JOAN BARRON Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Thursday, July 24, 2008 12:00 am
CHEYENNE - Representatives of the states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho will decide their strategy on the wolf decision Friday during a telephone conference call, Wyoming Attorney General Bruce Salzburg said Wednesday.
Last Friday U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, in Missoula, Mont., granted a preliminary injunction sought by environmental groups to restore the protection for wolves in the three states and halt wolf hunts.
In March, the estimated 2,000 gray wolves in the region were removed from the endangered species list.
Salzburg said Wednesday that the preliminary injunction is effective only until the court makes a final decision on the merits of the case.
The states have two legal options, he said, during Gov. Dave Freudenthal's regular news conference.
One is to appeal the decision to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The second is to file an appeal under the Administrative Procedures Act which requires the federal agency to file supporting documents of its decision to delist the wolves.
Freudenthal said timing is an issue and a direct appeal to the Ninth Circuit may not be the best option.
Salzburg said an appeal could take 15 to 32 months unless the circuit court expedites the case.
Freudenthal also said the litigation over the gray wolves has been going on for so long he is neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the outcome.
"Just determined," he said.
The wolf case, he said, was presented to him the day after he was sworn in as governor in 2003. He also had been involved with the wolves issue in his job as U.S. Attorney for Wyoming.
Contact Joan Barron at joan.barron@trib.com or by phone at (307) 632-1244.
State may not compensate ranchers after all
Wyoming's attorney general is looking into whether the state is indeed bound to compensate ranchers in the Cowboy State's northwest corner for livestock losses to wolves now that wolf management is once again the purview of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said during a press conference Wednesday.
A Game and Fish Department spokesman told the Star-Tribune on Tuesday that state law requires the agency to pay ranchers inside the state's wolf trophy game zone for confirmed wolf kills of livestock, regardless of whether wolves are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The spokesman said the compensation program would continue unless state law changed.
Freudenthal indicated, however, that the attorney general could read the law differently, given that all of the rules regarding state management of wolves were written with the assumption that once wolves were delisted, they would be managed by the individual states.
A federal judge issued an injunction Friday against the Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to remove the canines from endangered species protection in the Northern Rockies. The ruling put the feds back in charge of wolf management and effectively halted state wolf plans until a final decision on the delisting case is made.
- By the Star-Tribune staff