From an AP article in today’s Flathead Beacon . . .
The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it intends to work through a backlog of more than 250 imperiled animal and plant species over the next six years to decide if they need protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Among several other items, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission will consider tentative fall wolf hunting season quotas and dates at their meeting this month. The meeting is on May 12 at the FWP Helena office, 1420 East 6th Ave. beginning at 8:30 a.m.
According to the FWP, the “tentative proposals will be similar to those adopted before a federal court halted the state’s 2010 hunting season, with the exception of a statewide quota of 220 up from 186 proposed last year, and the addition of a wolf management unit in the Bitterroot area south of Missoula. Assuming tentative adoption, the public will be asked to comment through June 20. The FWP Commission is expected to take final action at its July 14 meeting.”
Related links . . .
Montana FWP Commission home page
This article from the Missoulian points out that, even though wolf management has been returned to state level in Montana and Idaho, the federal government will still be shoulder-surfing actions by state management agencies.
Thursday’s announcement that gray wolves are back under state management in Montana and Idaho also included a warning: The federal government is watching.
“We will continue monitoring gray wolves to ensure those populations remain robust,” Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes said during a news conference call. “We will continue to follow the Endangered Species Act in Montana and Idaho.”
That was welcome news to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Agency spokesman Ron Aasheim said the department’s wolf management program was closely linked to support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Here’s a short Associated Press article covering both of the two lawsuits filed today opposing congressional removal of gray wolves from Endangered Species Act protection . . .
Environmental groups asked a federal judge Thursday to put gray wolves back on the endangered species list in the Northern Rockies.
Two lawsuits were filed in federal court in Montana as control over more than 1,300 wolves was turned over to state authorities in Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Utah.
A federal budget bill rider in April had mandated Thursday’s lifting of wolf protections.
As expected, a number of environmental groups filed suit in federal court today challenging congressional removal of gray wolves from Endangered Species Act protection. Here is the Missoulian’s write-up on one of the two suits . . .
A trio of wolf advocates claim Congress violated the Separation of Powers Doctrine when it removed gray wolves from Endangered Species Act protection and blocked future court review.
“We will not allow the fate of endangered species to be determined by politicians serving special interests,” Alliance for the Wild Rockies director Michael Garrity said in an email Thursday morning. “These decisions must be based on science, not politics, and Congress has never before removed species from the endangered species list by political fiat.”
AWR was joined by Friends of the Clearwater and WildEarth Guardians in the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Missoula.
As of yesterday, wolf managment has been returned to state control in Montana and Idaho. Here is the Daily Inter Lake’s take on the subject . . .
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a final rule Wednesday that officially removes wolves in Montana and Idaho from the Endangered Species list.
The rule comes on the heels of Congressional action that compelled delisting.
“We are implementing the recent legislation that directs the delisting of the gray wolf in most of the northern Rocky Mountains,” Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes said in a prepared statement. “As with other delisted species, we will be applying the Endangered Species Act’s post-delisting monitoring requirements to ensure that wolf populations remain robust while under state wildlife management.”
This too-short Associated Press article claims that, besides returning management of gray wolves to state control in the Northern Rockies, the Obama administration proposes to do the same for a further 4200 wolves in the Great Lakes region . . .
The Obama administration says it is lifting Endangered Species Act protections for 5,500 wolves in eight states in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes.
The move will turn control over the predators to state wildlife agencies. Public hunts for hundreds of wolves already are planned this fall in Idaho and Montana.
Here’s a good article from today’s Missoulian on the imminent delisting of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies . . .
Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves officially return to state control Thursday, when their removal from Endangered Species Act protection is published in the Federal Register.
That means Montana and Idaho hunters will be back in the business of controlling wolf populations this fall. A bipartisan rider in the 2011 federal budget bill ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reinstate its 2009 wolf delisting decision and immunized it from further court challenges.
From today’s Missoulian . . .
Montana wildlife officials moved quickly to get fall hunting plans in place after the federal government returned the gray wolf to state management on Wednesday.
“We’ll propose tentative plans to the commission on May 12,” Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim said shortly after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that wolves would no longer be protected under the Endangered Species Act. “We expect a (hunting) quota of 220, up from 186 last year, and there will be a special wolf management unit in the Bitterroots with a specific quota to address the elk depredation problems there.”
From an AP article posted to the Missoulian’s web site . . .
Idaho wildlife policy makers could set wolf hunt quotas by August after Congress last month directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delist the predators.
There are currently an estimated 705 wolves in Idaho in about 87 packs, but Idaho Department of Fish and Game plans to update that information this month at a meeting in Lewiston.