Diversity

We can lay this debacle at the feet of the Obama administration and Congress. Mere months after Obama took office he and his rancher Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, delisted wolves in Montana and Idaho. Those wolves have been in the cross-hairs of brutal state management ever since and the bloodshed has spread to Wyoming and the Great Lakes.

The environmental groups plan to appeal the ruling to the 9th Circuit but that could be a lengthy process, meanwhile wolves continue to suffer and die. The only solution to the savage wolf killing, that’s gripped the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes, is to place gray wolves back on the Endangered Species List!

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Judge Lodge Issues Ruling Allowing Wolf Extermination in Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness

By Ken Cole On January 17, 2014 · 54 Comments · In Idaho Wolves, Predator Control, Western Watersheds Project, Wilderness/Roadless

U.S. District Judge for Idaho Edward J. Lodge has issued a ruling denying plaintiffs’ case against an ongoing plan to eradicate two wolf packs in Idaho’s Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. The judge ruled that plaintiffs are unlikely to prevail based on the merits of the case because the US Forest Service’s decision to allow Idaho Department of Fish and Game to use the cabin and airstrip at Cabin Creek was not a final agency action that is reviewable. The US Forest Service claims that it is still evaluating the wolf eradication plan and that it has not taken a final agency action. The Judge also ruled that the removal of wolves in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness does not constitute irreparable harm because the actions don’t irreparably harm the species as a whole.

So far the trapper has killed 9 wolves.

Read more: http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2014/01/17/judge-lodge-issues-ruling-allowing-wolf-extermination-in-frank-church-river-of-no-return-wilderness/

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Definition of Wilderness (from the 1964 Wilderness Act)

(c) an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which(1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has  at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

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Posted in: Wolf Wars

Photo: Wisconsin DNR

Tags: wolf wars, wolf trapping, wolf persecution, Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, WWP, Ralph Maughan, DOW, WWP, CBD, Wilderness Watch, Wilderness Act, Judge Lodge, Idaho, Idaho elk hunters pressure IDFG, 1964 Wilderness Act