Wolf delisting rider is the result of a broken system

Posted 10/25/16

The Wyoming Stock Growers Association made the request, with encouragement from U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., for commissioners’ support of the rider, which would be placed on the “Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2016.”

We agree the …

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Wolf delisting rider is the result of a broken system

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When the Park County Commission was asked last week to support a legislative rider that would delist gray wolves in Wyoming and prohibit further litigation, commissioners enthusiastically signed on the dotted line.

The Wyoming Stock Growers Association made the request, with encouragement from U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., for commissioners’ support of the rider, which would be placed on the “Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2016.”

We agree the rider would be beneficial for Wyoming, where the Wyoming Game and Fish Department has proven it can manage wolves, and for Park County, where wolf predation on cattle shows the need.

Tying this rider to a completely unrelated bill and circumventing the legal system does make us uncomfortable, but we don’t see many other alternatives for solving the problem at this point.

As Commissioner Lee Livingston put it, “If science was allowed to work with the Endangered Species Act, we wouldn’t have to do this.”

The fact that the rider is needed highlights several major problems with the Endangered Species Act and the U.S. judicial system.

The state of Wyoming and its Game and Fish Department have had wolf management repeatedly yanked away — but not because the state was doing a bad job. Instead, that has happened through a merry-go-round of litigation filed with judges back East who are far removed from the Rocky Mountain West and the realities of life here.

The most recent ruling, which placed wolves back under federal protection through the Endangered Species Act in 2014, was based on a technicality. Judge Amy Jackson of Washington, D.C., didn’t say Wyoming was doing a bad job of managing wolves; she said there was no legal framework binding the state to maintain the number of wolves it said it would. That appeared to be a thinly-disguised way of asserting her own East Coast priorities, since the state’s wolf management agreement, including the numbers of wolves it promised to maintain, is on record in legal documents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Previous lawsuits prompted Congress to turn wolf management over to the states of Montana and Idaho through a similar attachment to a 2011 bill, which blocked judicial review for five years.

Back then, the Wyoming Legislature’s intractable position over its wolf management plan resulted in the state being left out of that legislation — hence the ongoing lawsuits here.

Since then, the state’s wolf management plan has been altered enough that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now agrees that Wyoming should be allowed to manage its wolves. When permitted, the state has done so successfully.

But the litigation continues, and it’s unlikely that anything short of congressional action will keep heavy-handed environmental groups from filing one lawsuit after another.

Ideally, that congressional action would come in the form of an overhaul of the Endangered Species Act that would include setting reasonable limits on lawsuits. Litigation, when necessary, should take place in the region that is directly affected by the case being considered. Mediation should be part of the process, with clear and attainable goals identified for when and how species can be removed from the endangered species list. Once that is achieved, that should be the end of the story unless the species’ circumstances change substantially.

But, so far, that hasn’t happened, and it doesn’t look too likely in the near future. Most of these environmental groups aren’t looking for agreements or compromise; they want it all, 100 percent, their way.

So, is it any wonder that Park County commissioners are eager to support something — anything — that would return wolf management to the state and stop the endless merry-go-round?

Unfortunately, it seems common sense is much more endangered than the wolf.

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